Calvin Quallis, the founder of the men’s grooming brand Scotch Porter is a soft-spoken, thoughtful man and he, like many people in our world, notices the trend in angrily negating or boisterously debating toxic masculinity. The difference between him and just about everyone else is that his response to the supposed war on masculinity is entrepreneurial instead of, say, a tweet. “My focus, or my calling at the moment, is to build a business that has an impact on communities in terms of starting conversations and arming guys with the tools necessary to become their best selves,” he tells me. That’s, uh, quite a mission, given Scotch Porter is in the business of selling beard wash, bar soap and body scrubs. So how did he get here, the owner of a grooming company with a mission to save masculinity from its own worst enemy (masculinity)?

Growing up, Quallis’s mom owned a beauty parlor slash barbershop. He spent a lot of his free time there, where he saw firsthand how his mom’s deft hands and talent affected her clients. “I was a pretty intuitive kid in that I could always tell who didn’t necessarily feel their best walking in. But they’d sit in my mom’s chair, be transformed, get up, look in the mirror, pop their collars and walk out with an entirely new step.” Quallis names this as a primary reason for launching Scotch Porter.

Scotch Porter began in the kitchen of Quallis’s New Jersey home, with him experimenting with non-toxic ingredients. “We are committed to changing the perception of men’s grooming, and we feel that it’s not just about helping men to look and feel better. It really is about helping them to think differently, to understand that it’s perfectly okay to take care of and love themselves, to love people and be compassionate,” he says.

No surprise that one of the brand’s tag lines is “Transformation is a powerful concept.” This no doubt sounds grandiose but it is not the product of an agency-backed marketing campaign. It is Quallis’s true belief; he operates under the understanding that men’s appreciation for self-care does not stop at wanting good skin but rather, can extend into their communities in productive ways. Of note, in May Scotch Porter launched a 4/20 Wellness Popshop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The pop-up featured a limited-edition CBD collection that included facial, body and beard care products, CBD facials, CBD treats and an inspirational workshop that invited customers to explore issues related to modern masculinity. “I haven’t seen a lot of men in public being so okay with opening up about their personal lives while getting facials,” he says.

I have to jump in here: Why the focus only on men? “There’s still a massive amount of work to do in terms of reframing the conversation about men taking care of themselves and how that plays into them loving themselves and their communities,” he explains. The focus is to deconstruct tired ideas of what it means to be “manly” within the groups of people who identify as men. The hope is that new thinking can positively pour into and influence surrounding communities. In other words, the goal is to make the word men feel a little less political by making the people who exist within its classification a little less homogenized.

Quallis is noticing a shift. “The sheer volume of questions we get on education and product use is mind-boggling, which shows a shift. I expect we’ll see many more brands and marketers begin to do more work in terms of reshaping the conversation around what manhood is, and working with consumers to reimagine the stereotypical portrayal of manhood to be one that is more caring and compassionate,” he says. I can’t help but bring up the Gillette commercial. Quallis avoids speaking negatively about the brand, but he does say he has a different idea of how Scotch Porter can communicate what Gillette ostensibly attempted with its controversial 2019 commercial.

“We’re having dialogues and attempting to reshape what manhood is on the ground, directly with customers,” he says. Whereas Gillette received criticism for virtue signaling, or conspicuously presenting on-trend virtues with the primary intention of gaining social or economic favors, Scotch Porter has a track record of wanting to educate others outside of running a commercial. Of note, Scotch Porter published an online journal, journal.scotchporter.com, where it runs articles on masculinity. Disproportionately acculturated to diminish the importance of practicing (self-)love and (self-)care, men come to the site to explore how gender stereotypes may unconsciously affect their thinking and behavior; other pieces range from listicles about hygiene to explorations of why men may feel uncomfortable hugging their male friends. “That piece got so much engagement,” he tells me, speaking to the latter. “We knew we were on to something that might have been a stigma for some folks.”

We previously sold one or more of these products and earned proceeds from any such sales.