Too bad you weren't there last week. If there was a clearance sale you might have had a chance to pick something up at a reasonable price.
I credit my wife and Art of Shaving for starting me on this journey back at the end of 2015. She wanted to buy me something different for Xmas. Went into the store and came out with one of their medium travel kits in sandalwood. It included a small pure badger brush, cream, pre-shave oil and balm. I went home and immediately started checking out all things classic wet shaving. Prior to that I had been using a Mach 3 and Edge gel. And my aftershave was Olay Complete moisturizer. Little did she know but she had just created a monster. But my obsession led me to realize that AOS is not cheap. In fact I’d say the most ridiculously priced stuff is their hardware. I have come to love the shaving cream and their sandalwood cream is heavenly. And their creams are high quality. Still pricier than some but still reasonable. Their pre-shave oil is way too thick for me so I no longer use that. The balm is real nice and it sits in my travel kit until it’s gone. The brush was all I had and it was serviceable but I started buying brushes and it is no longer used anymore either. Too floppy and scritchy for me. I will always have their sandalwood cream in my den but I find the other scents uninteresting. Just my take on the place.
Yep, same here (but in 2004 ). For those who have been at this game a while, does it seem to you that AOS might be--at least beginning to--return from the Dark Side? In their early years AOS was almost like a well-funded "artisan"--they made their own brushes, the ingredient quality was excellent (i.e. tallow in their soaps), and many of the employees were genuinely (or at least reasonably) knowledgeable and helpful. Then they were sold to P&G and the bean-counters took over: prices shot way up, quality dropped noticeably, and their product line-up seemed to lose focus. But I've noticed over the past year or so things seem to be turning around. They have expanded the shaving cream profiles to include some new scents, added some additional grooming "software," and de-emphasized their hardware offerings. Anyone who has been in an AOS store recently noticed?
