I moved to Austin from the Hawaiian island of Oahu four years prior, and despite having a beard for over twenty years, I had never seen Whisker Wars and didn’t know that beard clubs existed. Upon moving to Austin, I started a podcast with a comedian friend of mine, John Tole. His girlfriend at the time was a member of the Austin Facial Hair Club (AFHC) and encouraged me to participate in the Six Month Sprint category of their annual beard contest. I did. And that’s how it all began.
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For $2000 I found a 1992 Nissan Pathfinder. It had a cabernet-red interior, four-wheel drive, manual transmission, climate control, and 130k miles. It originated from Jersey and had the cancer (rust damage from road salt) but I didn’t care. I took it to a mechanic, found out it needed ~$1000 in repairs. The owner dropped the price a bit, we split the repairs, and I was the proud new owner. Within a week it had an upgraded stereo and sound system. Priorities, am I right?
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Dad relocated our family to Salina, Kansas in 1976 to help Woodgrain Moulding expand their distribution throughout the Midwest. Woodgrain specialized in trim pieces for manufacturing housing, and this opportunity offered relief from a depressed job market in urban Texas. And in the spirit of dogfooding, Dad bought noice double-wide on an acre in the Sundowner West mobile home park.
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It was February 2005 when I made the memorable trip to Death Valley NP. It wasn't my first trip, nor was it my last—just memorable. I had planned to go with my friend Dave but the week leading up to the trip, I learned that a childhood friend of mine had died suddenly and tragically. I wanted to be alone. I wasn’t particularly emotional about his passing, after all, we hadn’t kept in touch, but there was still a deep longing for solitude.
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I have had a beard for a long time. Suffice it to say, when I first started with bearding Ask Jeeves was as en-vogue as Google. Now, many, many years later there is a glut of information. Just googling “beards” will yield tens of thousands of pages on the matter. However, most of these pages are either littered with incomplete information or focused more on selling you something than passing along the information you seek. Here, we aim to fix that. Below we explain the nuts and bolts of beard growth. We’ll focus on a) what is happening b) how the different beard growth phases vary from person to person, c) some challenges that are likely to arise, and d) how to handle these challenges.
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Since day 1, care for our customers has been a pillar at The Bearded Savant. Suffice it to say, it’s been a journey. We have worked tirelessly to develop a collection that will meet the needs of every man. We do this by sourcing quality ingredients and developing quality scents. So it brings me great joy to announce that we have made one giant leap forward to provide our customers with the best of the best. Starting the first of the year we have moved to USDA Organic carrier oils, butters, and waxes.
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If you look at our average return customer, we're filling orders for them just about every other month. Can we make it easier on you? How about a year's supply of beard oil and balm?
For $17/month, subscribe to our Year of Oil and Balm and we will send you 1 oz of beard oil and beard balm every other month for a year. Its that simple. And to make it even sweeter, your first shipment will include our exceedingly popular Bearded Savant T-shirt. Forget about reordering, forget about shipping, forget about all that; we'll deal with it.
We'll sweeten the deal even more to kick off the holiday season. Purchase a year of oil and balm and we'll add a tin of Solid Cologne. When all is said and done you're looking at $119 in total savings. You're practically making money (or making someone's year)!
We are daily users of both beard oil and balm, but if you're not, we have a Year of Beard Oil (for $11/month) and a Year of Beard Balm ($9/month) for you.
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Over the last year, we have been working tirelessly to not only produce incredible products for you but to put together great packages that are easy to customize and order. We have enhanced our gift packages, added new shirts, hats, and hoodies, and for the first time, we are incorporating our most popular new product, solid cologne.
Gift Packages
We have a gift for everyone. Whether he has a beard, 'stache, or something in between, we have him covered. Pair our beard oil with a balm, a wax, or both. Every package includes your choice of a men's or women's shirt (get them both something), or one of our two hats. New this year, we are allowing you to tack on solid cologne for $5 off the retail price (gasp!).
Apparel
Let's cut right to the chase. Our shirts are possibly the most comfortable shirt you're ever going to wear. The tri-blend material is like being wrapped in sunshine and happiness, not to mention that if you walk around wearing The Bearded Savant logo, people are going to compliment you--it happens to us all the time. We've expanded our line to include a new men's design (and it comes in Children's sizes!), women's V-neck and racerback tank top, and the incredibly soft and comfortable hoodie. Did we mention we have great new trucker and dad hats as well?
Print
Our newest product is the fruit of our collaboration with Telos Design, a beautiful print encapsulating The Bearded Savant ethos. Beauty. Nature. Joy.
Don't see what you want or want to develop a combination we don't carry? Let us know, we'll see if we can make it happen, support@thebeardedsavant.com.
During the month of November, men from all over the world grow their lovely facial locks to raise awareness and to raise money in support of prostate cancer research. In 2016, the Movember project raised $60 million and we want to do our part. Last year we offered a 1/2 oz beard oil (just the right size for a 4 week sprint) and sent 10% of net sales to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. This year we are going to do one better.
To recognize the month of Movember and to do our part, this year we will be offering the same great bottle of beard oil with 98% of net sales going to the Prostate Cancer Foundation. The remaining 2% will go to fulfill our promise to help end chronic homelessness in Austin, TX.
We encourage you to find some friends, coworkers, fellow subway riders, or GoT watch party dudes and take part in the Movember challenge.
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Every bearded savant product was designed with one idea in mind: Creating the best damn product for your skin and beard. This is why the ingredients in our products are primarily moisturizers. People with experience in the skin care industry are always nodding their head in agreement as I list off our carrier oils and butters—jojoba oil, sweet almond oil, Shea butter, cocoa butter, and beeswax. These ingredients not only make amazing men's grooming products (which they do) but more generically, they are the base of premium skin products!
Today, I want to share some non-traditional uses for our products. These are safe ways to apply our products to your body for reasons that have nothing to do with facial hair. Spoiler-alert: most of these suggestions have come from the wives of men who use our products.
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We get this question all the time: Why does my beard itch? Today we look at three growth stages that can lead to elevated itchiness and discomfort, and in extreme cases, beard dandruff. You can also check out our earlier blog post on the subject here.
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Today, we want to step out of generalities and step into specifics. Now, we are going to look at specific maladies. Below we list the most common maladies affecting bearded savants (such as yourself), the scent most apt to address it, and the key essential oil in that scent. Disclaimer: Everyone's skin is different and below are recommendations. So, if you have a malady listed below, give our recommendation a shot, if it works, Fantastic! Let us know! If it doesn't, feel free to reach out to us and we'll try and find something that might work better for you.
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The routine
For those of you that are busy, here's the cliff's notes version:
- Every day—comb it, oil it, balm it, and if 'stached wax it.
- Every week—wash it.
- Every month—trim it.
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Beginning on 1 August 2017, The Bearded Savant gives back. We are teaming up with Community First! Village by offering 2% of net retail sales to the mission to support the chronically homeless of Central Texas. Community First! Village is a 27-acre master planned community that provides affordable, permanent housing and a supportive community for the disabled, chronically homeless in Central Texas. A development of Mobile Loaves & Fishes, this transformative residential program exists to love and serve our neighbors who have been living on the streets, while also empowering the surrounding community into a lifestyle of service with the homeless. We could not be more excited about this partnership and we view this 2% as a jumping off point. We look forward to how this partnership develops moving forward.
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We're excited to announce a new project here at thebeardedsavant.com called, Why'd I grow it? Make no mistake, the number of bearded men has exploded in recent years after several decades of too many naked faces (props to my dad for staying strong). So we'd like you to tell us why you grew the hair on your face.
I've been asking men this for some time, the first run of responses can be found on a brand-spanking new feature on our site, Why'd I Grow It? The responses so far have been amazing.
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Why a Bearded Savant Comb?
Quality. Quality. Quality. Our combs are designed and constructed by a master comb maker with over three decades of experience using handmade tools, curated wood selection, with maximum craftsmanship. The grain of the handle and teeth are normal to each other, which puts the grain in the same direction to the maximum stress, making them much stronger (there are a lot of beard combs laser etched out of a single piece of wood, which cannot compete on strength). The shape of the comb makes it easy and comfortable to use. There are no finishes of any type. Looking at the image it looks like there is a varnish or lacquer, but this is merely the result of quality sanding work. At the end of the day, our combs are extremely well made, with high-quality materials, designed for maximum strength, comfort and ease of use, with no coatings or paints. Quality. Quality. Quality.
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We are beyond excited to announce the release of The Bearded Savant Solid Cologne. From the inception of The Bearded Savant we have been dreaming of this day. In this cologne is the summation of many late nights testing different ingredient blends to achieve just the right consistency, an incredible amount of product testing, and hours envisioning just how to maximize the customer experience. Now we're here: Launch Day.
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I saved the Lion’s Mane for last. Not only that, but I resisted the temptation to post this vignette until now. This story belongs in the winter, it belongs in the cold, because that is where it was born. If you’ve been following along with these vignettes, every scent is inspired by a specific experience or place from my past. Lion’s Mane takes me to the most remote place I’ve ever been: Southern Chile, Patagonia, to the north flank of Monte San Lorenzo.
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While I would like to tell a story about how the Alchemist came to be that was equal parts personal and thought-provoking. But it would be just that: a story. The Alchemist isn't rooted in some childhood experience or important life event. It is just a smell. A really fantastic smell but a smell none-the-less.
I stumbled onto the Alchemist by accident. In the early days of The Bearded Savant I was working to expand upon the initial aromatic offerings I would ultimately bring to market. I wanted something out of the norm, a bit more exotic. So, I grabbed several different essential oils out that fit the bill, mixed them together with my carrier oils, and Alchemist was born. I inhaled it and I knew it was perfect from conception.
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The arborist has an aromatic peer in many of the beard oil companies out there but no peer when it comes to the quality of the aroma. That is to say, nearly every beard oil company attempts to recreate the 'lumberjack' scent but many of them fall woefully short. If these is a generic scent it may seem as though there is not much of a story here, but that would be incorrect.
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