Hair Tonic - History, Uses, and Ours

The Multi Use Grooming Product

Hair Tonics are coming back. Full of history, tradition, and room for breaking those traditions with new, contemporary twists and uses.

History of the Old School Product

  Hair tonics are a super old school product. Some brands of hair tonics dating back to the early 1900s, such as Wildroot and Lucky Tiger. Vitalis was another super popular one, that the founders here at Ace High even often have a bottle of in their medicine cabinets, partially just for the nostalgia. Generally, they were styling products  - adding shine and control to the hair, or refreshing the hair between heavier, greasier products of the time. However, some even made statements about hair health and preservation. We’re geeks about all things old school and vintage of course, so we love all the hair tonic ads of those times. 

Using Our Tonic 

So what’s the best way to use our hair tonic? Well, there’s a lot of great uses as its a super versatile product. The most straightforward way to use hair tonic, is to use it as a very light hold styling product. To do this, you can apply a couple drops of hair tonic to damp hair, and then style it into place. You can either let that air dry, or use a blowdried afterward for a touch more volume and a bit less shine. This will leave just a touch of healthy shine, and reduce frizziness, and increase your hair’s manageability and control with a very light, loose and natural hold. To up the hold a touch, you can use it as a pre-styler, before applying just a touch of one of our other products over top. The hair tonic in this case sort of acts as a primer for making styling even easier. Another great use is breaking down hair product, or refreshing your previous day’s style. While we generally suggest you style your hair every day, if you’re feeling like your hair looks great and you just want to touch it up, a touch of hair tonic applied will refresh that product in your hair and allow you to style it again pretty easily. Similarly, some folks use the hair tonic to help breakdown build up from an oil based pomade, like our black cat pomade, as the oil helps to break down some wax content and refresh the style. A favorite use of the hair tonic as well is using it as a “pre-conditioner”. That is, to use it before you wash your hair, almost as a hair treatment. All the natural oils are great for the health of your hair, and will help deeply moisturize and condition, allowing you to then wash it out and feel softer, often more manageable hair, even after washing. A number of barbers use our hair tonic for cutting hair as well even, as it can help reducer friction while cutting the hair and working with it. 

Alcohol or Oil?

Hair tonics back in the day tended to be a little bit greasier than many hair tonics of today, however still generally containing a number of harsher alcohols and chemicals. Many hair tonics today have reduced the oil content, and some of the greasiness, but have increased some of the alcohol contents. This isn’t necessarily bad, but it is an important distinction between our hair tonic and many other hair tonics on the market. Our hair tonic is entirely natural, using all natural oils instead of alcohols and synthetics. This makes it a bit more concentrated, so its a smaller bottle, and you’ll only need a couple drops. Which we also love about it. With pure oil you’d expect that it would be greasy, but we formulated it with oils that are naturally prone to absorption in the hair, penetrating the hair shaft and allowing for the properties to be apparent without sitting too heavily on the hair. The oils in our hair tonic can also each provide tons of benefits for the general health of your hair. 

Try it for Yourself!

  You really can’t go wrong with a touch of our hair tonic. It’s a great unisex product for anyone, due to its versatility of usage and the benefits of the natural oils. Just remember that you’ll only need a couple drops as its a bit more concentrated than many of the more heavily alcohol-filled tonics of yesterday and today! Follow this link below to check out the product for yourself!

Hold Level Firm
Scent Applejack, Orange Peel & Eucalyptus
Shine Level Low - Matte
Hold Level High
Scent Applejack, Orange Peel & Eucalyptus
Shine Level Medium
Hold Level High
No Scent Fragrance Free
Shine Level Medium
Hold Level High
Scent Bayrum
Shine Level Medium
How to Style: original pomade
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Hold Level High
Scent Classic Barbershop Cologne
Shine Level Medium
How to Style: High Noon Pomade
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Hold Level Firm
Scent Applejack, Orange Peel & Eucalyptus
Shine Level High
How to Style: Black Cat Pomade
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How to Style: Blue Suede Clay
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How to Style: Unscented Clay
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Hold Level Firm
Scent Fragrance Free
Shine Level Low - Matte
How to Style: Unscented Pomade
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