Before we get to the Waxing of the Moustaches of Movember, I wanted to ask all you regular gym-goers out there a question:

(((It’s been awhile since I’ve talked, at length, about the gym ecosystem, so if you are unaware of my use of the African Savanna as a metaphor for the gym, it all started right here, and I encourage you to go check it out)))

Lately I’ve been noticing a weird ritual being performed by some of the younger members of the pride of lions that prowl around my particular JFZ savanna. I am convinced it is some sort of mating dance, intended to, of course, lure a mate into Coitus Uninterruptus. I am assuming this is necessary because the males of the species vastly outnumber the ladylions. I am unfamiliar with the mating habits of lions/gym rats, so I’m wondering if they mate for life or not. If they do mate for life, these young lions must be attempting to bait a lioness away from her spouse, for which I think these young lions deserve a proper thrashing by their superiors. Being as the older lions have yet to administer said thrashing and, further, continue to allow this mating habit to continue, leads this humble Wildlife Observer to presume that the JFZ species of lion does not mate for life, but instead are hedonists of the highest order.

Of course, there is always the possibility that what I am perceiving as a mating ritual could, in fact, be something else. My only hope is that it is not the dance they do before they begin the wanton slaughter of the trespassing wildebeests in their midst.

Ok, here’s what it is, gym rats. Help a wildebeest out:

Step 1 of African Anteater Ritual: the young lions form a line.

Step 2: Then, they all sling a weight over their shoulder. We’re talking at least 3 lions here, but most times it is 4 or 5.

Step 3: They all get in a line. Picture the elephants in the Jungle Book.

Step 4: This is the key step here. They all parade around the savanna, bending at the knee, in unison, in a line.

I promise to all things holy that I am not making this shit up. They literally form a parade, some sort of fitnessing conga line, and lunge their way around the workout floor in a line.

I rarely say this in real life, but: what the fuck is up wit’ dat????

Surely there is a logical explanation and I’m just missing it. If they are genuinely attempting the African Anteater Ritual then, for one, they’re going about it all wrong. But I swear it looks like these lions are attempting some form of ritualistic behavior, spurred on by their high levels of testosterone.

“Oh dear, her departure says it all…”

Moustache Wax Review #1: Dark & Wacky Tacky

At some point, and this point may be passed as far as I know, it became cool again to have a moustache. Not that I’m a trendsetter, far from it, but about 5 years ago I went as Ed Wood for Halloween. For my Ed Wood costume, I grew out a pencil-thin moustache… which was mercilessly ridiculed by all my too-cool-for-school friends (a moustache, even a pencil-thin one, does not grow in one day, so I had a moustache for a good few weeks before Halloween).

It wasn’t long before these same mothertruckers all grew out moustaches, because it was suddenly fashionable to do so, a fact that I could not let slide by. “You assholes all made fun of my moustache, but now you grow them out!” or something to that effect.

I’ve never been a moustache sort of chap, preferring the “all or nothing” theory towards facial hair. Meaning, a full beard or nothing at all.

Of course, when you have a “full” beard, you have a moustache also, though I don’t know if, by moustache etiquette rules and standards, you can properly call it a moustache if it covers your whole damn face. Although a full beard sans moustache would certainly not be “full” and would, in fact, look rather ridiculous, if you ask me. I don’t know if there is a term for such a facial hairdo, but the term “jackanape” pops immediately to mind.

Periodically, I have grown out the full beard. Now being one of those periods.

To me, I grow out a full beard, not as some sort of statement or anything, but really just to look more like a character out of Tolkien or a Viking. The periods when I grow out a full beard tend to, not coincidentally, coincide with the periods in my life when I experience a spike in my interest in Fantasy.

I’ve never liked the too-well-groomed facial hair either (though I think a properly waxed moustache can look very dapper). This is the type of facial ‘do preferred by athletes and other assorted douschbags everywhere. You know what I’m talking about: the facial hair that is extremely well-maintained and usually cut into angles and shit.

When I played WoW, one of my favorite characters was a dwarf hunter named Jobby. I was normally a Horde player, but the lure of the dwarven beardishness was just too good to resist. I don’t have any pictures of Jobby (may he rest in peace), but I did find a small picture of the exact beard that he had:

Jobby had crimson hair though, not this strawberry blond bullmess that this dwarf has. Point is, a full beard, complete with handlebar moustache.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is the ultimate goal in my facial hair right now. Whether I reach these goals will depend on many things: how much of a pain in the ass it is to maintain, whether the wife drugs me and cuts it off in my sleep, how much I feel like a total social pariah, etc.

But that is the goal for now.

The means to this end are simple:

For the beard, all I need is time and a decent pair of hedge clippers to keep it from looking like an upside-down Buckwheat farm.

For the handlebars, I need a good wax, which is where Firehouse Brand Moustache Wax comes in.

The way I started buying wax for my facial hair actually has nothing to do with handlebar moustaches. I started looking into waxes as a way to keep my beard well-groomed and to tame it into submission, as my beard hair is incredibly curly and nappy.

I first tried to put pomade on it. The good ol’ Murray’s, that has never let me down in my hair-holding-in-place needs. Unfortunately, the thing about Murray’s is that it has the consistency of automotive grease, which means that my beard, while having a pleasant aroma, had the texture and consistency of 3-day-old roadkill. This was unacceptable, to say the least.

I needed something that was drier. Something that may go on wet, but would eventually harden and not leave me feeling like I had a greasy dead possum under my chin.

That is what led me to waxes and, eventually, to Firehouse Brand Moustache Wax.

I will say, up front, that so far this is the sturdiest and best wax for a moustache that I have yet to find. So if you’re looking for “cons” about Firehouse, you may want to look somewhere else.

First off, I ordered the wax straight from the Firehouse website, which you can go to HERE. Be forewarned that the site will attempt to bombard you with add-ons and other junk that could potentially make it a pain in the ass to load and will, if left to its own devices, play some music, which I did not personally care for.

The wax is also available via Amazon, which is where I usually do my internet tradin’, but you will get it cheaper by skipping the middle man and ordering it from the Firehouse website.

Part of the reason I was curious about this wax is that it appealed to my nostalgic nature by alluding to a bygone era when I like to imagine that all firemen had badass handlebar moustaches to repel the roaring inferno from infiltrating their mouth. I was picturing a fireman from the inside of Blazing Fury, and I like that look of vintage fireman memorabilia.

I am also under the impression that someone, somewhere, is making this stuff in their house, which makes me like it even more that it’s not getting cranked out of an assembly line in some grey factory somewhere.

The wax also arrived swiftly, which is something I was moderately concerned about since I have been spoiled rotten by my Amazon Prime membership.

I opened my small package and found two tins of the stuff.

Now, I don’t know what it is, or why it is, but I frackin love shit that comes in tins. Even tiny ones like this! I buy all my pipe tobacco in tins solely because of the tins and tins tins tins tins tins tins tins. Tins.

I purchased two ummm… containers of it, both “Dark” and “Wacky Tacky”. The only way to distinguish between the two is a small sticker on the bottom:

This picture is blurry because my camera sucks, but it says right there: “Tacky”.

 

When you open it up, it rather resembles shoe polish:

 

As you can deduce from this photo, I used the “thumbnail” method of wax application. This means that you run your thumbnail over it, piling up a bit of the wax on it, then take the wax and rub it between your fingers until it is soft enough to work into your moustache without ripping it out. We’re waxing the moustache, not waxing it.

Today I actually used a lighter and melted a bit of it, then applied. This seemed to work a bit better because, let me tell you, this stuff is some sho’ nuff wax, and if you don’t get it a bit soft before trying to apply it, it will make you cry like a guy getting his moustache waxed.

For my handlebar purposes, this stuff curled my moustache and made me look like a fireman better than any other wax I have tried yet. For my beard-tamer purposes, this stuff is just too stiff and hard to apply to my beard without taking a good twelve hours to do it properly, but that is more than ok because it is, after all, Firehouse Moustache Wax, not Firehouse Moustache Wax and Beard Tamer.

To be honest, I couldn’t tell a whole helluva lot of difference between the Dark and the Wacky Tacky. I think the Tacky is supposed to be stiffer, but they both seemed to be quite stiff in my experiments with them.

As far as odor goes, which is a big part of the facial hair wax experience, it has a pleasant odor of, well, wax. It doesn’t really smell like anything in particular other than some fine waxing wax. Maybe a hint of something manly like a campfire or something, but nothing overpowering.

All in all, if I were solely a moustache man, I would also solely be a Firehouse Moustache Wax man, and I will gladly purchase this product again when these tins run out… which should be around the year 2037 or so, providing the Mayans don’t murder us all first and whoever is making this stuff didn’t take his/her secret recipe to the grave with them.

No posts on the weekend, remember, so I’ll see you all back here Monday with, possibly, more Moustache Wax reviews (though I may have had my fill of typing “moustache” or “wax” by then).