When you imagine a classic barbershop, you might envision stacks of Playboy on the magazine rack, Ultimate Fighting Championship matches blasting on the big screen, and the kind of industrial-looking swivel chairs you'd probably mistake for a shoe-shining station at Grand Central. The next generation of barbershops, though, are a little more progressive — serving up straight-edge shaves and precision cuts to men and women with a side of social responsibility. Which is where Rudy's steps in.
The Seattle-based barbershop has spent more than 25 years helping the LGBTQ community, particularly with It Gets Better, an organization that gives kids with no place to call home access to showers and cleansing products. "Homelessness disproportionately affects the LGBTQ community, with almost 40% of homeless youth identifying as LGBTQ," Brian Wenke, the executive director of the foundation, told Vanity Fair. "When considering the complexity of the issue, it is easy to lose sight of the small day-to-day essentials that can have a big impact on someone’s life — like personal-care products."
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And Rudy's latest project with IGB might be its most impactful yet. Here's how you can get involved: For every purchase of the brand’s new 1-2-3 Showering System — a line of citrusy, unisex, and chic-looking shampoos and conditioners — within the next two months, the shop will donate a week’s worth of the same exact product to a shelter that serves LGBTQ youth. You can pick it up at any of Rudy's locations (which you can find in Washington, California, Oregon, New York, Tennessee, and Georgia) or buy it online.
Miley Cyrus, who started the Happy Hippie Foundation to help this very cause, said it best: "As you get older, you start to realize what’s happening around you. You realize, this isn’t the world I want to be living in." Which is exactly why we need brands like Rudy's more than ever.