The Story: Arborist
Peter Polito
The Story consists of six vignettes describing a small part about how each scent came to be. We want you to know more about us—we believe personal connections are the key to understanding people and understanding people is the key to joy. Consider this one small way in which we can connect with you.
Arborist
A majestic oak tree at one of my favorite (secret) spots along the Big Sur Coast.
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 all of them fall woefully short. If Arborist is just a generic scent it might seem as like there is not much of a story, but that would be incorrect.
There were two smells that radiated from my dad's shop growing up. The sharp (and to me) intoxicating smell of fresh fiberglass on surfboards and fresh cut wood. Let me be the first to say—and you can thank me later—I will not attempt to create a fiberglass scented beard oil. But the wood shop . . .
Whether it was the small step he made to help me get on my bike when I was too nervous to get up on my own after several falls as I learned to ride without training wheels or the next big home project. The smell of fresh cut lumber was a fixture in my dad's shop, just about every weekend.
Trips to Gieb Lumber felt like adventures to me as a toddler. But the real adventure was when he let one of us kids help him on the table or band saw, both relics from the 1940's. We learned very quickly that you had to turn the table saw on just right because if you were not paying attention 110V of AC power would surge into your fingers (it was the 80's, things were different). As we got older the smell of pine 2x4's and plywood became more exotic both in their provenance and the complexity of the cuts. When I was about 12 my dad rediscovered a half-built acoustic guitar he had started 25 years earlier and the great hobby of his younger years began anew.
There was now the smells of purple heart, mahogany, birds-eye maple, and ebony finger boards. The wood cutting became a little less frequent as he would now spend an entire day building a jig to make the cut just right. Beyond the fresh-cut wood there was now the smell of water-soaked wood bending on the hot iron, glue, epoxy, sandpaper, and coats and coats and coats of lacquer.
The Arborist is not necessarily an ode to my father though he is worthy of such an honor. Instead it is an ode to the smell of hard work, craftsmanship, and of life-lessons taught to young boys eager to learn.
Let the smell of cedar soak into your beard and remind you that you are a man and by that very truth, young men will look to you as a guide on their own masculine journeys. So smell good, Live Handsome, and try and be a man worthy of replication.