SUSSEX, N.B. -- A Maritime entrepreneur is cashing in on a new trend.

With the rise of the hipster culture, beards have become a popular choice of facial hair fashion over the last couple of years.

Entrepreneur Matt White loves his facial hair, but noticed a lack of products on the market to care for it.

“A lot of chemically-induced products, they strip the natural oils from the hair and the skin,” says White.

A year ago, he set out to fill that gap with an all-natural, handcrafted beard oil.

White sells his Sussex Beard Oil through four retailers in New Brunswick, at farmers markets, and online.

White says he was inspired to mass produce the product because other men would regularly approach him to comment on his fabulous facial hair. 

“It’s like, two women would say ‘where did you buy those shoes?’ I would get stopped in a grocery store by a man saying ‘what do you do for your beard?’ and it started to get more and more noticeable that beards were out there,” says White.

The beard oil has really taken off and White gets calls and orders from across Canada and even into the United States.

White rides a motorcycle and says, in the same way bikers acknowledge each other on the road, there is almost an unspoken connection between men with beards, complete with a pecking order.

“There is a beard nod,” says White. “If you walk in a mall, or you are around, there is a beard nod and usually the smaller beard will yield to the bigger beard and he will nod and then you nod back.”

Retailer Jessica Jenkins sells White’s products in Sussex.

“He’s been creating more and more products, so every time he comes up with something new, we say bring it on in and we’ll give it a try,” says Jenkins.

 When White was a child, he watched a children’s program that showed Sussex Ginger Ale as one of the show’s sponsors. After further investigation, he quickly decided that Sussex would be the place to set down roots.

“Sussex has been a big inspiration, for those that don’t know, Sussex, to me, is like the entrepreneurial capital of the Maritimes,” says White. “There has been so many great things birthed out of this area.”

White says he has some opportunities to expand the sale of his product in the works, but he plans on taking it slow, saying he is looking for sustainable growth.

With files from CTV's David Bell