Manscaped owns below-the-waist grooming.

Manscaped is a lesson in owning an awkward category. It was founded in 2016 in San Diego by Paul Tran, and it built a whole business around below-the-waist and body grooming for men — a topic other brands avoided. Its flagship is The Lawn Mower, a waterproof groin-and-body hair trimmer (now in numbered generations), alongside the Weed Whacker (nose and ear trimmer), the Crop Preserver (a moisturising “ball deodorant”), the Crop Reviver toner, and “Performance Package” kits.

Its growth engine is marketing: heavy, personality-driven podcast advertising across thousands of shows, an official UFC partnership, other sports sponsorships, and an irreverent, meme-heavy, cheeky tone that normalises an embarrassing topic through humour. It is widely studied as a masterclass in edgy direct-to-consumer marketing.

Manscaped grew fast but stayed private. (Honest notes: it was founded by Paul Tran (still CEO); it is a privately held company — its 2021 SPAC merger with Bright Lights Acquisition Corp. (proposed NASDAQ ticker “MANS”) was terminated in August 2022 due to market conditions, so it never went public and never traded, and was not “taken private”; and its core brand palette is black, white and gold (blue and orange appear on product hardware, not the logo system); and no official brand hex is published.)

Manscaped lives in a black-and-gold palette. Click a swatch to copy the hex.

Manscaped’s identity is bold, masculine and cheeky — an ink black, a graphite, a brushed gold, an off-white, and a cool grey. The palette reads as confident and premium-masculine: black-and-white with a gold accent, “elegant yet masculine,” designed to make an awkward category feel bold rather than embarrassing. It signals grooming-tech confidence rather than clinical or delicate care. The honest caveat: with no published brand hex, these tones are an original, unofficial interpretation, not first-party values.

The lesson is a black-and-gold palette signals bold, premium masculinity. Manscaped’s world reads as confident and cheeky. For designers, it is a reminder that black-and-white with a gold accent conveys premium masculine confidence, matching a brand that uses boldness (and humour) to normalise an awkward topic. The takeaways: use black-and-white with a gold accent for premium masculine confidence; let a cheeky voice carry the humour; and treat any single hex as unofficial when there is no published spec.

The wordmark spirit is a bold sans — confident and modern.

Manscaped’s identity carries a bold, confident, modern spirit — a “MANSCAPED” wordmark in strong, slightly narrowed capitals whose assured forms match a grooming-tech brand. A bold sans captures the mood: it is confident and contemporary, the register of a modern DTC brand rather than heritage grooming. Set against a black-and-gold palette, the bold sans feels premium and cheeky-masculine — exactly the Lawn-Mower, below-the-waist personality Manscaped carries. It is bold rather than delicate, mirroring a brand that meets an awkward topic head-on. (Manscaped’s real wordmark and emblem are trademarks we describe but do not reproduce, and the exact typeface is not something we assert.) Because the specific marks are not ours to use, the honest description is “a bold sans spirit,” not the Manscaped logo. The type behaves like the brand: bold, confident and modern.

Manscaped stands for going where others won’t.

Manscaped is a lesson in owning the topic no one else will. By focusing squarely on below-the-waist grooming and using humour to make it approachable, Manscaped created and dominated a category that legacy brands were too coy to touch. Its cheeky voice, purpose-built products (the Lawn Mower), and relentless podcast-and-UFC marketing turned an embarrassing subject into a confident, memorable brand. Going where others won’t — with the right tone — was the whole opportunity.

For designers and brand-builders, Manscaped offers a clear takeaway: an under-served, awkward category can be a huge opportunity with the right voice. The lessons: address a real but avoided need directly; use humour and confidence to remove embarrassment; and match relentless, well-targeted marketing (podcasts, sports) to the audience. It is also a reminder to keep the facts honest: Manscaped was founded in 2016 in San Diego by Paul Tran, is privately held (its 2021 SPAC deal was terminated in 2022, so it never went public), and its brand palette is black/white/gold — with the interpretation here an unofficial one. Manscaped normalised the awkward — proof that going where others won’t can be the difference.

Keep Manscaped’s identity on hand — save it to a board in the Made Good inspiration library.