![]() They moved production from their kitchen to their garage. With an increase in visibility came a jump in sales, and soon Towle and Hodges faced expansion. Hodges taping his podcast as Douglas Smythe. “Everything I said in the article was true, in how I feel about it,” Hodges says. Hodges is sheepish but ultimately doesn't feel too bad about it. He also conducted an interview with Towle while assuming the Douglas Smythe character. His public persona has confused some customers, and even created some controversy: Hodges admits to having used the fictitious persona to tout Towle’s wares in an online article – without disclosing he was affiliated with Towle – which brought attention to the couple’s brand. The Douglas Smythe character emerged as Hodges began blogging, talking to customers and writing reviews of products put out by fellow grooming artisans. Harris and Taylor of Old Bond Street, as well as the pricey Castle Forbes, from Scotland. This niche group of consumers was eager for small-batch, artisanal products, having grown bored with traditional market leaders like Italy’s Proraso, London brands Truefitt & Hill, D.R. The soap, however, caught on with a community of wet shavers-mostly men, who lather their own shaving cream and use straight razors and safety razors with their inexpensive blades. “I sold a product just to lead people back to the blog for traffic.” He formulated a new product – a shaving soap – and launched a company to sell it, which he named (wait for it…) How To Grow A Moustache. To market his moustache wax, Hodges began his blog. ![]() “We started this whole thing on about $500 and kept pouring it back in.” Hodges provided graphic design skills to the business, as well as deodorants and organic moustache wax of his own creation. Having grown up on a horse farm with a father who liked to devise his own equine poultices, she was adept at making personal care products and launched a company called Petal Pusher Fancies to sell them. Towle and Hodges – who’d dated in college – reconnected when Towle moved back east after spending several years as an acupuncturist in Idaho and Oregon. The products caught on with locals and when Hodges moved to Amherst, Massachusetts, in 2011 he continued shipping bottles of the stuff to his Costa Rican customers. He invented a solution he dubbed Itch No Mas to keep the sand fleas at bay, as well as a mini-deodorant called Stink No Mas. Hodges began concocting scented liquids five years ago while the Massachusetts native was living on a beach in Costa Rica, surfing, playing the pandeiro and working as a graphic designer. Smythe (née Hodges) even has his own YouTube channel, where he provides grooming tips and posts podcasts and amusing videos. The entrepreneur assumes the role whenever he presents himself to the public while blogging, attending industry events or doing anything grooming related-which is almost all of the time. The Smythe character appears on the label of some of the company’s products but he is not merely a mascot he’s also Hodges’ alter ego, though likely not too far from Hodges himself. “It was this playful thing,” says Hodges, 39. He is a created persona a Colonel Sanders-type character, but for shaving-a bon vivant philosopher of shaving and scent, invented by Erik Hodges and Frances Towle, founders of the slightly eccentric men’s grooming company, Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements. You have just witnessed what has become a regular irregular event in these parts, dare I say Paranormal? You have just witnessed Ciderhouse 5.Here’s the catch: Douglas Smythe – with his seaman’s cap, pipe, anchor-beard and coiffed moustache – does not really exist. The artist finds himself under the overhang of the cider mill, tubes of paints capped and uncapped spilling from his pockets, easel under arm, nonplussed and damp. ![]() Then a flash of white light crosses the sky, life in wholesome Technicolor resumes and the memory of what just was.is wiped. People run out from the orchard and the neighboring pumpkin patch, screams of children escape from the corn maze across the street. The winds begin to pick up in all directions, leaves whirling & spiraling up the invisible columns of a banshees temple, clouds roll in. ![]() Someone is smoking a pipe, mulled seasonings catch flight on the warm autumn wind, *oak barrels rock in the rhythmic ripples of the cider press, leaves crackle beneath the artist's feet.linseed oil lingers, and an apple possibly plucked by Eve herself is offered to bite. A few feet away is the cider house come to life in a bustle of festive activity and mirth. 5 notes, like 5 colors on a painters palette, mingling in a mid-afternoon, mid-autumn day on a canvas in an apple orchard. 5 essential notes make up this blend of our classic Autumn shave soap.
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