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Beard & Mustache Competitions with the Captain

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Legendary Captain Fawcett founder Richie Finney will be on hand for the pre-launch signing of their new book, “The Gentleman’s Guide to Grooming: The Quintessential Handbook for the Modern Man” on Wednesday, October 4th from 7-9 PM. There will also be competitions and prizes aplenty. Join us.

October 4th is going to be an evening of fun and delights, but there will also be a rousing competition. Two, in fact!

Beardsgaard is known for the legendary beards and mustaches we get the pleasure of attending, and Captain Fawcett is known for keeping them looking tip-top and smelling like tales of far flung adventures. When you bring the founders of both together at the nerdiest barbershop this side of Midgard, something like a beard (and mustache) competition is bound to happen.

Keep reading for all the finer points of the happenings, as well as what the winners will be taking home, and see the full event post here.

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The Captain of the Gaard Book Signing

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Legendary Captain Fawcett founder Richie Finney will be on hand for the pre-launch signing of their new book, “The Gentleman’s Guide to Grooming: The Quintessential Handbook for the Modern Man” on Wednesday, October 4th from 7-9 PM. Join us.

Captain Fawcett, the man and the grooming brand, are legend. As is the man who calls himself The Captain’s Right Hand man, Richie Finney. It’s all quite tongue-in-cheek, you see, as the actual historical Lieutenant Colonel Fawcett (no relation) disappeared without a trace in the Amazon in 1925. They even made a movie about it.

While no one knows for sure what happened to Percy Fawcett the man, the brand Captain Fawcett is the realm of Mr. Finney, and renowned the world over, from the average gloriously hirsute fellow to the sets of movie and TV productions as fantastical as Lord of the Rings.

And he’s coming to Beardsgaard for a once-in-a-lifetime event, a pre-launch signing of his new book (US release 11/7). That Blademaiden happens to be in. You will not want to miss this. Read on for all the particulars.

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Scumbassadors Training Ahoy

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Reuzel Scumbassadors Leen & Bertus

A little while back, Reuzel put out a call for folks who wanted to preach the gospel of the lard. In other words, they were putting together a training team from around the world, starting with the US.

So Blademaiden, having gotten to know Reuzel as soon as it arrived in the states, put together a video submission. And despite everything included in that video, she turned out to be one of the 20 chosen to fly in for training and interviewing for the final cut of Scumbassadors.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that training was taking place in Chicago and they didn’t have to buy her a plane ticket, but it is still an immense honor to be considered.

It’s also a once in a lifetime opportunity to get personally schooled for five days by Leen & Bertus, owners of Schorem/the modern day godfathers of barbering, as well as the Nelis, the Headmaster of the Old School in Rotterdam, and the rest of the Reuzel team.

You’ll be seeing all the fun on Facebook and Instagram from tomorrow through next Wednesday, so make sure you’re following. When Blademaiden returns, she will be stuffing all her new knowledge right in the heads of her fellow Beardsgaard Barbers, and your haircuts are going to get even better.

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Demo Days with the Chicago Barbers Association

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As our barbers will tell you, we go HARD with training. This past weekend we traveled all the way down to Chicago on Sunday for a shave demo at Joe’s Barber Shop, and Monday the crew spent 8 hours training with Professional Salon Concepts in Joliet, learning more about Davines and Naturaltech.

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A Press Landslide with Industrie Online

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A couple of months ago, we got an email from a nice lady named Kerri. Kerri is one of the talented folks behind Industrie Online, an online magazine with a prolific knack for pumping out incredibly detailed and helpful content for hair and beauty pros. And she said they wanted to do a little story on us.

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So as you might imagine, we were a bit blown away when we saw all they put together out of our talkings. We mean, we know we barbers are hard to shut up, but we’re aw shucks-ing all over the place for all the work they put into these pieces.

If you’re in the industry of hair, especially if you’re entrepreneurially-minded, make sure you follow Industrie.

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Social Gone Postal

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When dear client/friend Brian Busch first mentioned that he was drawing up an homage to Bloody Bertus, one of our barber heroes and modern-day godfather of barbering, we were excited. When we saw the finished design, we were overcome with a desperate need to put it on a shirt.

When we got the shirts, we put together a little care package for the boys at Schorem (and a number of other shops we know and love, along with our logo T-shirts, stickers, a little note and assorted other goodies) and sent it out with our friendly neighborhood postman Larry. We couldn’t have predicted what happened next.

Bertus in Et Tu Bertus Shirt

Schorem’s world-famous photographer Jelle Mollema took photos of Bertus in both shirts and sent them along to us. Then Brian’s head/our heads/our Facebook page EXPLODED.

We just wanted to send out a little #barberlove and certainly didn’t expect anything in return, but this experience did get us thinking.

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A Very Special Beardsgaard Gift Guide

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The white-knuckled icy luge ride that is this last bit of the year is upon us, Beardsgaardians. We in the service industry look to it with a gelatinous mixture of joy and dread. With marshmallows on it.

It is busy, which is great, but then we wonder where the last month went and crap, we need to do our giftly shopping.

Don’t be like us. Get it done early, then you can watch Elf on repeat for all of December while you drink your hot cocoa and eat all of the sugar and your teeth fall out. So, how about this Saturday? For the gifties, not teeth falling out. The Sugar Path and All Chocolate Kitchen can help with that part. Will Ferrell would lose his freaking mind in those places.

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You see, this Saturday is Small Business Saturday, in which millions of folks all over the country shop at local mom and pop shops like ours (and the two sweet purveyors mentioned above). A palette cleanser, if you will, after the screeching, feces-flinging cage match that is Black Friday.

If you have a gent in your life that could either use a little sprucing up, or who already has his grooming game on point and you want to impress the pants off him with the good stuff, we have you covered on Saturday, and for all of December (and beyond!).

While we have a great selection of delicious smelling oils and goops and grooming accoutrements, we thought we would give you a few ideas for the hirsute fellows in your life.

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Thinking About Cutting Hair Professionally? Read This First

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Thinking you might want to cut hair for a living? Fantastic! It’s fun, rewarding, the money is quite good, and the job prospects are great.

By nature of you reading this, on a barbering blog, you have already thought about barbering as an option. That’s a good start, because the majority of people entering this industry just enroll in cosmetology school without a thought to the other side of the business.

In working with plenty of cutters of both stripes over the years, we think there are two good reasons to become a stylist, and two good reasons to become a barber. One is not inherently better than the other, but we hope our experience inside the industry will have you make a well-informed decision about which you want to be.

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Ask Your Barber • Hair People

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Ask Your Barber is an occasional feature on the Beardsgaard Barbers blog where we answer your questions about whatever the hell. Got one? Ask it in the comments or by email HERE.

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Do I call you a barber, stylist, hairdresser? I also heard of something called a cosmetologist. What’s the difference?

We get this question all the time, especially Natalie, who regularly has folks trying to convince her that she is a stylist (or cosmetologist or hairdresser, they all mean the same thing), because she is female.

Barbers and stylists are not defined by their gender, or even the gender of hair they cut (although stylists usually do more women’s hair, and plenty of barbers exclusively work on men) but by their license and schooling.

Two different schools, two different licenses, and while there are sometimes differences in practice (short hair vs. long, clippers vs. shears, etc.), those are wide generalizations more than rules. Here is what it really boils down to.

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