Beards are now doing their bit for the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). One of London’s oldest shops is offering special lockdown care packages for beards feeling the effects of isolation.

Chemist and perfumer D.R. Harris originally opened in 1790 at 11, St James’s Street, London. Now the company is based at no. 29. Originally an apothecary shop, it diversified into beard and moustache care, shaving creams and brushes, freshening colognes (Arlington, Windsor and Marlborough) and lavender water as well as bath essentials, almond oil and the classic Cucumbers and Roses lotion. Henry Harris was a surgeon and his partner, Daniel Rotely (D.R.), was a pharmaceutical chemist.

The Isolation Beard starter pack

For over two centuries, the family business in the centre of London’s clubland has served the gentry and the court of St James’s and in 1938 was awarded the warrant as chemists to the queen, later the Queen Mother which was held until her death in 2002. In 2002, the film was also appointed as chemists to the Prince of Wales, an honour added to in 2012 when the queen’s royal warrant was awarded to D.R. Harris.

As well as lather bowls, shaving soap bowls, shaving sticks, shaving cream, aftershave milks and shaving brushes (synthetic or high-quality silver-tip badger hair), D.R. Harris now also offers, as one of its lockdown packages, its own much sought-after Abysinnian and jojoba beard oil as well as bees-wax moustache cream, with a horn comb for even coverage.

Thirty per cent of the price of the special packages is donated to one of their chosen charities. By buying products online, one can choose to have a donation made to either Médecins Sans Frontièrs (Doctors without Borders); the Trussell Trust, the leading food bank organisation in the UK; or NHS Charities Together, the combined charity arm of the NHS, supporting NHS staff.

Website customers – with beards or without − will also be donating to Eden Reforestation Projects, with one tree being planted for every purchase.

www.drharris.com

D.R. Harris moustache wax

D.R. Harris Arlington shaving pack