On men, grooming, and the deeper question of whether African men are allowed to care for themselves at all.
When we started Mandevu, the question we were trying to answer seemed simple: why was it so hard for Kenyan men to find good grooming products that actually worked for their skin and hair? The more we dug into it, the more we realised the question wasn't really about products at all.
It was about permission.
There is a particular kind of silence that surrounds men's wellbeing in many East African households. Not a hostile silence; more of an assumed one. Boys grow up watching their fathers move through the world without complaint, without maintenance routines, without ever visibly attending to themselves. Self-care, in that context, reads as vanity at best and weakness at worst. The message is rarely spoken out loud. It doesn't need to be.
So when a man picks up a beard oil or a face wash for the first time in his twenties or thirties, he is not just buying a product. He is, quietly, deciding that he is worth caring for. That is not a small thing.
We have heard versions of this story from customers across Kenya, Uganda, and Rwanda. Men who started using Mandevu products in secret, embarrassed to be seen caring about their appearance. Men who said it changed something for them; not just how they looked, but how they felt about themselves. Men who told us, sometimes with visible surprise, that they had never had a skincare routine before and hadn't realised how much better their skin could feel.
We think about this a lot when we make decisions about how to communicate as a brand. It would be easy to sell grooming as aspiration; show the sharp suits, the confident smiles, the polished Instagram feeds. And there is nothing wrong with aspiration. But we are more interested in something quieter: normalising the idea that taking care of yourself is not a luxury, not a vanity, and not incompatible with strength.
Because here is what we have come to believe: when men do not have the vocabulary or the permission to care for their physical selves, it rarely stops there. The same silence that makes a man feel he cannot moisturise his skin is often the same silence that makes him feel he cannot talk about stress, or loneliness, or pain. Self-care and emotional health are not the same thing; but they live in the same neighbourhood.
We are a grooming company, not a mental health organisation. We are not going to overreach. But we can insist, in everything we do and say, that African men deserve care. That looking after yourself is an act of dignity, not weakness. That the rituals of maintenance — however small — are a legitimate and important part of being human.
That is the conversation Mandevu wants to be part of. One beard at a time, if necessary.
Njoki Njoroge
Founder, Mandevu Beardcare