Vendorama--Who Are Your Favorites? Let's Sing Their Praises

Today a package from Maggard Razors arrived, right on time, perfectly packed, with everything I ordered, including a checklist on the receipt. They have been one of my favorite vendors. I like everything about them. Who are some of yours?

I do like Maggard's a LOT. HUGE selection of goods, always high quality, always fast and accurate, always affordable. I like that I can buy my pins, washers, scale materials, pastes, and all kinds of straight razor restoring gear as well as more generalized wet shaving products. One of my favorites, for sure.

Another favorite is Stirling Soap Company. ezlovan ALWAYS provides exceptional service, responding to emails and queries as fast as humanly possible, and always willing to go that little extra to keep his customers happy. As an added bonus, while I never expect it, it is always nice to see those samples of bath and shave soap thrown into the box for free. Rod and Mandy don;t have to do that, but it sure does put a smile on my face, every time. Plus, they are always expanding their offerings, actively working to provide us, the consumers, with ever wider selections, and always high quality.

WhippedDog.com is also a good place to get straight razor gear. Larry is definitely a standup guy that provides excellent service and very decent introductory packages, as well as brush handles, knots, strops, hones, and all kinds of good stuff.

Those are my favorites...

Big fan of @"TheHandleBar". Always got super fast shipping (2-3 days coast to coast) and good pricing and GREAT communications.

I've also recently ordered form this site: http://www.thesuperiorshave.com/

Smaller selection, but GREAT text description of products albeit the website is a bit old school. Communicated with the store a few times via email and they seem like a fun down to earth bunch who don't take themselves to seriously. PS - Check out the 'Focus Slim' razor. I've been digging mine more than my Feather Artist Clubs....

In no particular order.

Maggard Razors
Shoebox Shaveshop
Superior Shave
Italian Barber
Bullgoose
Phoenix artisan accoutrements
Gifts and Care
And all the other ones I know I'm forgetting...


Really nice to deal with the single item and specialist shops too.

Etsy has a lot of great people and some fly by night flakes too. The good outweighs the bad in our hobby thankfully.

I've ordered from Amazon, from eBay, from brush makers direct, soap makers, razor producers, and also browsed local flea markets and garage sales.

I stay away from crowd funding and Craigslist. Not that you have to.

One of the best places to buy stuff is from the forum. I have bought from and traded with and sold to people all over the world.

Living in Canada I generally keep a fairly short list of vendors that I use mainly because of shipping costs and FX. I've noticed also that my last couple of shipments from the US had duty owing. I've been ordering for years and they've only just started this. Not very happy about that because it adds to the already high cost of ordering from the US. Given all the product I've ordered over the years from all over the world I'm surprised that I've only ever had a problem with one vendor - you don't really know whether the vendor is actually good or not until you have a problem, then you'll see the true colours. Again, the vendors I've dealt with have all been helpful and always resolved issues satisfactorily and quickly except that one. What are you going to do? Not a big deal as I get what I want from others. Currently from the Canadian perspective I've been using:

Fendrihan
Italian Barber
Canadian Blade Company
Top of the Chain
Men Essentials (not much lately as they have trouble re-stocking, seriously they'll have stuff out of stock for years that is available elsewhere)

As far as ordering from US based artisans I've always tried to order direct from them so that they can keep as much of the profits as possible. I've ordered from:

Chatillon Lux (love Shawn's stuff and his service is excellent)
Barrister and Mann or I did until Will made a business call to stop shipping outside the US which was too bad as B&M was the very first artisan soap I ever ordered and I always found them a pleasure to deal with. Hopefully I'll still have access to LEs via the vendor network.
Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements I've ordered from these guys since the HTGAM days and always been happy.

I've ordered from quite a few other US vendors and artisans but the above lists those that I've ordered from frequently. On the subject of shipping costs, I realize that the high cost of shipping from the US to Canada isn't the vendor's fault and that they take a lot of undeserved abuse over it.

Shoebox Shaveshop
Best Grooming Tools
Maggard's Razors
Gifts & Care
Connaught Shaving

One that doesn’t get as much press anymore is QED. In addition to the Saville Row brushes, they sell some nice bath soaps. I’ve always had a good experience with them.

Maggards is fantastic. Great selection. Unreal turnaround time.

Stirling also up there with Maggards.  Great products, turnaround time and always throw in a nice sample.

Tryablade also has great turnaround time and fantastic selection.  Just wish they gave quantity discounts so that I could order  bulk volumes from them.

Bullgoose has some nice sales and always great turnaround time

These are my favorites.

Connaught
Amazon(!!)
Maggard
Stirling
TVB
shaving.ie
etsy, ebay folks

Italian Barber (for razorock products only;if you don't mind super late shipping - I got a package after 9/10 days, and that was before they put up the sign)

I've bought from relatively few vendors compared to most of you. I've honestly not had a bad experience, but Stirling, Maggard, and Lisa's Natural Herbal Creations have gone above and beyond for me.

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