A vegan hair care brand started from scratch in a Milton Keynes kitchen — still family-run, still made in the UK, and still doing it the same way it always has been.
A Gap in the Market. A Kitchen. A Family.
ROK Products launched in 2019, founded by the director of ROK Barbers — a barbershop business that has been running since 2000. The idea was simple: create a vegan hair care range at a time when there wasn't much on the market. He saw the gap and decided to do something about it.
From the very start, it was a family business. Two family members came on board to handle product development, working out of a kitchen in Milton Keynes. The first products — a clay, a pomade, a paste, and a salt spray — were all developed from scratch using vegan ingredients, with nothing but research and determination.
Tested in the Chair. Refined Over Time.
Getting the formulas right took time. Vegan ingredients don't always behave the same way as traditional ones — so there was a lot of testing, adjusting, and starting over. Products were trialled directly in ROK's own barbershops, put in the hands of the barbers, and compared against non-vegan alternatives on the market.
Sourcing the right ingredients was just as important — making sure everything used was genuinely vegan and ethically sound, not just close enough.
Over time, the recipes improved, the range took shape, and confidence in the products grew.
Out of the Kitchen. Into the Unit.
As demand grew, the operation moved out of the kitchen and into a dedicated unit in Milton Keynes. The team expanded, still family and production scaled up properly for the first time. Labels were designed in-house. Branding was handled in-house. Orders started going out the door.
That same hands-on approach has never changed. Every batch is still made and packaged with the same care as those early test runs, just at a scale that means more people can get their hands on it.
Hair Care & Skin Care. All Under One Roof.
The product range has been refined over the years, some products have come and gone, and new ones have been added as the brand evolved beyond hair care into skin care. Today, the ROK Products range covers both:
Available through the ROK Products website, Amazon, Etsy, and through Faire for trade pricing. Also stocked in ROK Barbers locations. The next step is getting the range into other barbershops across the country - something that's currently in the works.
Genuinely Made Here. Always Has Been.
A lot of brands are manufactured overseas and simply labelled as UK products. ROK Products is genuinely made in the UK, in-house, using vegan ingredients — exactly the same way it's always been done, just in a bigger space than a kitchen. Independent, family-run, and built on its own terms since 2019.