A Greene Man’s Blog

My Favorite Shaving Cream - Discontinued!

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

Edge ActiveCare Shave Cream has been discontinued. I am sad and frustrated because it was the best shaving cream I’ve used in over a quarter of a century. It is rich and creamy, helps the razor glide across my face and slice through my beard, rinses clean, and leaves my face feeling calm and moisturized! It’s not drying or sticky the way so many other shaving creams are. And now it’s gone! My husband loves it too, and this is our last tube of it. I looked online, and you can’t even get this stuff on EBay anymore. (Someone was selling it for $10 a tube, but they ran out. Someone else was selling it on Amazon for $14 a tube, and only had 5 left as of last night.)

But there is a sliver of good news. I called S.C. Johnson & Son just now to verify that the product had been discontinued and to request that they start making it again. They told me that the product was, indeed, discontinued in March, but they also told me something great. When they discontinued it, they bought it back from retailers so they could sell it by mail order to customers who loved it enough to call and ask about it. And they’re not selling it for $10 or $14 a tube– they’re selling it for $4 a tube plus shipping and handling. I just bought four cases, six tubes per case! The shelf life is two years, so that should last me and my husband for the next couple of years or so.

Sure, I could buy a bunch of cases and sell it on EBay for a profit, but I’m going to do loyal Edge ActiveCare customers a favor: just call S.C. Johnson & Son at 800-558-5252, tell them you wish they would put Edge ActiveCare Shave Cream back on the market, and order a case of six for yourself while supplies last. No, I am not employed by S.C. Johnson & Son. I just love this product and want to get it back on the market. Selling it on EBay for a profit is not going to accomplish that. Sharing this information with fellow customers and asking them to call, voice their demand for the product, and order it from the manufacturer at an affordable price just might do the trick! (And it couldn’t hurt my karma, either.)

I’m NOT Addicted to Pete’s Fish & Chips

Originally uploaded by Daniel Greene

With all the “I’m Addicted to Pete’s Fish & Chips!” bumper stickers I’ve seen around the Valley, I would have thought I was missing out on a local legend (having never been to one myself).

I’ll tell you a little secret though: those bumper stickers are free! If people had to pay for them, I don’t think there would be so many.

I was starving after work yesterday, and here I was sitting in the drive-thru of Pete’s on 27th Ave & Van Buren, so I thought I’d take a commemorative shot of my first time at one of the legendary Pete’s. But I’m telling you the morning after driving the food home and eating it, it’s just a greasy mess! It’s not delicious or special or anything. It’s just over-greasy rectangular slabs of fried fish on top of over-greasy shoestring fries. So, I don’t love Pete’s Fish & Chips; in fact, I don’t even like them!

Re: Sing Sing Prison Food Tray

I saw this product at La Grande Orange today in Phoenix, AZ and tried to post a cellphone photo of it, but it was very poor, so I’m simply referring to a webpage that sells the same product.

For $14, you can be the brave and free owner of this melamine cafeteria tray, a genuine replica of the orange trays used by prisoners of Sing Sing!

I can’t help but recognize the same irony that Michael Moore documented in his account of the prison that held a fundraiser, and for a pretty penny wealthy patrons could be locked up in a real cell by a real uniformed prison ward!

Don’t get me wrong: it’s a cute tray, and I love melamine for its retro appeal, but we don’t need crass materialism to remind us of the gap between the haves and have-nots.

Or do we?