James forte visits denman hq, northern ireland

At Salon International 2021, James Forte took the title of stage star with Denman International. The annual competition which hosts its final on the HJ Stage, gives the winner the chance to access a year of activity from shoots to stage work and of course a VIP trip to Denman Brush HQ in Bangor. Here, James Forte gives us a run down on his whistle stop trip to go behind the scenes and see how your hard-working professional tools are made.

10am

I arrived at the airport in Belfast and met with Denman’s International business manager, Martyn Wady. We jumped in a cab to Denman HQ in Bangor and met up with the team behind the brand. Denman is still a family run business and there is a real family feel to the corporate culture. Every member of the team I spoke to seemed invaluable to the brand and there was so much knowledge and passion in one room.

12:30pm

I popped out for lunch with John Rainey, the chairman for Denman’s global businesses. He told some great stories, shared his passion for all things hair and I also got to try my first (real) pint of Guinness.

1:45pm

After lunch, we went on to the Denman factory, where I learnt in depth about the production of the brushes and was able to see how they were made. If you haven't been, I would highly recommend it. Such care is taken with each individual brush and they are all quality checked before they are sent off. Despite there being a lot of machinery involved, it is still very much a manual process.

3pm

I headed back to Denman HQ, to meet with the team again, to get a run down of all the future activity I am going to be involved in up to October and to say the least, it's super exciting! I was then given a lift by the CEO, Kevin McNamee to my hotel to drop off my things, now that’s a VIP service!

7pm

I had a brilliant dinner meeting with Sharon Malcolm, British Hairdressing Hall of Fame winner and a few of the Denman team. Sharon was so great to talk to and gave me so much fantastic advice. It was really inspiring.  

9am

Quick breakfast before meeting the lovely Olivia Alexander from the Denman marketing team, who kindly took me on a tour of the Titanic exhibition, an amazing museum dedicated to the great ship. It also gave great insight into the city of Belfast in 1800’s onwards. I even picked up some Titanic themed rubber ducks (unsinkable).

12pm

Yet more food while I snacked on pizza and picked Olivia’s brains on brush production before heading back to the airport and home to London. It was such an incredible experience! Did you know Denman recently partnered with Plastic Bank to help reduce ocean plastic? Read more here.