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Does Branding Matter?

Interesting trend of comments about The Holy Black.

My first thought is that I do not like the name. I mean what is holy about black? Though I am taking the religious idea of light vs dark a bit literally (good versus evil) and thinking this company is trying too hard to be edgy.

Not a critical mistake until I go to their website and see that this was the company that essentially copied the Wade & Butcher logo. Months ago I was looking at shavettes and found them. But never in a million years would I buy anything from them as they are plagiarizing an well respected brand.
 
No it does not matter to me.

I will try a soap if the scent is appealing to me.
Once I have purchased it I will rate it on its lather performance and scent to see if I will restock it.
 
Interesting trend of comments about The Holy Black.

My first thought is that I do not like the name. I mean what is holy about black? Though I am taking the religious idea of light vs dark a bit literally (good versus evil) and thinking this company is trying too hard to be edgy.

Not a critical mistake until I go to their website and see that this was the company that essentially copied the Wade & Butcher logo. Months ago I was looking at shavettes and found them. But never in a million years would I buy anything from them as they are plagiarizing an well respected brand.

A quick scan of their website leaves me with the impression that selling a lifestyle is the main concern, we're bad and if you want to be bad dude too...

Brings to mind a Stones song i liked in the sixties.
dave
 
Being new at this I just use whatever I can get my hands on due to my work location. My first wetshave was with an Arko Shavestick. I just used Proraso Green Soap for the first time 12 hours ago. Both gave me a great shave. I have no idea if they are high end or low end products. As of right now I have some Williams Mug Shaving Soap on the way.

I figure the Arko Shave Stick and Williams Mug Shaving Soap will be my everyday and I'll replace the Proraso Green with another soap when it runs out. When the next soap runs out, I'll replace it with another.

I've seen the "Shave Dens" of some of the guys on YouTube. As much as I would like to have something like that, it's just not in the cards for me right now, and if it never comes, I'm cool with it.
 
Being new at this I just use whatever I can get my hands on due to my work location. My first wetshave was with an Arko Shavestick. I just used Proraso Green Soap for the first time 12 hours ago. Both gave me a great shave. I have no idea if they are high end or low end products. As of right now I have some Williams Mug Shaving Soap on the way.

I figure the Arko Shave Stick and Williams Mug Shaving Soap will be my everyday and I'll replace the Proraso Green with another soap when it runs out. When the next soap runs out, I'll replace it with another.

I've seen the "Shave Dens" of some of the guys on YouTube. As much as I would like to have something like that, it's just not in the cards for me right now, and if it never comes, I'm cool with it.

Arko and Proraso lather as well as many ‘high-end’ artisan soaps IME! Two excellent performers. :a14::a14:
 
I recently saw another advertisement for an artisan soap brand that is a turn off for me; it is Southern Witchcraft. They even have a soap called "Necromantic", the perfect soap for shaving in a graveyard...really?

I would not buy their soaps even if they had a different name as they are vegan soaps and many have simple scents. I prefer tallow based soaps with more complex scents as my skin is sensitive many soaps with only one or two scent ingredients.
 
Interesting trend of comments about The Holy Black.

My first thought is that I do not like the name. I mean what is holy about black? Though I am taking the religious idea of light vs dark a bit literally (good versus evil) and thinking this company is trying too hard to be edgy.

Not a critical mistake until I go to their website and see that this was the company that essentially copied the Wade & Butcher logo. Months ago I was looking at shavettes and found them. But never in a million years would I buy anything from them as they are plagiarizing an well respected brand.

As far as the name, "the holy black" is a reference to the black powder used in Cowboy Action Shooting. Some folks shoot modern smokeless powder, while purists want to shoot "the holy black". This is from the owners' own words, btw.

As for the logo, I can understand someone not liking the fact, but they were granted a US Registered Trademark for the logo with their variation, so they weren't just slapping it on willy nilly.

That being said, they have their fans, and they make their products. Some people like them, some people would rather not be bothered.

A quick scan of their website leaves me with the impression that selling a lifestyle is the main concern

I can understand why just a quick look at the site may give you that impression, but these folks take the quality of their products very seriously. They are very good guys who work hard to make products that the shaving and grooming community would want to use. They host frequent live giveaways on live Instagram and Facebook, and I have personally received hundreds of dollars in free merchandise in the two years I have been a customer. And if anything, if you take time to get to know them (as well as you can get to know anyone on the internet), you will find that, far from trying too hard, they are two of the most genuine guys you could ever want to meet.

They are only one of my favorite artisans, and even with that I can acknowledge that there are always going to be folks who don't get it, or who have one reason or another to dislike them out of hand. That's what's cool about our hobby. You will always find the stuff that you enjoy, no matter where you find it.
 
I recently saw another advertisement for an artisan soap brand that is a turn off for me; it is Southern Witchcraft. They even have a soap called "Necromantic", the perfect soap for shaving in a graveyard...really?

I would not buy their soaps even if they had a different name as they are vegan soaps and many have simple scents. I prefer tallow based soaps with more complex scents as my skin is sensitive many soaps with only one or two scent ingredients.

As a tallow soap lover myself, I will say that Southern Witchcrafts is one of the only vegan soaps that performs as well as some of my tallow soaps. It is easily on par with Sudsy Soapery. And their scents are definitely complex.
 
As far as the name, "the holy black" is a reference to the black powder used in Cowboy Action Shooting. Some folks shoot modern smokeless powder, while purists want to shoot "the holy black". This is from the owners' own words, btw.

As for the logo, I can understand someone not liking the fact, but they were granted a US Registered Trademark for the logo with their variation, so they weren't just slapping it on willy nilly.

That being said, they have their fans, and they make their products. Some people like them, some people would rather not be bothered.



I can understand why just a quick look at the site may give you that impression, but these folks take the quality of their products very seriously. They are very good guys who work hard to make products that the shaving and grooming community would want to use. They host frequent live giveaways on live Instagram and Facebook, and I have personally received hundreds of dollars in free merchandise in the two years I have been a customer. And if anything, if you take time to get to know them (as well as you can get to know anyone on the internet), you will find that, far from trying too hard, they are two of the most genuine guys you could ever want to meet.

They are only one of my favorite artisans, and even with that I can acknowledge that there are always going to be folks who don't get it, or who have one reason or another to dislike them out of hand. That's what's cool about our hobby. You will always find the stuff that you enjoy, no matter where you find it.

Thanks for your insight Jim!
dave
 
Interesting thread. I love good branding but quality performance has to follow. Good branding makes it a lot more fun to purchase a product and that is one thing I like about wet shaving--the pleasure involved.
As long as it’s Williams, I don’t care what brand it is.

Even with its staid image, Williams has branding. Colorless, staid branding, yet branding nonetheless. Used it for years.

A true up and coming artist, the greatest scent for your cents. I think it smells awesome, your / my wife just loves it, my girlfriend says I smell good, my dog licks my cheeks, and sometimes your girlfriend licks my cheeks, when you're not looking that is. :laugh:

LOL. I wonder if you check where else your dog has been licking before he gets to your cheeks.
 
As far as the name, "the holy black" is a reference to the black powder used in Cowboy Action Shooting. Some folks shoot modern smokeless powder, while purists want to shoot "the holy black". This is from the owners' own words, btw.

As for the logo, I can understand someone not liking the fact, but they were granted a US Registered Trademark for the logo with their variation, so they weren't just slapping it on willy nilly.

That being said, they have their fans, and they make their products. Some people like them, some people would rather not be bothered..

Thanks for the explanation. It certainly makes more sense now. However, my take is that a brand that needs to be explained before it makes sense is less than ideal.
 
Interesting thread. I love good branding but quality performance has to follow. Good branding makes it a lot more fun to purchase a product and that is one thing I like about wet shaving--the pleasure involved.


Even with its staid image, Williams has branding. Colorless, staid branding, yet branding nonetheless. Used it for years.



LOL. I wonder if you check where else your dog has been licking before he gets to your cheeks.

You keep my dog out of this. :) And he don't have fleas neither.. But I do get a kick out of guys pumping a / their products here on B&B. Some are cute, some are clever and some are ridiculous. For example, if the quality and the efficiency of a razor made back in 1930 and the quality of steel and sharpening mechanics of the mid 60's were as good as it gets, how could anyone improve on this? And soap? Lye is lye but today there are different names for it but it's still used to saponify fat. :)

JAT :)
 
Peer review is more important than branding. I can't really get anything locally, so I have to take to the internet for everything. I search and read reviews on sites like this one and try to gauge a product. I will order a product that has a positive general consensus.
 
Peer review is more important than branding. I can't really get anything locally, so I have to take to the internet for everything. I search and read reviews on sites like this one and try to gauge a product. I will order a product that has a positive general consensus.

Unfortunately there have been a lot of products I've wanted to try that just don't have many reviews or good information from youtube/community members, so this route doesn't always work.
 
Granted. Those are the gamble that each of us has to decide to take or not take. I don't think I have run across anything that I was interested in that there wasn't plenty of information on. I'm still not really swayed by branding. Brand image, on the other hand, is important to me and can sway me.
 
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