Our Story

Unsurprisingly, Beardy Pete’s Shaving Emporium is owned and run by a chap called Pete, who also has a beard. This is his shaving story.

Pete’s ascendance into the realm of traditional shaving occurred in 2014. Having become increasingly frustrated at trying to edge his beard with multi-bladed cartridges, he decided he needed more (or rather, less) from his razor.

As a child Pete would ‘shave’ with his grandad. He would copy his grandad by applying shaving soap to his face with a brush, then – using an empty DE razor – scrape the lather off. Probably with a level of finesse that would likely have left him resembling The Joker, had the razor been loaded.

With these fond memories of pretend shaving with his grandad’s old-fashioned razor, Pete realised that the single blade would be ideal for beard edging. He wondered if they were still a thing.  It turned out, not only were old-fashioned razors indeed still a thing, they had in fact become hugely popular again, and there were dozens of websites and YouTube videos dedicated to the revived art of traditional shaving.

That Christmas Pete received his first DE razor (with blades); the excellent Edwin Jagger DE89L, accompanied by a pure badger brush, chrome shaving bowl, and some posh shaving cream.

Despite that first shave being less than a triumph, Pete stuck with it. Maybe it was all the interesting and shiny new accoutrements, the feeling of nostalgia brought about by memories of childhood bladeless shaving, or the mere fact of being part of this niche and unheralded subculture, but shaving immediately ceased being a chore. It turned into a therapeutic ritual and soon developed into a passion.

Following his shaving awakening Pete became an advocate of traditional shaving, telling anyone who’d listen about its benefits. Most people, though, remain stuck in their ways; content with the mass-produced, mass-marketed, expensive and ridiculously wasteful cartridge razors, and happy with lubricating their faces using whichever brightly-coloured canned gel happens to be on special offer.

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Beardy Pete’s Shaving Emporium is born

The idea of Beardy Pete’s Shaving Emporium came about during a nonsensical chat with his wife while on a walk after work one July evening. It was a eureka moment for Pete; finally, an idea that would realise his dream of being his own boss while being able to spread the traditional shaving word. A weekend trip to Devon temporarily put plans on hold, but work commenced the following week.

Beardy Pete’s Shaving Emporium was finally created on 4th December 2017, following many hours of research and business planning, multiple emails to suppliers, a bit of procrastination, evenings spent writing content, a bit more procrastination, and countless late nights fighting with Excel. It was too late for a pre-Christmas launch, but work continued in earnest. We ordered in our first batch of products, from Edwin Jagger and The Bluebeards Revenge. Plenty more late nights followed, loading product details onto the site, re-desinging content and re-drafting copy, making sure everything was just so. In fact, as these words are being typed, it’s 00:41 on Christmas morning 2017.

And so we bring you Beardy Pete’s Shaving Emporium, the culmination of one man’s enthusiasm for the art of traditional shaving and months of work building this online resource. Mighty oaks from little acorns grow, and from these humble beginnings we will grow a great big tree of traditional razors and beard-related paraphernalia.

We hope you’ve enjoyed this inspirational tale. Now throw away your Machwhatever, invest in a DE razor and join us on a journey of discovery. And if you already have one, just carry on being awesome.

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