History
Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements has a long (infamous) history in the artisan soap making world. The company started as How to Grow a Moustache in 2013 and is owned by Erik Hodges. Erik Hodges advertises heavily and offers free soap products to reviewers in exchange for glowing remarks. (
Source Video #1) New shavers frequently find his products and don’t realize the historical and ongoing extent of Erik’s unscrupulous business practices.
Not my words, but start of a Reddit article.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Wetshaving/wiki/artisanwiki/paa/
I haven't, and wouldn't buy any PAA items after reading the article. It's up to you whether or not you do, but it is good to be informed.
Greetings Ebberman,
Ahh this crap is still circulating, pity. First off, don't believe everything you read online. I should point out, since we are sleuthing, reddit is not the best in regard to ethical practices and reliability; what you are quoting is from their "community edited" wiki...
which it is not. They even have (last time i checked) a legal disclaimer stating this falsity. It's been locked for almost 8-9 years and our page was only ever been edited by one contributor, so keep that in mind,
not community edited. Also, this stuff goes back to over ten years ago, it was a short time and not a
long infamous history.
If anything we have a long history of giving and growing the community for all: I'd Lather Be Shaving (youtube show), Moustache & Blade Podcast, Cutting Edge Podcast, The Big Shave West (a free shaving event where we invite other, often smaller or what some might call our competition, to also participate in), Community Fundraising, Always at the ready to help, etc...we have done a lot but this often gets left out of the conversation in certain forums. Did I personally make some mistakes over a decade ago? Yes. Which I will forever admit to and apologize for. However, much of what you read is straight up BS by trolls. And I will defend myself against these lies.
Seems like every time I read one of these "dissuasion posts" (because lets be honest, that's what it is), there is always something new or twisted like this glowing reviews thing? [If your goal really was to truly share information, maybe reaching out to us for comments or any questions that you may have about our business practices would have been a more responsible, balanced & respectful way to go about this?]
We, like every other artisan out there will send out product for review, but that's it. They are not in exchange for anything. If they like it, they like it, if they don't, they don't and they can freely say whatever they want. I suggest fact checking me by reaching out to any one of them. Also, we have about 5 reviewers we send to at any one time during the years, others you see are buying their own products to review. I am unsure of your "source" but I bet it will not pass the sniff test or any real scrutiny. This is always the case with these group think conjectures and speculations, or what I have seen called,
threads that go nowhere.
As for ingredients; What you are referring to happened over ten years back when we were one of the first 5 artisans on the scene. We were new to this and label design thing and still learning. I had listed ingredients on the label in the wrong order.
That's it. Meaning: Everything listed was actually in the product. Also note, we had caught this mistake and fixed the label to be in line with the FDA weeks earlier...however, that first label was still out there and eventually someone in Badger n Blade bought a used tin and made a post about it. I commented in that post a few days later (page 4 I believe?) but by that time, the damage was done and it had turned into We Lie About What's Inside. This is how fast and easy stuff gets twisted online.
Actually, we were the FIRST U.S. Artisan to be EU Certified.
For years it was just us. Even small we chose to invest in this to make it easier on fans of our brand over seas to get some PAA. It was a long, arduous and expensive process, especially for a small artisan soapmaker, but we did it. So note, if our ingredients were bunk, that would have surfaced during certification a long time back. So as for "unscrupulous business practices", you can toss that out. This is our passion and livelihood and we wouldn't do anything to jeopardize that.
More Facts: I am
one of the owners. Frances is also my partner and owner, and one hell of an artisan soapmaker/perfumer herself. After over 10 years at this, we are now a very serious small business with a facility, lab & 5 employees (who love their jobs). We do EVERYTHING by the book...
otherwise we would have disappeared awhile back. I believe the quality of our product and customer service has much to do with the longevity as well.
We do advertise. A lot of that has to do with how poorly we were/are treated in certain forums. In order to survive as a small American business, you need to let people know you are here. When many, many small artisans have disappeared or closed shop during the years, we are still here. If I could just sit back and just make soap & scents,
which is really all I want to do, trust me, I would...but alas, it doesn't stop there for me. I wear a lot of hats here and advertising is just one of them; a necessity.
Over the years I have many times responded to these kinds of posts but often they get removed or locked, so I apologize. Again, I personally did make mistakes back when we began, I own them and righted the ship. I think that's important. It's the ones that don't change, grow or learn from what they did wrong that you should be concerned with. And again, many of the wilder and crazier things you read are just false or twisted.
All this said, if anyone ever has any questions or concerns, Fran and I make ourselves SUPER easy to get in contact with, come to the source and at least get some perspective before you believe anything you read in any group, especially run by anonymous posters.
Thanks for taking the time to read this folks.
PS. There is an upside to that Reddit page however, it delivers the most of our converting traffic to our site. So I suppose I should thank them. Shave On!