Everyone knows there’s a profound connection between our hair and our mental state. There’s that famous line from Fleabag: “Hair is the whole lot…It’s the difference between a very good day and a foul day”, and, as a girl, the very first thing you get told after a breakup is “don’t change your hair!”. Yet, despite the very fact everyone knows this connection exists, the skilled hair industry itself has only just begun to discuss it openly. Enter Adam Reed.

Reed is a hairdressing industry legend with a CV and accompanying list of accolades to envy. In his 30 yr profession he has worked with, amongst others, Madonna (he did her hair within the “Me Against the Music” video), Sophie Dahl, Lady Gaga and Harry Styles. We first met during Pride Month 2023, once I visited his Covent Garden salon for a styling appointment before I hosted an event with actor Elliot Page at London’s Southbank Centre. Reed, himself a gay man, was offering free appointments to members of the LGBTQ+ community for Pride, something he also did for NHS key employees in 2020 – community is very important to him, as is promoting wellness and mental health.

Originally from Somerset, he now lives in London together with his partner Kenny and son Riley: ARKIVE by Adam Reed, the name of each the salon and its accompanying haircare range, is drawn from their first initials. It has since grow to be the bedrock of my at-home hair washing, conditioning and styling routines. The products are luxurious and gorgeously fragranced while accessibly priced. The brand also has an incredible backstory: launched after the pandemic lockdowns caused a huge effect on so lots of us, not least Reed himself, he desired to create something which honoured the importance of taking care of one’s mental health. 

We caught as much as confer with him about why this conversation is so necessary to him.

Shon Faye: Hi Adam. Let’s begin with the name of your brand: Arkive Headcare.  Even within the name there’s a play on words: in regards to the relationship between taking care of our head as in our hair and our head as in our mental health. Could you talk somewhat bit about why mental health is something you wanted to construct a product range around?

Adam Reed: I feel because my very own mental health has been so compromised throughout my life, and particularly in the course of the pandemic, once I had to essentially discuss it. I realised identity has a huge effect in your mental health — combating your identity, which I did as a young human. But I also realised that really, as communities, we’re really strong, and the wonder industry has this amazing sense of community. It’s something that I’ve really held onto throughout my profession. 

After we adopted our son, Riley, we did quite a lot of the things that my grandmother did with me like spraying fragrance on, after which hugging him, brushing his hair, bathing, washing his hair, all of those things. And I suddenly realised how necessary those things are to bonding. I had a breakdown in the primary lockdown, once I got here out of hospital and was struggling and felt like I had lost myself, I realised those day-to-day things are hugely useful to creating you are feeling a bit higher.

Shon Faye: I’m curious about this point about community within the hair industry. What does that appear like to you?

Adam Reed: As hairdressers and creatives, we’ve this amazing community where people can are available in and sit with us, and we will talk and share. That may be a a part of headcare. And it’s a crucial a part of it. In the course of the pandemic, I missed the connection I had with my clients and that had an impact on my head. It’s such a secure space. As a person who has done this for a very long time, I’m so in people’s secure space — my hands, my body. My clients are sat there, and I’m positioned so near them! That’s a very personal thing.

Shon Faye: Ask anyone whether there’s a relationship between hair and well-being and most of the people will say yes. However the hair industry – the industry that you simply’ve worked in for a very long time, has only recently had this explicit conversation about mental well-being and emotions, despite knowing about this. Do you agree it’s a comparatively recent conversation and, if that’s the case, why now?

Adam Reed: Well, as hairdressers we’ve at all times been called the free therapists. It ought to be on our CVs, because people do share stuff with us. Because I began speaking publicly about my very own mental health about 14 years ago now, people have come into my salon simply to speak to me about it. But it surely is such a secure space that individuals feel quite comfortable talking and sharing. I feel, as hairdressers, we’re empathetic, we’re a bit like a sponge. I don’t wish to generalise, but I feel quite a lot of people within the creative industries suffer from mental ailing health. It’s a definite two-way conversation. It’s not us giving advice, because we’re not necessarily trained for that. It’s about us opening up the conversation.

Shon Faye: One thing that I like about your products themselves is the fragrance. I feel like fragrance disappeared from most haircare products lately but using a shampoo with fragrance does feel like a more luxurious experience. I heard that the fragrance was to do together with your childhood – could you talk a bit more about that?

Adam Reed: After I was a young boy really combating my identity down in Somerset where I grew up, fragrance was an actual armour for me. However the fragrances I selected often got a response, because I didn’t ever understand the gendering of fragrance, why one thing was considered feminine, and one thing was considered masculine — I’m like, “In the event you like a smell, you want a smell.” The storytelling element of fragrance for me is totally key for my mental health. It’s at all times been a giant a part of my identity, and it was the thing that I actually could hold onto. I feel fragrance has such a tremendous impact on the best way you are feeling. In the event you smell something that has a robust joyful memory related to it, it makes you are feeling joyful. 

Arkive was at all times going to be fragranced. No One Elsie was inspired by memories of my grandmother and Future Bloom is a ‘genderful’ floral: it’s about saying, actually floral is a tremendous fragrance for anyone to wear. It’s been so popular that later this yr, I’m launching 4 unique fragrances that may be worn individually or layered up which I’m very enthusiastic about.

Shon Faye: The brand name “Arkive” is known as after your loved ones — you, your partner Kenny and your son Riley. That is admittedly putting your identity as a gay man and your loved ones life right at the guts of it.  Despite the stereotype that straight people have of the gay hairdresser or whatever, quite a lot of LGBTQ+ people don’t actually feel that secure going to hair salons, whether it’s gay men or butch lesbians with barbers or its trans women experiencing microaggressions in salons: actually, hair salons aren’t at all times super secure for our community. Why is it that being open about your identity is very important for you?

Adam Reed: Because I’ve struggled so long, I used to be bullied as a toddler for being gay. I watched All Of Us Strangers the opposite day and I watched It’s A Sin, and so they jogged my memory of growing up within the 80s, and also you look back, and recognise it was a very tough time. At college saying I desired to be a hairdresser just gave bullies more ammunition. I struggled with my identity as a gay man for a very long time. An extended, very long time. 

When Kenny and I got married eight years ago, I actually struggled for years to say he was my husband. It just didn’t sound correct coming off my tongue! Then we adopted Riley, and I feel while you’re London-centric, it’s a bit like, ‘Oh, it’s really easy to be in London and be gay, or trans, or be lesbian, or whatever you might be and whatever you discover as.’ It isn’t that easy. And for me, it’s about ensuring that individuals don’t feel how I used to feel. And that I don’t get the whole lot right on a regular basis, and being a 50-year-old man, sometimes I’m really confused as to how life has moved on so fast. But I’ll at all times support it, and I’m at all times there to essentially listen and learn. And I feel salons are great spaces for that.