Blackland Brotherhood (BB)

This razor has commandeered my den. I'm sitting here this morning, planning my shave ('cause yes, I do have that kind of time), and thinking, "Hey, I haven't used my Feather AC since the Blackbird showed up, or ooh ooh I haven't used any of my SE's for a long time.." And what do I do? Go straight into the bathroom and shave with my Blackbird.

I have not ever had a razor command my interest for this many consecutive shaves. My ATT S2, which was my all time favorite, has been sitting for a month. I am faceterbating all day. I am fantasizing all day about when I can have two Blackbirds, maybe on the same shave, in some sort of perverse shaving threesome. I might just have to sell it so I can get back to my normal healthy level of shaving fanaticism.

 

Great write up, super funny!!!

 

Someone on another forum did a really awesome job on their BB by removing a lot of the black oxide and taking the steel to a slight polish. Inspired by him, I decided to take off a bit of black from one and make a battle-worn sort of look. Absolutely love this one. Ugly in all the right ways.

 

I think mine might look like that in 10 years.

 

Well, it looks like the success of the Blackbird has started to spread:

http://theholyblack.com/collections...b3074a&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter

I can't quite believe what I'm reading. Surely this must infringe intellectual property rights???

 

That's pretty weak unless they completely missed the Blackbird's introduction and success...

 

This is so wrong!

 

The shaving community is a small world. There is no way he didn't hork the idea, and it won't take long before the very people who would be the targeted purchasers of this abortion, are talking about the lame ripoff.

Power of the pen, Baby.

 

The wife and I did our income taxes the other day, I'm working on getting a Blackbird out of the deal.

 

Just for a follow-up: Stefan from The Holy Black did respond to my e-mail; here is his response: /begin quote:

I honestly hadn't heard of this blackbird razor. I just decided that SR(For Safety Razor) and -71 for the BLACK Stealth airplane the SR-71 blackbird kind of made sense, since I was selling an all black razor. To be fair, he calls his the blackbird (obviously based on the SR-71) and I call mine the SR-71. They are in two totally different markets and price points, so I don't think there will be too much overlap. I've had this planned since I started The Holy Black almost 4 years ago, so I'm not having too much trouble sleeping, TBH. I don't have a kickstarter or a backer, so I have to follow my own timeline. Thanks for your inquiry though. /end quote....

To be honest, this is somewhat well thought out, and necessarily polite, but it brings up a few thoughts:

-His use of "The Blackbird has Landed" is like a Powerball winning coincidence.

-His business is barely (if) three years old, at least according to his own words on his website. Even if he did have a pipe dream four years ago, Shane beat him to market, so pick another name. @planof man brought up a very good point when he asked Stefan on Facebook if it was cool to write a novel and then call it War and Peace without checking to see if someone else had ever used it.

Honestly, how much R and D (as was claimed by one of his defenders on another site) does it take to order up a couple of hundred razors from a factory in India? The same factory that markets clones to a handful of other suppliers? Seems to me like all it takes is some capital, or a decent plan layout to get some small financing. The only timeline this guy was stuck with was CASH.

Which leads me to my final conclusion: in a hobby related industry like we are involved in, MOST of us sort of come to expect a certain amount of "integrity/class/ gentleman-ship". Life is more disappointing than that. From taking a look at his web-site and Facebook page, he actually is trying to appeal to a different crowd. (The bikers, beards, straightrazor.com, bladesgrim market.). If he is being truthful about the naming of his product, this MIGHT be a bit of a sucker punch to him and he should be given a little time to decide what is going to do. (I have no idea if there are any copy write/naming infringement issues, and that is obviously up to Shane.) It seems to me however, assuming his intentions were honest, that the only right thing to do is change the name of the razor. It would seem from his marketing, that it would be as simple as changing the name on the website. Somehow I doubt that for thirty bucks you are getting tins or boxes or much marketing investment with your razor. I'm sure that he could come up with a suitable name to target his market: Black Death, Night Rider, Night Train, The Reaper etc...

As he pointed out himself, and Shane noted, it is a cheap razor that is unlikely to confuse anyone as to its origin. As fired up as I was, for me to continue bringing it up will probably only turn on a segment of people who dream of a black 39C clone, and sell more razors for him.

Low class is low class, and I/we sure can't change it.

 

Saturday, January 30, 2016

Pre: Hot Shower, Sterling Pre-Shave Soap, Chatillon Lux Pre-Shave Butter
Soap: Aqua Di Parma
Brush: Elite Razor TGN Silvertip
Razor: Blackland Blackbird
Blade: Feather #3
Post: Alum, Witch Hazel +Menthol, Whipped Shea Butter, Fine Fresh Vetiver

 

Mark, what elegant gear!

 

I know I sound like a broken record but with that sensitive skin you would seem to be an ideal candidate for trying a C.W.S. I also had inflammation problems, not that severe, but alittle. No more.