Unfortunately, as much stuff as I have, it doesn’t begin to be at the level of store stock.

It came as a pleasant surprise to read an article about a wet shaving store opening in New England.

Reading the article, marveling at the sheer amount of stock in the place, I figured this had to be a member of Badger and Blade.

Yeah, that thread didn’t take long to find. The proprietor of the new shop is none other than Ray ‘ThirdEye’ Fournier.

Well done, Ray!

You can stop reading now if you like. The rest of this post is devoted to sending what link love I can to Ray’s new site *ahem*: Wet shaving supplies and custom laser engraving at Gentlemen’s Best

And one more thing, Ray. I know the site is under construction, but you gotta start SEO’ing that bad boy now. ‘Home’ is no kind of title for a page. Call it your heading bro, “The Finest in Men’s Traditional Grooming/Wet Shaving!” Let Google know what’s going on there.

Good Luck!

Most Valuable Pimpin’.

The cynic in me says this is the hand of new AoS owners Procter and Gamble showing.

The cheapskate in me says to shut up and enter.

Way to go, Austin politicians! You really have all Texas’ ducks in a row!

Link: Turf War over Shaving

FragranceX ships to over 230 countries. Estimate your international shipping costs with their calculator tool now!

Now, that’s a sad story, but times are hard all over the world and this would be totally unremarkable except for one thing: Ahmad opened his shop in 2007.

What?

In the entire Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, there was not one barber until 2007.

OK, upon reflection, maybe that’s not so strange. Arab men aren’t big shavers and their hair is often wrapped up anyway. I’d think some of the guys in town (Ahmed’s shop was in Riyadh) would stop by for a trim or shave from time to time, but maybe not.

The other reason this article is worth looking at is for the first comment: “…Humiliation and insolent bad manners are the normal treatment of barbers in KSA; clients would hesitate to treat a fellow Saudi like that and so the experience would be unsatisfactory.”

Ohhhhhhhh. It’s not that they don’t use barbers in Saudi Arabia, it’s that they like to humiliate barbers. They must use Yemenis or something.

“Gimmie a little off the back and sides, and your wife’s face looks like the south end of a northbound goat. You stinkin’ Yemeni.”

Bet the tips are kind of slim, too.

It is something I would like to see happen.

Manufacturers, if you would like your product(s) fairly, unbiasedly reviewed, leave a comment and I will let you know where to send the free swag item(s).

Let’s take things up a notch.

Yours truly likes to play poker. One of my poker heroes, and by all accounts one of the nicest guys you could ever hope to meet, Phil Ivey, has made the final table at the Main Event of the 2009 World Series of Poker.

He was the last guy to make the table and has a chip stack disadvantage to seven of the other eight: thus a ‘close shave’.

Wet Shavers Blog sends a big congratulations to Phil, and I’ll be watching in November.

‘Blood’ in the same ad as ‘razor’? Fail.

Now it comes to my attention that fans of the show also consider Fusion-pimping in the ‘True Blood’ campaign a massive fail.

In the Anne Rice vampire canon, which apparently ‘True Blood’ follows, once you are made a vampire, your body is locked in for eternity at the point you were ‘made’.

So, if you’re a bearded vampire, it’s impossible to shave it off. It’ll come right back. If clean-shaven, you don’t need to shave at all.

Ouch! Too bad G/P&G. Should have put a little more homework into this call, eh? Double fail!

By the way, I’d like to use this space to give a shout out to the ‘True Blood’ fans who have stopped by. You guys, give old school wet shaving serious consideration. It won’t provide eternal life, but it will help clear your skin more than you ever dreamed possible.

Too bad, ’cause you’re missing this year’s World Beard and Mustache Championships today.

Check out the link to see some of the past winners, like this crazed leprechaun-looking guy.

Best of luck, fellas!

How did soldiers in the grimy trenches of France manage to keep themselves shaved? It would have been a real challenge to use a straight razor under those conditions.

King Gillette, perfector of the safety razor.

Enter a traveling cork salesman from Fond du Lac, Wisconsin, named King Gillette.

Gillette worked for the inventor of the cork-sealed bottle cap, who encouraged his young salesman to ‘invent something that could be used and thrown away’. Gillette saw how many bottle caps were tossed and knew the idea was sound.

Pondering the idea, he hit on one of those flashes of brilliance that changes the world.

He would market a safety razor with a thin, sheet-steel blade that didn’t need to be sharpened and could be thrown out when it became dull.

Moreover, he knew he could make a good profit by practically giving the razor handle away, then selling lots of disposable blades.

The formula still makes millions for the American Safety Razor Company (now better known as Gillette) to this day.

Gillette founded his company in 1903. After a couple of lean years, he was poised to make a deal with the US Government upon America’s entrance into the Great European War: Every U.S. serviceman was issued a field razor kit bought from Gillette by Uncle Sam.

The clean-shaven revolution was born.

Doughboys needed a good shave.

As we know, the fashion for American and European men in the 19th century and before was to wear a full beard. By the mid-20th century, the clean-shaven look was in. What caused the transition?

According to How Stuff Works, the answer is World War 1.

To make a gas mask fit properly, you need a shave. A beard would let gas in. When the conquering heroes returned home, they were clean-shaven and voila, an enduring fashion trend was born.

Compliment her slick bikini zone with a wet shave of your own.

While I usually eschew posts about pubic-area shaving for men as being not the focus of this blog, and not wanting to add to the noise level already present on the internet about the subject, I happened across a blog post detailing a Valentine’s Day bikini area shave party written by the founder of the company Hair Care Down There.

I felt it my duty to bring to wet shavers’ attention the possibilities of this idea.

All I might add is, be sure to compliment her newly-slick area with a well-executed, baby smooth wet shave for yourself. Enjoy.

The Frisco Enterprise reports that The Gents Place in Frisco will be offering a straight shave in Perry’s ’style’. I like that ’style’ because that indicates to me that Perry himself won’t be shaving you… but for 65 bucks you’ll get a shave just like he’d do it.

Gastis is well-known to shave geeks and this is really good news for the Big D.

For auld lang syne, my jo,
For auld lang syne,
We’ll tak a cup o’ kindness yet,
For auld lang syne.