Whenever I look at the Razor Emporium website**, I weep bitter, frustrated tears. Not because the website is offensive to look at or hard to navigate - far from it. In fact its ease of use is one of the reasons I like it so much. Nor is it because the graphics are bad - they're not. I mean, have a look to the left at their rather stunning logo, which can be yours to wear on one of their rather nice t-shirts. It could be mine to wear too, but as I live in the UK and Razor Emporium are in Phoenix, Arizona, I fear the shipping costs would be more than the price of the actual t-shirt. The sensible thing to do, of course, would be to add some other shaving-related products to my shopping cart and thus make the shipping fees more cost-effective but there lies the problem, you see, because browsing the products on the Razor Emporium website is like a sort of beautiful torture, an act of shaving masochism, on account of the sheer beauty of the products on offer. Which brings me back to those bitter, frustrated tears.
The website has that disturbing, creepy ability to get inside your head and make you want stuff that you didn't know you wanted, performing the shaving equivalent of the Jedi mind trick. Look Dave, whispers the voice, in my head, of Matt Pisarcik, Razor Emporium's owner and YouTube shaving personality, it's a 1930s Gem Micromatic TTO Single Edge Clog Pruf Safety Razor. You want one, Dave, you've always wanted one. And I hear my own voice inside my head intoning, I want a 1930s Gem Micromatic TTO Single Edge Clog Pruf Safety Razor. I've always wanted one, Matt. Yes. Yes!
In terms of finances, this situation isn't too bad as the Gem Micromatic on offer is only $50***. It's when I do something utterly, utterly foolish, like click on DE safety razors and the subsequent Rex Supply Co section that things start to get really out of hand. You want the Ambassador Adjustable Stainless Steel DE Razor, Dave, says Matt's voice. Click Add To Cart, Dave. And while you're at it, seeing as you're already spending $249 plus shipping, why not spend another $100 and get the Ambassador DE Razor Case to go with it? Go on, Dave. Resistance is futile.
As I sit there staring at the enticing photos while simultaneously weighing up the consequences – do I buy a razor I didn't know I wanted or do I feed my children this week/month? - Matt, in my mind, takes on the persona**** of a top-hat-wearing, cloaked and moustache-twirling villain from the old days of silent movies, plotting my impending financial ruin as he exerts hypnotic control over my bank account and I click Add To Cart in a helpless trance*****.
Of course, I'm pretty sure Matt's not like that at all in real life******. On screen, in his selfless and highly-entertaining YouTube reviews and tutorials, he comes across as a pleasant, affable, enthusiastic fan of wet shaving who has simply taken his interest in vintage razors and turned it into a successful, profitable business. He appears dedicated to helping the likes of you and I on our shaving adventures and it's down to him and the other members of The Handful that my own interest in the traditional methods of wet shaving has reached fever-pitched, hysterical obsession.
Thanks, Matt. My USA t-shirt size is XXL*******.
* I wanted to give this review/profile/blatant attempt at blagging a t-shirt - call it what you will - a Harry Potter-ish title. I toyed with Matt Pisarcik and The Razor Emporium Of Doom, which was alright, but not quite the tone I wanted. Then I tried just Matt Pisarcik and The Razor Emporium. But the store is actually called just Razor Emporium, without that cheeky determiner, so I veered away from the Harry Potter-style titles and down all sorts of other film and TV-related avenues. In homage to Ironside, Cannon, Lewis and even Shaft, I thought of calling it simply Pisarcik. I'm a Michael Caine fan, so Get Pisarcik was an obvious choice but a bit threatening. From there I got completely carried away and started thinking in terms of the Jason Bourne films, coming up with The Pisarcik Identity, The Pisarcik Supremacy and The Pisarcik Ultimatum. Which is when I took my medication and calmed down enough to think up Matt Pisarcik's Emporium Of Strange Delights, which I quite liked but it sounded like something that might relate to ... well, something strictly adult in nature, shall we say. So in the end I went with Matt Pisarcik's Emporium Of Shaving Delights. Some people - filthy, degenerate, appalling people - would argue that this title sounds just as, if not more adult in nature than the previous one. Which says far, far more about them than it does about me.
** Needless to say, a regular occurrence.
*** 'Only'. That's what wet shaving has done to me. Only $50. Yes Dave, but think about the shipping costs, for crying out loud. And, no doubt, the customs charges at this end of the postal chain.
**** That's persona, as opposed to Personna, which, for the uninitiated, is a brand of razor blades. Just a little in-joke there for wet-shaving enthusiasts.
***** I didn't actually. But I'd like to be in a position where spending $249.99 on an admittedly fantastic-looking razor wouldn't result in crippling guilt.
****** Well of course he isn't.
******* Oh come on. It's worth a try, surely?