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 Nov 8 th ,2021
Today on the Show:
Fall Releases, Missing from Major Vendors
Holy Black Halloween Release
Charcoal Goods is back and full stocked
Fine Accoutrements New Scent ClubHouse
Pandemic Struggles? What Vendors are Experiencing
Collector’s Corner: Gillette Techmatic
Murder at The Holy Black
- The Halloween release from The Holy Black this Year was more of a board game than a shaving set. Only containing a limited edition straight razor, this is the second year the Halloween release did not contain a shaving soap and the first year without an after shave.
Charcoal Goods: Everyday Safety Razor
- Everyday safety razors are here!
- After almost a full year of restructuring Charcoal goods is back with complete razors
- I’ll tell you my thoughts.
Fine Accoutrements: Club House
- New scent released in September
- The company will be out of Aftershave until January due to bottle shortages.
- “Fine Clubhouse Shaving Soap provides exactly that, along with a classic aromatic note of talc cut with herbs, spices and musk. Inspired by Canoe (1936, by Dana) and popularized by Pinaud, the scent is a mainstay in country club locker rooms and barbershops the world over”
Pandemic Struggles: What to Expect
From bottle, to alcohol shortages, the pandemic has affected the wet shaving industry. What to expect for this holiday season.
Collector’s Corner: Gillette Techmatic aka Apollo
One of the only razors Gillette no longer makes cartridges for has been to space and back. Nicknamed the Apollo, for that reason Astronaut Michael Collins was filmed shaving with the techmatic during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969.
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!!!!
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Our next show will be 11/22/21
Until then….
Shave straight and Shave Safe!
Transcript
You’re listening to, wet shaving talk, powered by Sharpologists, dot com, where we’re dedicated, preserving the art and skill of classic shaving host Joel Borrelli, today, is November 8, 2021.
All right, everyone, welcome back to the podcast on this beautiful November day. I cannot believe I’m saying that it’s November already. I know I say that a lot when I do this podcast, but the year this year really is gone by very fast. I hope you all had a great holloween for those of you that celebrate it and had a great week or month, or a few days at least of some good fall shave of the days and just really enjoyed the. now starting to get cooler weather. Really, I had a great halloween myself, enjoyed it, had some great Halloween soap that I keep. You know it’s funny. I keep all my seasonal stuff in like a tupperware, like a container, and I kind of like market like winter all summer and I use it and sometimes I put that stuff away and like first all, I like to keep it organized so I could find it when I want to and I usually go by the season. So when I start doing my shave of the days in like, say, September, I’ll start using the fall soaps. Primarily use that amount of that stuff for the month. Same thing with winter and summer and stuff like that. I try to keep it in season. I don’t know. It just keeps it keeps the seasonal. For me it keeps it fresh and I used a lot of my false stuff this year did use a lot of pumpkin spice, cuse me, flavor scented products as well. I did have a good time with it and I’ll still be using some of that stuff until maybe till the end of this month after Thanksgiving. Then I like transition to like Christmas soaps.
So I hope you guys had some fun shave of the days. I saw some great pictures online. I saw on a couple of people really decorated up there a little like set up there in there and they had a nice little background. I think it was on a couple of formums, had some good stuff. Facebook had a couple of good shave of the days when they put like decorated the background in everything like that. So it’s really cool. Really keep that stuff up because it’s it’s it is really nice to see that seasonal stuff going and keeps in the season and makes it a little bit more fun, motivates me too to decorate. So even the house and my my little shav den as well.
All right. So today on the show I do have to mention that a lot of fall releases were missing from some major vendors. I won’t get too deep into this one. But I did notice it. It could be pandemic reasons or whatever, but I did notice the Fall releases were a little bit short this year and we did lose quite a few vendors. So I’ll give you a little review on that to start off.
The Holy Black Halloween release came out and is gone and sold out. We’ll go over that a little bit really was lacking in the shaving department, shavings software area, but still really interesting release. Talking about that one that’s usually the most, one of the most anticipated releases of the year.
Charcoal goods. If you’re a fan of that vendor, they are backed and fully stocked with their new, with a new razor that came out after being almost a hiatus for a year and just recently coming back with a few left over parts and some pieces here and there they are back with razors. So finally I’m a big fan of that artistan and I think it’s great. They make a great product. So they are back.
Fine accoutrements came out with a new scent about a month and a half ago called Clubhouse, and it’s out, it’s it’s actually doing very well, and I’ll tell you a little bit more about that one when we get to that part of the podcast actually is really interesting. Interesting sent profile, so really cool.
Pandemic struggles. What are vendors experiencing? What will you experience possible during the holiday season with some of these pandemic, with some of these shortages and stuff? Yes, it has affected the wet shaving world and I’ll tell you a little bit about what I found out about that.
And on collector’s corner, the Gillette Techmatic, which is a cartridge style razor that was on, that actually has been to the moon. All right, guys, without further ado, let’s get on with the show.
So fall releases and we just recently now, if you’re fain of the podcast, you been listening for a few years. You know that every year, during the fall season, we do like we do something called the fall seasonal special. The fall seasonal special is basically a one stop shop for all fall seasonal products coming from the vendors and artisans alike, and this year I noticed a lot less than usual.
This is probably there was the usual releases that come out a lot. Lot of these are. Some of these releases are actually from certain vendors, are available all year round, probably about 15% of them, but they’re like Halloween related. So we, so I added them to the broadcast and it was really really kind of shocked to see some of the vendors didn’t come out with a lot of vendors, actually no longer with us any more. About four or five major vendors are gone, but we did see about four or five new vendors come up all right.
So looking at my database, it was in the going through and my database, actually, I should say, is a piece of paper with all of my vendors. All the vendors that I deal, that we deal with, that we see that are in the wet shaving world. I do write them down as soon as I see them. Give them a search and I have over a 100 of them right now. Really it is only about maybe a 15% maybe maybe 15% at most were participating in fall releases this year. You know you have your usual, your your Phoenix artisan accoutrements, you have your barrister and man with very limited this year only a couple of things coming out from them, holy black, came out with something small, actually something that we’ll be talking about a little bit more, wasn’t really shave related, didn’t have too much shaving stuff.
So what does this mean for the industry? Does this mean that maybe you know those fall releases? They’re slowing down a little bit or you know maybe it’s just not because of the pandemic. It’s been harder to get oils. Well, we’ll see in the next few weeks I’ve been contacting some vendors to get some information, to find out what happened and see if there’s if this is something that we should be getting that will happen next year. We’ll be just know. Fluke because of the pandemic, hopefully not did notice, though most of the core brands did come out with their fall releases as usual. So that was great. But a lot of a lot of other stuff was missing and I was a little bit disappointed, to be completely honest with you. But you know what, there is plenty of great stuff out there in the wet shaving world, still very strong. Hopefully next year we’ll see some more cool stuff.
So the Holy Black Holloween release came out. It was called Murder at the Holy Black and it was really like kind of like a Solve murder type type box or or type game. I think it was more like a game like murder at the Holy Black and had a bunch of papers and evidence and stuff like that really cool came with limited addition straight razor. That was part of, I guess, the murder weapon or something like that. But no, this is the second year in a row that not contain a soap and the first year without aftershave. So I’m not sure if the Holy Black was going on this route. This is really more of like an adventurous, like kind of cool game or kit to collect from them did sell out very quickly, but I didn’t have anything really, having related to the exception of the limited edition straight razor.
So again, that’s the second year in a row they didn’t have soap with their, with their there’s kids. So I’ll be completely honest, I was a little bit disappointed. I was looking forward to getting something. I still think that their best release was the Doctor Hyde and Jeckyl released what they did with the shave sop and the two different types of aftershaves with the lighted box and stuff. To me today that was about. I think that was about four years ago now, about three or four years ago when they came out of that kid. That’s the one kit that I regret not getting. I mean I could tell you right now that was the coolest release I’ve seen, yet sold out pretty quickly, had a few chances to get it second-hand and you could still actually get sealed box now it’s just you know how it’s been sitting there kind of like I don’t know if if the stuff of the lights in they’re going to work any more. Everything is just the newness is gone.
So to me I think they did a great job with the packaging on this one I know is sold out quickly but really getting away from the shaving aspect of the game. With this one we’re just a straight razor in there. So for those of you had it I bet you had a lot of fun playing the game with all the cool stuff. As always they go up above and beyond. So great release, just not shaving related. So hopefully next year we’ll get back into the soap game and aftershave game because we got to see that again. Because really that’s this is one of my favorite releases of the year and you know, without, to be completely honest, without soap or and aftershave is little bit of a disappointment being that it was a wet shaving company. So hopefully we see next year. But congratulations and great release in selling it out to the holy black.
Charcoal goods is now back with full safety razors . Finally right? So if you guys are a fan of charcoal goods and I’ll tell you little history about them, we’ve we’ve mentioned them many times on the podcast a few years ago. There there was a waiting list for these razors and it was impossible to get to get one from the from the manufacturer the way you wanted it right. So you had to go on a wait list. The wait list was a couple of months long and then eventually the weight list kind of went away and he started offering. Billy Brian started offering like limited edition razors online, and that’s how I actually got mine. I got the torpedo when it came out. I think it was like three or four years ago. So for a while there these raisers are all CNC machined, all done by one artist and everything is done by one person, comes packaged everything like that sent to you by one person and famously known for using an old-fashioned lathe on their first production handles. I believe it was. He used Old World War 2 lathe, which I think he still has, and and actually hand hammered some of of the handles with the original batches. Now, of course, charcoal goods has progressed since then and they’re they’ve made well over a 1000 razors to date and now that they are a little bit bigger, he actually relocated, moved and got his shop set up.
So after about a year of hiatus, charcoal goods now has full raisers available in their set. It’s the everyday safety razor which has been widely anticipated release. I’ve ben waiting for this one for a while and good to see that they’re back and really what it is. It’s just a three-piece safety razor that’s made from brass and available really right now to purchase, and it’s a little bit more affordable than the usual ones like the 150 to $180 range.
So honestly, these razors are the real deal. If you haven’t tried one, I do recommend it. If you, if you get, if you get a chance, if you get to borrow one from someone or get the purchase one yourself, our great razor is great packaging, great person to deal with, so really happy to see their back. You could see, I’m a fan and good to those, that the everyday safety razors are here and ready to be sent out and used, because that’s the best part of all this sweat shaving stuff. Using it.
Now, remember, when you purchase a brass razor, you know it is going to patina, it is going to change in color. That’s part of the game with it and that’s actually part of, I think, part of the fun. I like to buy the antiqued brass raisers whenever I do brass because I like to already have that, that patina already done. I guess I guess if that makes sense or makes it look a little bit older, but you can also get a fresh one that’s like shiny. That will eventually, honestly, we’ll go. We’ll turn that color as well in time. So Charcoal goods, congratulations on your return and hoping only the best for you.
Coming up next. Fine accoutrements Clubhouse scent now fine accoutrements has gone through a lot of restructuring. The original soap company that he was buying sap from or producing the soap actually went out of business or shut down after almost a 100 years or over, just over a 100 years of business? It was one of the same companies that did the original tobac and now it’s gone to different. Actually, this is about a year ago. So fine accouterments has gone to a different supplier for soap and the 21st century batch is out. And here.
So what better than to have a new scent? So back in September Clubhouse came out and I kind of honestly, I missed it and I apologize for that because I’m a big fan of this artistan in a big way and I just saw it on my on my email. I’m like, oh boy, I missed a cent and I didn’t say anything about it. So fine Clubhouse shaving soap provides like it’s inspired by Canoe, the Canoe 1936 by Dana and honestly it was. This sense was more popularized by Pinaud and it’s basically like based on, like a country club locker room and barbershop sent. So that’s what it is: little bit of a lighter, I guess a lighter barbershop scent with a little bit more of a, I guess, a little brighter colors, really sound. If you’re a fan of Canoe. This is a spot-on really homage to it, so definitely a good scent.
I’m looking forward to getting it and trying it out because I’m a big fan of some of these new releases, especially from fine accoutrements, and just to see that this looks like a club locker room type sent. So I’m guessing it’s going to be more like it. Honestly, it’s more like a little zestier with a talk base and a little bit lighter than that inspired by pretty popular scent. So fine clubhouse shaving soap is available a little problem wth the aftershave right now, once they go out of stock, if they still have it, it’s going to be out of stock for a while because they’re they’re having bottling issues there. They have no bottles for they’re after shave, looking like they’re not going to be having aftershave available until mid-to-late January because of the bottle shortages and until then, if the soaps are available. If you get a chance to get one of these, get it you know, really, honestly, go ahead and get one of the soap that moderately priced, good, good, good quality and the pucks and everything like that. I think they come now and you can get into too puck till, like the old-fashioned type pucks and honestly never had a problem with fine acrithe products. I think it’s great stuff, good soap. Try it out. If you get a chance, if you’ve already used it and you have some thoughts, send me an email, so I get to get a little bit more insight on, because I haven’t tried it yet.
All right, guys moving on through the pandemic struggles. You know talking about this and beginning of the cast. I guess this is long-overdue probably should have mentioned this several months ago, if not a year ago. But the pandemic struggles. What to expect for the holiday season? Well, honestly, we’ve seen a lot of shortages. We’ve seen alcohol shortages for vendors for making aftershaves. Now we’re seeing bottle shortages just mentioned previously that you know fine accoutrements, they don’t have any bottles. You know the bottles that came in were defective and they they need to order more and it takes time to get them.
And with the pandemic, with everything getting slow, slow down, yeah, it’s going to take some time to get. It could take months. So what does this mean for us, the consumer? And really, what do this mean for vendors? I mean really, it’s just if you think about it, common-sense would tell you that for us it might might affect us. You know we might not be able to buy our release that we want or or they might have to use a different type of base or balm like, believe. Barrister and man was using balms last year because I just couldn’t get. I guess perfumers, alcohol and or a lot of people will go to just making soap or just doing different releases.
So I think what we’re seeing is what I thought would have been over by now. I guess: the shortages, the pandemic shortages. It’s still very much there. You know it’s still there, it’s still happening, still affecting us and I don’t see it going away this year anyway now. Honestly, if you go to the grocery store today in the United States or any country, you’ll notice that the shelves are a lot lighter than they used to be. There’s a lot of shortages and the company that I work for, you know, working in the alcohol business, you know we’ve been building up inventory for the whole year, getting ready for the holiday season just to avoid that, because last year we had major supply issues. You know, and I think that that’s really what we’re going, what you’re going to see vendors do and what they’re going to have to do. The suppliers really build up on bulk up on on what they can when they can now.
What does that mean? You know for an artisan well, if you’re small artisan and you’re only doing a certain amount to buy 10000 bottles of something, it may not be feasible for you, one or practical for you. So you might see prices rise a little bit and in those areas mainly because they they’re going to have to buy them locally. The price might be a lot higher and just stay in stock because they can’t buy 10000 bottles at a time and get that price that they were getting a year ago now. Looking at also, we got to also look at, you know, inflation and all that stuff. The shares been very high. So I would say I would predict if you would ask me for pandemic effects to the wet shaving industry. One I would say pricing is going to go up to. I would still say supply will be a little bit dwindling here and there will be a little shortened. And three it might also make some small vendors, small artisans say just I’m out, you know, because I can’t pay two dollars or three dollars for a bottle, an empty bottle to put my aftershave in and then try and raise the price to two bucks and say: you know, after shave that was $20 is now going to be $25 it may not be able. They may not be able to do it. You know.
So I think that my thoughts are in the pandemic. It would be that how? How the pandemic is affected, the wet shaving industry are just that. I also think that we will see. It could have been the reason why we saw limited fall releases during the fall season special, which was still a decent amount. That was out there but much less than previous years. And that’s just because maybe you know companies are going more to the core. You know they’re saying I’m going to say my core product instead of going really seasonal, because I just don’t have enough to keep up with the demand on that. I don’t enough supplies or enough product. So why am I going? I can’t go and make a limited addition this year, you know, or something like that could be a reason. I would say that would be it so should after the holiday season, after this year, shall we see some more shortages? Yeah, I’m guessing we’re going to probably see it into 2022. You know easily know this is something that we’re all-new to this.
You know we’re new to this whole pandemic and how something that happened in March of 2020. We thought it was only going to last. Maybe a month or two ended up our into year. We’re going to be entering year three pretty soon. So I mean that’s just how it is and and how it’s going to be. So. Guys, cherish your stuff, that you have, utilize it and always, you know, go to support your local artisan and and just be there for them. And if you have an idea or something like that, you know try to stick with them and the companies that you’re you’re used, that you’re really that you love and and use because they they, they really need us more now than ever, right to stay and and and understand if there’s a price increase. You know, don’t don’t go emailing. You know the head of the artistans and say: hey, you know, you raise your price five dollars. Why? You know why I’m not going to buy it from you any more. Anything like that. Understand that this is happening to everybody. It’s happening to you at the grocery store right now. You may not even notice it, but prices have gone up 15 to 20% in the last three or four months. So it’s going to happen in the saving word too. So just be patient and be mindful and be nice to those vendors out there. vendors also be understanding too that you know you might have to explain or do something like that to your, your consumer, because not everybody really thinks about that kind of things that deeply into it. They just look at the price. You know the bottom line price. So let’s all get through this together. You know, hopefully this will be done soon and I know I’ve been saying that for a while and we’ve all been saying that for a while. But you know we’ll see. So that’s my thought on the pandemic struggles and what to expect for 2022. Hopefully, hopefully I’m wrong and it’s a lot better than than we think.
All right, guys now collect this corner this week. The Gillette, Techmantic, AKA the Apollo safety razor or cartridge razor or ribbon razor, whichever way you like to call it, it is still a very iconic razor in the wet shaving world. Now this is one of the only, if not the only, razor that Gillette no longer makes cartridges, for this is technically a cartridge razor, the technic, and it came out in the late sixties for really in response to a couple of the other ribbon style cartridge razors that were out from other vendors as well. Now let me made this one to make it easier. It’s again. No safe, no blade changes, it has a ribbon on it, a long ribbon blade that you, when you’ve done using it, you would click it or turn the little knob on it and it would turn into a fresh blade right, and then you think you get about five or six shaves out of it or six fresh blades out of it, and then you would just simply toss the cartridge out.
So what makes this razor iconic? Well, the razor is collectable and iconic because it was nicknamed the Apollo, because the astronauts actually brought it to space with them and astronaut Michael Collins, who was one of the astronauts on Apollo 11. He was actually filmed shaving with this razor during the during the Apollo 11 mission in 1969 and it was sent back to earth. And they got the shaving with the Gillette Techmatic and some, and I think it was old spice shaving cream in the tube. And that really brought this razor back to earth with a little bit of vengeance, very popular for a little while there, because the astros are using. It’s still collectable today.
Unfortunately, since Gillette no longer makes cartridges for this, I’m not too sure how great or how well this razor will shave in today’s world. Now I have that. I think I got it for very, very reasonable price a long time ago and the cart and I got like ten cartridges brand in the package, took them out and they’re not as sharp. You know, after a time with blades, sometimes you need to rehone them right. Even if they’ve been sitting for a while. They don’t just don’t stay sharp and it’s really hard to hone these things because you can’t really do anything with it. So if you haven’t a method or anything like that and how to do so, please email me and let me know, because I’d love to get love to try this myself and I just haven’t had the guts to do so. I have one in the box and I’m in perfect shape with a lot of cartridges, but I just never have used it.
So this razor works with that ribbon again. You could see in the picture on the show notes from the advertisement from Gillette and as you could see the ribbon raiser in there and also they made adjustable version to adjustable cartridges for it as well. So really cool. This razor was on the Moon, technically on the Moon, on the, on the Apollo mission, and was actually videotaped. Astronaught Michael Collins shaving with it during that during that mission, was also went up in the Apollo 12 as well, and then, I believe, after that they went through the Trak 2. When that came out in the mid seventies and it’s when they started using that one too. They also used a jolt. I think believe slim. Prior to this mission it’s been used in space but for the most part this is why they nicknamed the rays of the Apollo
Now the best part. If you’re looking for one of these and you want one, you can get it and it’s probably going to run you about 15 to $20 to be completely honest, there are a lot of them out there. They are not desirable because they really can’t be used and they, to be honest, they didn’t really give the greatest have in the world to begin with, and that’s kind of why they’re gone. So this is the first cartridge razor that Gillette ever came out with on the Moon and you could probably have it with a box-set maybe not new old stock, but definitely in a box that used for about 20 bucks, maybe less. That’s including shipping. I think I paid seven dollars for my for got in in the case. All right, so that’s collector’s corner for this week and can’t wait to bring you the next, because I got a couple of good ones in the works here for the for the end of the year.
All right, everyone that concludes our show for the week. Again Thank you all for joining us. Been great year so far 2021. I know it’s been a very struggling year for everybody else, but you know it’s been having a lot of fun. It’s good to know that we have wet shaving to to back up on and just to have some fun with and to take your mind off of the world and all that crazy stuff going on for at least ten to 15 minutes a day while we’re doing our morning shave. I remember our show is powered by sharpologist dot com, what your father didn’t teach you about shaving. Special thanks to you guys the listeners and Mark Mantic 59 for everything that he does with the washing community. All right guys, that includes the show for this week. We’ll see on the 22nd of November. Until then shave straight and shave safe. bye bye now.
