Trad Xmas List: Badger Pubic Hair

 It looks like she has Buckwheat in a leg lock

Badger pubic hair, and underarm hair as well, are used to make shaving brushes.  Most of the hair comes from China where Badger is a popular dish.  The best Badger brushes are made in the UK where anachronisms make for viable business. And a brush shave, like the Yardley ad says, is still the best shave in the world. 

Yardley, 1960 (click image to enlarge)

The best pubic hair for your shaving brush is mostly white/silver tipped.  The darker the hair the poorer the quality.  Is that because the older gray haired Badgers have softer pubic hair than the younger and more coarse Badgers?  Could be.  I'm old enough to know I'd leave "Fuck" out of a book title.

Best Badger at George Graham

Something -  fuck yeah coarse - will set you back $50 or so.  Hair that's almost black belongs to a brush that bristles crudely against the skin and lacks the essential elegance that comes with wisdom, maturity and good taste. It's referred to, ironically, as 'Pure.'

'Best' Badger looks like a Goth girl's hair on Sunday morning.  Streaked in black and gray, it feels like a well traveled 50 year old man who eats and drinks too much.  Soft, warm and usually compliant...$150 - $200.

Finally, there's the snow haired old man known as 'Super' Badger. Look for Spencer Tracy gray. This is the best of the best and, like an AR15,  who knows how much longer it'll be around.  Costing between $300 and $400, the sting of price is offset by a lifetime's service. Most high end makers offer free repairs should you miss your shaving cup and dunk your brush in a tumbler of Scotch.

Check out Pasteur Pharmacy and Cambridge Chemists in NYC.  Art of Shaving?  They're everywhere...consequently, it's pretty watered down -  More mall than soul. More Dunkin' Donuts than Cafe Grumpy. More NASCAR than Formula 1. Gutsier than USA Today, Hallmark Channel, Bennigan's, well done steak, Miller Light, Men's Wearhouse, awesome, Dockers, Cole Haan Kilties, Cadillac, Bob Seeger, red zinfandel, Texas Toast, Tommy Bahama and all the rest of the mediocre crap that's served up everywhere in this screwed up...

A Saturday Shave - Crema Sapone

Crema Sapone Shaving Soap

I thought this Italian shaving soap would come with its own bowl but no such luck. It looks like a large brick of snot but it smells like almonds and lathers up fast and rich. You tear off a piece and cram it into a bowl of your own. It's soft and very malleable. And this box looks like it'll last a couple years at least.

The Most Fun You Can Have With Your Smoking Jacket On

I've smoked everything. Lucky and Camel cigarettes. 1Q pipe tobacco by Lane. The Cuban Punch Punch and the 1926 Padron. No more. The consumption of tobacco came to a screeching halt when the Doc found something on the lip. All is well but for a few months there was a great deal of reflection on the leaf and nothing has ever had the effect on me like a doctor saying, "...it may be cancerous." It wasn't but it was enough to quit. All of it.

So in smoking's place -- I've consumed myself with something else to do in a smoking jacket. Shaving. So far I've tried razor blades made by Astra, Feather, Shark, 7A.M., Sharp, Merkur and Derby. They're cheap. No more than $2 for five and they come in the most amazing and colorful packaging. Just like European cigarettes.

I was happy to use my Santa Maria shaving cream in a can ($25) and even happier to buy it from Phoebe Cates at Blue Tree. Her shop's web site is here and be sure to watch the film clip on the home page. Funny stuff with Kevin Kline. I had been to the shop a couple of times without a Phoebe sighting. My luck, the one time she was there I had Kim Chi for lunch.

While Santa Maria is good stuff and lasts for donkey years...I swear I get a year out of a can...it doesn't come close to lather spread on with a badger brush. The luxury of this is hard to describe. Let me try. While I was in the Army, I spent a week in the jungles of Panama without a shower save getting rained on almost every day. I had an itching jungle 'crud' everywhere and I wanted two things. A woman with very long finger nails to scratch my feet and a hot shower. Back at Ft Sherman, I did get a hot shower and I'll never forget that feeling of being reborn as hot water washed off seven days of jungle funk. Slathering warm lather on your face with a badger brush comes very close to that -- without having to endure the jungle part.

I strongly advise against slapping cologne on after shaving. The slow and careful shave with a heavy safety razor is a radical difference from the plastic Quarto razor that vibrates and the blue - green gel that smells like a J Crew store in an outlet mall (what is that smell?). I like to use what's known as skin food. Trumper's makes a nice lime and coral skin food I've tried but I really like the glass bottle D.R. Harris comes in. It's also cheaper.

After skin food comes cologne. I want to explain how I feel about men who smell like a perfume counter on the street. It's not attractive and I associate it with men who wear lots of Gucci, a black t shirt with a closed vent sport coat and affect an Italian accent even though they're from Ft Wayne, Indiana. I'm not saying you can't. I'm saying you shouldn't. For me, cologne that wears off quickly is A-Okay in my book. The scent is just for me. Perhaps the last bit of pleasure I treat myself to before going out into the world of pissed off clients, homicidal bus drivers and odors wafting through the 59th Street subway station. Odors so bad --I don't even want to know where they come from.

By the way, Herzfeld cognoscenti may be smiling at the label with the old 509 Madison Avenue address. That's where the shop opened in 1949. It moved to 507 Madison in 1984 and then to 118 E 57th in 2005. Great history, a wonderful staff and a beautiful tailor's ruler they refuse to sell me.

Paging Mr. Zorblade...

Mr. Ray Zorblade...

Part of the selection at the Pastuer Pharmacy on Lexington Avenue. I love New York City.

So Long, Gillette

The Merkur...It's not a Ford

A while back I posted a photograph of my (old ) medicine cabinet. Very slap - dash. Nothing to really write about. Took all of five minutes. Kind'a like this one. But the response was amazing. More comments than I've ever recieved and lots of great advice...

One suggestion I took was from Robert:

"For a razor, you might ditch Gillette altogether and try a Merkur HD and their double-edged blades. The handle will set you back a tiny bit, but you'll more than make up for it on the back end with less expensive blades. As long as you're careful, you'll find them more forgiving than a Mach to the Nth Power blade. Also - it won't look like you're parking a toy rocket ship in your medicine cabinet."

Wise words, sir.

So, it's been a week now. How is it? I compare shaving with a Merkur to stepping out on a frozen lake. There's some apprehension and I'm taking it very slow but with Gillette blades pushing $40 for eight - - it's well worth the risk. And it looks so much better than the blue and orange rocket ship. You know, if word gets out that a simple safety razor is this good and this cheap... Well, I wouldn't want a be a brand manager at Gillette.

Smell Good

The Trad Medicine Cabinet

There's a lot of men out there who think puttin' on some scent is not a manly thing. My father for one. I remember his smell like it was yesterday. The cigarette smoke hit you first followed by a ever so slight fragrance of B.O. filtered through a wash & wear khaki uniform. Shortly after 17:00 hours the juniper from the afternoon's libations mingled with the B.O. and stale smoke creating a multi-layered scent I'll never forget. "I can't seem to forget you...your Windsong stays on my mind."

In short, my Dad stunk. Plain and simple. Fortunately for me... he wasn't all that much of a hugger and fortunately for him... I didn't have the stones to complain. I only have them now because we're thousands of miles apart. I may wear tutti frutti suede shoes but I do smell nice. By the way, my father's father wore Christian Dior Eau Savage. Always. I know. I looked in his medicine cabinet all the time.

Look, I'm not saying you douse yourself in Polo like my old boss did. 200 employees in the Chicago office could smell that guy coming 10 minutes before he got to you. He reminded me of a 13 year old after gym class with a can of Right Guard.

If you're over 30 years old I'm gonna throw some advice your way. Doesn't matter if you listen or not. I used Old Spice in the Army. I'd get outta the shower, dry off, throw Old Spice talc all over me (sadly no longer made) and dab some Old Spice cologne here and there depending on if I was dating or not. Simple and cheap. I was also 20.

If you're over 30 and purchase your cologne at Walgreen's -- pay attention...dude. There's an old saying which goes like this, "Never...No, always buy the best you can afford." I know... I talk a lot about cheap stuff but cologne is something I don't wanna buy at some discount center. Who knows what that crap is. Suck it up and pay retail. And experiment. That's half the fun.

I've used, since I was 15: Canoe, Old Spice, Aramis, Devin, Royal Copenhagen, Eau Savage, Greenbriar, Eau D'Hermes, Vetivier, D.R. Harris Sandlewood, Knize 10, Trueffit & Hill Spanish Leather, Molton Brown something or other and most recently, concentrated Ylang Ylang. What I still use is in the medicine cabinet up there. There's nothing wrong with smelling good. Unless you're on patrol in which case the bad guys can smell you and will kill you. If you're not on patrol-- you may wanna give a grown up cologne some thought.