So I am trying to find a place to buy shave stuff locally. I thought I'd put chain-stores in the title since were from all over the place. The catch is I'm looking for a place to buy GOOD stuff, not just m5 cartridges and gillette foam from a can. A place other than the internet to buy Proraso, Thayers, and such would be nice...
Thayers can be found in Whole Foods Markets and C.O. Bigelow shave cream is rebranded Proraso sold at Bath & Body Works. As for a chain store One Stop Shop for shaving supplies in the U.S.A., I don't know of any.
Other than Bath and Body Works for the C.O. Bigelow, I can't think of any either. In my opinion any of the blades you find at Walmart and/or a drug store are pretty expensive and shoddy when you compare them to the blades you can get off of the internet. The first 10 pack of blades I bought cost me $10 at Rite Aid, so expensive I felt like I was still using a M3. In contrast the last 100 box that I got online only cost $17. So while it would be nice to be able to buy all of our favorite products locally (not to mention cheaper due to S&H), there isn't really any place or even places to do so.
What a wonderful segway to my Dennis Leary style rant of the day. So there I was at Walgreens trying to pick up my blood pressure meds on the way home from work. After being assured earlier in the week that they would call in a prescription and everything would be groovy to pick up my meds on Friday after work, I arrive only to find that this is not the case. My doctors office played the fax us something and we'll fax in the new prescription, two insurance companies said they would not pay for the prescription that was called in earlier this week, etc. etc. So whilest my Dr's office and the pharmacist try to figure out collectively which is their ass and which is a whole in the ground, I retire to the shave aisle and attempt to keep my blood pressure from spiking. The shave aisle at Walgreens is just getting more pathetic by the day. There's SE and DE blades, Aqua Velva Blue, VDH Deluxe, the much maligned VDH boar brush and it just goes down hill from there. No Clubman, no Williams soap, No English Leather, nothing much that's very cool. Just a bunch of razors that look like they came out of a McDonalds Happy Meal, $25 packages of all plastic, 27 blade cartridges and canned goo that sucks nearly as bad as their other shaving products. As I waded through the stark realization that these were the kinds of BS irritants that make me have to take that damn medicine in the first place, an idea hit me. I want to open a drug store. I'll call it G.O.B. (Grumpy Old Bastard) Drugs. My pharmacy would only carry hangover remedies, blood pressure medication, hard on pills and those sticky hot things for when your back hurts. The rest of the store would have 8 aisles distributed as follows: Two aisles would be real razors, shaving soap and cream (not in cans). There would be four different lines of shaving brushes, every old school aftershave ever made, scuttles, Old Spice mugs, vintage straight razors and strops. Aisles three and four would be dedicated to the evil tobacco weed. There'd be chewing tobacco and snuff, pipe tobacco and cigars. I'd bring back the huge wall displays of reasonably priced Kaywoodie pipes. There would be spitoons in every aisle and a big neon sign on the front door that says SMOKE'EM IF YOU GOT'EM. Aisle five would be the pig fat and barbecue aisle we'd have a selection of pork products including every type of sausage ever made, a modest selection of both hot sauces and barbecue sauces, smokers, barbecue grills, coolers, beer coozies and the like. Aisles six and seven would contain beer, lots of it. A huge selection of domestic beer, import beer, microbrew beer and even several brands of root beer. Aisle eight would be basically a soda fountain type affair with a counter and stools we'd serve coffee flavored coffee and donuts in the morning and oysters on the half shell and beer from noon until 6 A.M. All my employees would be smoking hot young babes in string bikini's except for one guy at the soda fountain who would be a big fat guy who had back hair like an ape, wore a wife beater t-shirt, chained smoke Swisher Sweet Cigars and started every story he ever told with "Now this is no s**t! There I was..." Only classic rock music would be played in my store. No Techno, no rap crap, no elevator music, the Doors, the Stones, Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray 24 hours a day. Just as I began to feel a bit better. The pharmacist (who was neither smoking hot nor bikini clad) tells me I should probably come back tomorrow for my prescription. So now I got that to look forward to, burning valuable weekend time hassling with someone about filling a prescription. Unbelievable.
G.O.B, add anything by Eric Clapton to the music mix, maybe a few old fashioned candy bars and penny candies, and a vintage magazine rack and you get my vote. Kaywoodie, how long has it been?
Funny, I thought everyone from New Jersey was already here :happy102 Sorry Bud, couldn't resist that one
Well chain stores good luck with that. I do have one piece of advice. I don't know where you live, but if it's similar to where I live I understand your pain. My town is small and ultra suburban. Chicago is not to far but to far to just stroll on by when I need good shaving stuff. I went to caswell massey website and did vendor locator and I found a place 5 blocks from my house. Now thats luck. Weird thing is the store is a papergoods store that also sells antiques. Never would have thought to go there to look. I go down there and they have hardly anything but it's still better then walgreens. But goes to show you, you never know where they sell shaving stuff. Caswell Massey is a great company and i love their scents and products, company has been around since 1750 something i think, been told they provide all the soaps and stuff for the whitehouse since Washington. I'd do a vendor search see if there is someone near you. The other option is to go to a local beauty supply place. Many womens makeup and soap companies make mens stuff too, so smaller non chain stores could order stuff for you. My neighbor runs one of those stores and she hooks me up sometimes. Hope that helps. Good luck.
Nope some move to PA.... we're #2 on the receiving the retired haha. But man G.O.P sounds good just get a website too
When I will go to Florida, as a tourist, I will prefer to visit this "shop" than any other theme park :happy102
No CLubman surprises me as my Walgreens is always pretty well stocked on original, Lilac Vegetal and Bay Rum. Walmart, Price Chopper and CVS are the only places I can find Williams at if I wanted to get some. English Leather on the other hand, I was informed by the woman working the perfume counter at my local Walgreens, that they stopped carrying it recently. I was able to find it in the cologne section of my local Walmart though.
one thing about Walgreens (at least mine) is they do have Nivea ASB, which i heard is decent. And yes, G.O.B. would be a dream come true.
G.O.B. sounds like a place I would like to frequent..lol I found a small store in the Los Angeles area that has some nice shave supplies..C&E, Musgo, Jack black, and a couple other brands I cant remember off the top of my head..There is also a C&E store in La Habra, AOS in L.A. and one other I cant rememer at the moment.
