Chances are if you’re in the salon industry, you’ve heard of Jim Markham.
You know, Jim Markham, the one who cut hair for Frank Sinatra, Paul Newman, Joanne Woodward, Johnny Carson and Robert Redford.
Doing ‘dos led Markham down a natural course: creating and selling hair products.
Markham’s the founder and chief executive of PureOlogy Research LLC, an Irvine-based company that makes men’s and women’s hair products. The 6-year-old company counts $57 million in yearly sales.
The company makes shampoos, conditioners, hair sprays and styling creams for color-treated hair under the PureOlogy Serious Colour Care brand. The products, which are 100% vegan and sulfate-free, focus on keeping color and improving hair. They’re sold at high-end salons and spas in the U.S., Canada and in Puerto Rico.
Markham was one of five people honored at the annual Excellence in Entrepreneurship luncheon put on by the Business Journal on March 8.
It’s one of several awards the hairstylist has nabbed. He won the 2007 American Salon magazine Readers’ Choice Award for “best shampoo.” Allure magazine gave him its Best in Beauty Editor’s Choice Award in 2005 for “best shampoo for color-treated hair.”
Becoming a celebrity hairstylist and a businessman wasn’t a dream for Markham. Growing up in Farmington, a rugged cowboyish part of New Mexico, Markham was a rowdy kid. He even started boxing at 15.
The same year, he became a husband and father. It was a fulfilling experience, Markham said about being a husband and a dad at such a young age.
Having responsibilities and coming home to someone were things Markham never experienced.
“Normally, people think that being 15 and being married with a kid is a big disadvantage,” he said. “But it was really good for me. I never had a family life before that. Instead of having a dysfunctional life where I would go where I wanted to go and stay out as late as I wanted, I had responsibilities and it was a good foundation for me.”
Don’t get him wrong, though. There definitely were challenges, especially when it came to money.
At 15, Markham quickly realized he needed to put a roof over his family’s head and food on the table. That meant he needed a stable job. Markham enrolled in barber school with hopes of earning a barber’s license. He then could open his own shop someday, and have a modest, steady income.
Markham said he worked his way through barber school by working construction jobs on the weekends and overseeing the toy section of a Wal-Mart-like store.
He soon realized he had a talent, he said. But because he was the youngest student in his class, Markham said he had a hard time finding people who would let him touch their hair. He practiced on wigs and constantly drew hairstyles until teachers, classmates and school guests took notice of his skills.
At 16, Markham graduated from barber school and went on to work at Heights Barber Shop in Farmington. He helped build up two of its shops, he said. Markham also started competing in hair cutting and styling events around New Mexico and other states.
It wasn’t until Markham started winning a majority of the competitions that he realized he had something going for him.
Winning boosted his confidence, Markham said. At 17, he opened Markham’s Barber Shop, and continued competing.
He couldn’t stop there. During the next few years, he realized he wanted more with his life, he said.
Being an award-winning hairstylist in Farmington isn’t all that glamorous. He was stuck doing $6.75 haircuts. He read Dale Carnegie’s book “How to Win Friends and Influence People” and decided it was time for a change.
“I really wasn’t doing the volume that I was supposed to be doing after I was winning all of these awards,” Markham said. “Then I read the book and there was one section that was the most profound thing I ever read. It said, ‘If you’re in a place not doing what you want to do in your life, then pack your bags and leave.’ Literally, the next week, I packed my bags and moved to Albuquerque.”
Markham opened a men’s salon in Albuquerque in the late 1960s. During that time, he read an article about Jay Sebring, a famed Hollywood hairstylist. Markham learned that Sebring had a renowned styling method and a hair product line. He wanted to work with him.
He contacted Sebring and told him he was a national award-winning stylist and that he wanted to show Sebring his techniques, he said. Sebring invited Markham out to Los Angeles to show him his skills. But when Markham watched Sebring cut actor Van Johnson’s hair, he realized there was a lot for him to learn.
“I had the skills but he had the technique for shaping, cutting and doing things that just weren’t being done at the time,” he said. “Jay Sebring became my mentor.”
The two men started to do business together. Markham paid $10,000 to brand Sebring’s hairstyling technique and started distributing Sebring’s product line in four states. He traveled to top salons and taught stylists how to use Sebring’s techniques and products.
Sebring International’s “wash and wear products” were a part of the salon industry’s revolution during the late 1960s, Markham said.
Then came devastating news. In 1969, Sebring was among those murdered, along with Sharon Tate and coffee heiress Abigail Folger, by Charles Manson’s followers.
Markham and two partners bought the company’s assets for $50,000 and tried to carry out Sebring’s legacy.
Markham inherited Sebring’s former A-list clients and started styling hair for movies such as “Sometimes a Great Notion” in 1971 and “The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean” in 1972.
Markham knew he had the skills and the experience to cut celebrity hair but couldn’t avoid feeling insecure, he said. After all, he was a small town guy trying to fit into the glitz and glamour of Hollywood.
“I had a lot of nervous energy at first, but after a while those celebrities became regular people,” Markham said. “I’ve always been a little scared to start new things so I always worked harder so that I wouldn’t fail. But every time I started something new, it always seemed to be harder.”
Two years after Markham and his partners bought Sebring International’s assets, Markham started his own brand of Markham Products as a result of a lawsuit among the partners. He sold the business to the other partners in the early 1980s.
In 1989, he and his third wife Cheryl started Abba Pure and Natural Hair Care with a $150,000 loan from Cheryl’s father. Finding Abba investors was hard. Markham said he was grateful for his father-in-law’s help.
“No one wanted to invest in Abba,” he said.
In 1990, Markham joined the Society of Cosmetic Chemists to strengthen his presence in the cosmetic product industry and to build connections. In 1997, he sold Abba for $20 million to Styling Technology Corp. of Scottsdale.
Shortly after, in 2001, Markham started PureOlogy after traveling around the world and researching eco-friendly and “high-tech” cosmetic formulas,those that focus on improving the overall health of hair.
PureOlogy has 50 employees and a network of 3,000 people who teach stylists at salons and spas how to use the products.
The company’s niche is mostly in dyed hair. PureOlogy’s rivals include upscale hair care brands with colored hair product lines such as Bumble and Bumble and K & #233;rastase.
The company’s sales grew 70% in 2006, and are expected to grow an additional 40% this year, Markham said.
Next up for Markham: allergen-free products so that PureOlogy can be distributed in Europe easier, he said.
