You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk powered by Sharpologist.com where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host Joe Borrelli and today is November 13th 2023.
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Today on the Show:
Happy Thanksgiving!
New Razor from PAA
New Oneblade Razor for the Ladies!
Fall Products, best availability in 3 years!
New Book is out and Available!
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New PAA Razor: The Artifact
PAA has released their 10th Anniversary razor…The Artifact. Is a 3 piece razor composed of 3 different components (Gold, Brass, Bakelite) and is a homage to the Ever Moist Razor ( named for its ability to self lubricate) from the 1920’s.
Happy 10 Years PAA!!!
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OneBlade Dawn Razor
One Blade has a new razor designed for the ladies. USes the same blades as the regular One Blade razors and comes with a new stand. Price is $119.
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Fall Products Best in 3 Years!
The 2023 Fall Seasonal Special deemed many new items… Some of which are from new vendors. I was very impressed by the offerings by the vendors and the amount of items released.
Looking forward to 2024!
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The New Book is Here!
Yes, I wrote a book. “The Modern Guide To Straight Razor Shaving” was released on Nov 10th.
This was an idea of mine 4 years ago. After writing countless articles, I wanted to compile all the material into a physical book so wet shavers could have a “one stop shop” for all things regarding straight razors.
I began working on the project back in 2019, and had to put it on the back burner as “Life Happens” but was determined to finish it here in 2023 (This has been on my News Resolutions list for the past 4 years).
I had no idea what writing a book entailed, other than reading them and watching countless videos and reading literally every book I could find regarding wet shaving in order to understand what truly works.
After about a dozen or so drafts (yes really) and proofreading editing etc I was able to get what I feel is a good representation of how to use a straight razor in the 21st century.
I made a point of referencing my material from past publications, re-editing a lot of it, and adding some new stuff in the process. I did not use any AI (artificial intelligence) “helpers” , just good old fashioned writing and research.
This book is a true representation of how to be a straight razor user today and is my interpretation of it. I hope you enjoy it!
The new book is here! Available on Amazon. If your interested in carrying it at your shop please email me at [email protected]
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Our show is powered by Sharpologist.com, “What Your Father Didn’t Teach You about Shaving”
Special Thanks to:
Mark aka Mantic 59
Most of All……….YOU!!!!
Don’t forget to check out my blog site www.shavestraightandsafe.com for the tips and interesting wet shaving stories!
Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]
Subscribe to my You Tube Chanel for videos regarding some interesting wet shaving content.
Are you interested in sponsoring an episode? Contact Me!!!
If you’re a vendor and would like to be featured on the show please contact me!!
Next Show: 11/27/23
Until then… Shave Straight and Shave Safe!!
Please check out my book: “The Modern Guide to Straight Razor Shaving”
Transcript (Machine-Generated)
You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk, powered by Sharpologist dot com, where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host, Joe Borrelli. And today is November 13th, 2023.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the podcast and happy November to you 1st of November. So a lot going on in the wet shaving world. There’s some new releases, a lot of stuff going, getting ready for the holiday season. So I know everybody is just getting gearing up and getting their stuff ready to go. So we’ll keep this really to the point today.
But first off, Happy Thanksgiving. This is actually the last show before Thanksgiving. So Thanksgiving in the United States is next week, a big holiday for families and all that stuff. So I hope you guys have a great week coming up. And for you retail managers out there, I wish you the best of luck because we go through a lot, especially in the in the wine and spirits business and the grocery business right now. It’s a very, very busy week coming up. So good luck for all of you retailers out there.
And for everybody else, uh, show them a little compassion when you go in the stores. Yes, that’s right. It’s it’s very busy and very time. Uh, the time of the year is just it can get pretty rough out there. Let’s just make sure we all treat each other very kindly and nice. So happy Thanksgiving to you all out there that celebrate today on the show.
We’ve got a new razor from Phoenix Arts and Accoutrements, the artifact that just came out to celebrate their 10th anniversary. So one, I want to also salute them and give them a happy, happy 10th anniversary salute. We’ve got a new oneblade razor that is for the ladies. That’s right. They have come out with a new razor for design for the ladies, which is really cool. That is out and available now for pre-order. I believe it’s available for sale and the fall products from the Fall Seasonal special 2023 best in three years, best availability, Best selection even with and then with 3 or 4 brand new vendors entering the game. It was a really good year. And finally, guys, yes, the book that I wrote, The Modern Guide to Straight Razor Shaving is or Straight Razors is out. It is. It is live and it is starting to ship to actually started to ship last week. So if you’re interested in purchasing one or you want to talk about it, it is available on Amazon. I’ll get in more detail. We’ll have the link and everything in the show notes. But without further ado, everyone, let’s get on with the show.
So Phoenix, Arizona has been in the game now officially for ten years. I can’t believe it. Those ten years have gone by so fast. They’ve been making soap primarily. They started as a soap company. Right? You remember there is the the the mustache excuse me blog site. Right. The the and then you had the synergy shave soaps that they came out with. How to grow a mustache. Sorry that that blog site came out. And that’s kind of how it started and just got larger and bigger. And now it’s Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements where Fran and Douglas Smyth, they kind of merged their companies in all of their knowledge and their and their skills and brought them together into one company. And now we have a ten years of them in business.
So on first off, give you guys a watch what shaving talk salute. Because anybody that can do a small business for ten years, I got to tell you, you got to be doing something right and you still keeping it fresh. One thing about Paa as everybody calls it, is that he keeps it a friend and Doug, they keep it fresh. Like if you look at their website every time, every release they do, there’s a story. And I’m pretty sure that they write all of everything the writers write. He is a writer. I know Douglas Smythe is a writer as well, and writes all the stories and comes up with the storylines for all of the soaps and their scents and everything.
And not only do they do like homages to the past, they do brand new releases as well. And I’m just really impressive. For ten years they’ve kept that consistent, they’ve been innovative, and they still keep up with new releases and keeping the stories really interesting and making it fun. So without this kind of a of a vendor or artisan, I don’t think we would be able to have a lot of the stuff that we have today. So first off, Douglas and Fran, we salute you from the Wet Shaving Talk podcast. Congratulations on ten years of being in business and your latest release, The Artifact Razor.
Now the artifact Razer is a is a Razer. And when I was reading through, of course there was a story behind it and a lot of work put into it. It was, um, it’s a three piece razor that’s composed of three different components gold, brass, and Bakelite. And it’s a homage to the the ever moisturizer that was out in the 1920s, I believe teens or 20s, which is a razor that that was designed to say it was self lubricating and kept the face, you know, lubricated while shaving. Kind of like the way with those lubricating strips, you would say with the cartridge razors. So this razor is a homage to that with a little bit of a modern flair. And it’s instead of them doing like a set, I guess they decided to do a razor for their 10th anniversary.
Now, you can definitely tell there’s been work doing put into this, because it is composed of three different materials, and it’s just it looks like a and it comes in a beautiful like little vegan leather case with blades in it. So that’s something new. I got to say, it’s a really nice piece that to come out and nice homage. There are a lot of razors that they’ve done that are are homages, and that just shows you that that’s a lot of research that takes to do that. I mean, you have the, um, the double open comb, which is a razor that came out, you know, very, very limited. You know, it’s not it’s not something that was I’m pretty sure that probably PA sold more of their version than the original one.
Did. You know 80 years ago when it came out or so. Right. So beautiful, Razer. This one looks really cool. I think I’m mantic. He did do a review on it on apologist just recently, so guys, check it out if you see it. I don’t have a link for it, but it’s there. It’s on the Sharpologist website, and I just wanted to say that I thought, this is one of the coolest releases they’ve done, especially with that case that that little vegan leather blue case looks really nice. So salute you guys. Happy ten years PR. And here’s to another ten years of being in business and keeping it all innovative and fun in the wet shaving world.
Oneblade has released a new razor specifically for ladies called the Dawn razor. It was Just recently came out I believe it is available now on their website. Last I checked it was and it is completely designed from aluminum with the steel head and designed for, you know, for women to use on their legs and stuff like that. And it just it comes in different colors, different handle with the same one blade technology and blades.
So taking all the good stuff of the, of the one blade and putting it into an easier to hold handle made of aluminum with a really cool new stand priced at under $120. So this is a razor that I think will definitely be something to be on the ladies Christmas list this year. I think this is something that if you want, if you are a wet shaver, what shaving and your your a man and your and you have a significant other and you want to buy her something else, I think this would be a great Christmas gift. I think this would be really cool to get somebody into wet shaving, because this is specifically designed for them in mind.
So different handle, different style, different colors are available. And the new stand that’s available as well makes it look really cool. It’s I think with one blade, I think out of all of the wet shaving stuff that’s come out in the last ten years or so, 20 years, this is one of the innovative items that keeps it true to our wet shaving roots. I guess if you want to say. It keeps. That single blade that that classic design, but with new technology.
So I’m a fan of the one blade. I do have a one blade myself, and I do like using them. So I would definitely say that this would probably be a great product. I think consistently their quality has been good. I think, you know, a lot of people will say their price used to be a lot higher. They’ve actually made them much more affordable recently. So to get into a one blade, it’s not as hard as it was when it first came out, which is basically we’re talking, I think, 2016, 2017. I think this when it came out, I mean, we’re going on like 7 or 8 years now with this razor being in business and the blades and stuff, those feather blades that, that, that use this, that are, excuse me, that are used in this razor on these razors are one of the best, I guess, disposable blades available. It is. And it’s known for that. And they’re very, very good quality, great blade. And that’s why I don’t ever, you know, try to put something else in there or use different style blade.
Get the one that it belongs with. It belongs in there because you’ll you’ll definitely diminish the performance on the razor. But I want to salute one blade two coming out with another innovative razor. And really looking forward to seeing the reviews on this one. And if you’re looking for a Christmas gift, this is the one to get this year because it’s available now, and you can maybe get your significant other into the hobby as well, and then have. And then both of you guys can have the bug in wet shaving.
So the fall seasonal special this year guys was was very dear to me. You know I know was delayed a lot. I got I did get sick during it and had laryngitis. So I mean when you have laryngitis it’s very hard to record a podcast, mainly because it’s hard to talk in general and it just doesn’t sound good. And the last thing I would want you guys to do is hear, you know, muffled or not, perfect audio. Right. And there’s nothing you can really do about it if you can’t talk. So delayed it a little bit, which gave me a little bit more time to put it together.
But there were a lot of vendors, there was a lot of replicated stuff, which is good to really, you know, rereleased that have been coming out every year. But there was a lot of new stuff as well, and I was really impressed with some of the vendors. First line Shave was one of them that came out with a really nice set, something new. And you know, the Holy Black came out with again. They came out with a really cool set with the mixing mixologist set with the lights in it and everything like that for, for the, for the fragrances. And it was just really cool. It’s a great time of the year to be in wet shaving and to really see everything. And if you’re going to purchase anything, that’s really the time to make major purchases. That’s my favorite time to do it.
You know, you had ten years celebrated by hollows in for Baxter. Man, that doesn’t happen every every day. You know, we’re we’re seeing something different now. We’re seeing ten years now like two vendors celebrating ten years of being in business, which is something that ten years ago, you know, we didn’t have but a handful of vendors and artisans out there doing stuff like this. So there was over right now that my my list shows that I have over 143 artisans actively working last year we lost about 18 artisans last year, but we gained about 24. So I mean, it’s gone up and down and we’ve seen actually two artisans come back into the game.
So that’s just my list of from stats that I have from a year to year. I usually do that at the end. This year I didn’t have too much time to do it, but I did it this week and just really happy with the way the way shaving world’s going in this, in this, in this direction. If I missed you with your wet shaving products that came out for Halloween and I didn’t see it, let me know. Send me an email. If you’re a vendor, if you’re an artisan, and then I’ll add it to the list. I do work pretty hard keeping stuff and trying to find it, but my time is limited so to about anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes per vendor. That’s all I really have to do it.
So make it easy for me to see, and it will make it really easy for the customers to see as well. So looking forward to 2024 with releases already seeing a lot of Christmas releases and the holiday season releases coming out and people coming out with some soaps and aftershave is on that. So a great year so far. Looking forward to 2024, which I feel is going to probably be really good in addition to that.
All right. So the new book is here. Our last podcast on the fall season of special, I announced The Modern Guide to Straight Razor Shaving. This is a book that I wrote and compiled a lot of. Mostly it’s actually all of my writing. It’s not anybody else’s. Compiled into a guide, a physical guide that’s a paperback book that you can hold and pick up and give us a gift and have, you know, part of your collection. And it took me at least around four years to come up with it. And I’ll tell you a little bit more.
I didn’t get a chance to tell the story. So that’s kind of why I cut the podcast content short today, because this is a major accomplishment for me in the wet shaving world. And it took a lot of time, you know, working full time, being a parent, being a husband, a friend, a, you know, an employee, all that stuff. You know, the the grind of the every day. It makes it tough to do stuff like this. So it took me four years to finish it. To tell you a little bit about the story, this has been on my New Year’s resolution to finish this book for four years, so to be able to finish it this year, I just was.
So, you know, I’m so stoked to have it done and for you guys to enjoy it as well. So I did write the book 100% myself. I’ll go over just a little bit about the background of it. It’s basically it’s based on a lot of modern day stuff involved in wet shaving. So we have some classic, you know, classic methods of strapping with modern ways of strapping with stuff that we’ve, that we’ve seen, you know, example one stone honing is in there with cuticles that may not have been in a classic book or anybody else’s book, in addition to classic ways of of honing a razor with, you know, basic stones with water stones, methods and how to do it.
All this stuff that we’ve picked up in this current century and stuff that we’ve learned from modern day practices are added into with classic stuff as well. So this kind of makes it more of a 21st century guide to straight razors. It is 80 pages long. And it’s. It’s all it’s got color pictures in it. There’s some pictures of me in there holding, you know, skin stretching techniques, which is more of a modern way of doing it. And then we’re going to teach you how to shave, how to maintain, how to collect. But it’s easy to read. It’s very to the point, kind of like the way I write for Sharpologist dot com and kind of the way I do this podcast. So I don’t like to make it too wordy or anything like that. It’s to the point. So when you can go through it, you can research, you can find stuff in there and you can read and just get what you need and keep it close by.
So this book is designed to be a a guide and a little bit of a of like a how to guide on how to start with straight razors. So if you’re looking for something like that, if you’re a straight razor user, enjoy! I hope you enjoy it. Let me know what you think you know. Send me an email and I will definitely respond to it. So a little bit about it is began working on this project back in 2019. Put it on the back burner, you know, because life happens. You know, I had had my son. We had a lot of stuff going on work, all that stuff like that. So I’ve been writing also articles for Sharpologist dot com, and I went back and forth with this book for several years, but I was like, after about six months to about probably about ten months ago now, I said to myself, you know what? I got to finish this. This is done. I’m finishing it before the end of the year. And I put a date, which I learned from actually watching countless YouTube videos and learning and reading articles on how to, you know, write a book and get to the end of it.
So I put a complete date of November 8th, 2023, came out on November 10th, so I’m very proud. I was very close to my commit date and I did that ten months ago. I gave that date. I really had no idea what to do or writing a book was about. So I did do a lot of research, got into it, started writing it, change it around 9000 times. I have to say I’ve proofread it a bunch of times. I’ve switched the way it’s it sounded, I changed it, and, you know, just really went through a lot of drafts, probably at least a dozen or so drafts. And till I found the copy that I felt read, read best for me. Um. I finally got, I think, I think a good representation to where it flows really easy. I’ve added sections to it, you know, and one thing is I read it out loud, too. I think that’s something that really helped me. I read the whole thing out loud just to see how it would sound, and that’s how I would change a lot of the editing.
So I made a point of referencing all the material from past publications that I’ve done, and I’ve taken some of that information to this book from Sharpologist dot com. You know, and another thing is, I did not use any AI or artificial intelligence helpers that a lot of people are. It’s becoming very popular right now. I didn’t use any of that. It’s just old fashioned writing and research and trial and error and, and my experience with, with straight razors, you know, and just the last what is it now? 12 years that I’ve been using them, 12 or 13 years that I’ve been using a straight razor on a daily basis. And how I, how I’ve come to be able to do it on a daily, daily life, how to do it every day.
So that’s really what it is in a in a nutshell. And if you are a straight razor user, it will be a great read for you. If you’re looking into getting a straight razor, it’s great. If you need a holiday gift, go for it. You know, not doing this to make $1 million. Guys, to be honest, I just did this because I wanted to do it. To be completely honest, the whole book is published, self published, the cover, everything is all done by myself. Everything was edited. I didn’t use anybody else other than Amazon. That takes a look at it before. And actually I was pretty happy that they came back and said there was no adjustments to be made.
So self publishing is also something that I learned to do during this time. And I did know that you have to purchase an ISBN number. So I purchased that. So so I purchased my own. So I own that. So this book can be distributed if you go through Amazon it’s there. So they can only be sold there. So if it is a distributor it can be distributed. So if you have a wet shaving shop or if you have a place that you’d like to carry the book, you can you just got to contact me and I’ll make it happen for you. So it is can be distributed, distributed and resold. And you know, just learning all that stuff too is just a lot going on. A lot the cover designs, mine, everything else is mine, you know? And it was pretty I was very proud when Amazon came back. And they review your book before they publish it, which took the two extra days. So I did make it on the day, but I didn’t know I had to submit it earlier. I thought I had just submitted on the day of, and it takes two days for them to review it, so that’s the only reason why I was two days late, which I’ll learn for next time. But yeah, they went through it.
They came back, they said no mistakes. They said the book looks good. We’re going to we’re going to publish it as is. I got like one of those author copies to take a look at it, found a few mistakes in it, change it up again, sent it in. And that’s the final copy that we’re getting now. So really proud guys about this, this accomplishment. This is kind of why I’ve been very, very quiet with writing. And the last year I’ve been spending all my free time on this. So now that it’s done, I’ll get back into writing articles and I’m finding out some new stuff to do, and I may write another book as well. If you have any ideas or stuff that you’re looking for in a book, let me know. Send me an email. Joe Dot wetshavingnews at gmail.com. And I will definitely look at that idea, because I’m really interested in getting possibly doing another book in the future. But yeah, check it out. The show notes I have the link to it direct to Amazon. Appreciate the the support there if you’re interested.
And also we’ll be I’ll be coming out with an e-book for this in January. So in January February it takes a little bit longer. I’ll have an e-book out there for available, which will be instantly downloadable from Amazon as well. So thank you guys for all the support. I couldn’t have done this book or all this work or you know, was the true inspiration. Was all of you guys listening to this podcast and reading all the all the work and just being involved and really enjoying straight razors and bringing it back to life is the reason why really was the was the drive and the determination that I had to make this come out. It was really for for the listeners because, you know, you guys have really made this fun for me and continue to make it fun for me. So I appreciate the time on on that and give me a little bit extra time this week to just talk about it, because it’s something that was a lot of work and I’m very proud of. So thank you all for for taking a look and being interested in if you have any questions, of course, or comments, always feel free to just just email me. I’ll get back to you very quickly on that.
So that concludes the show for this week guys. Special thanks to Marc aka Mantic59 and most of all, you guys, the listeners I remember our show is powered by Sharpologist dot com, which your father did teach you about shaving. Don’t forget to check out my blog site, shave Straight and Safe with new stuff out there and more information on the book. And I always check my YouTube channel. I will have some new stuff coming up in the new year, working on some new content as well. Our next show will be on the 27th of this month, November, and till then shave straight and shave safe. Bye bye now.
