DIY: The Deer Antler Razor

I've been pretty lean on the DIY posts as of late, and let me tell you why. One can only cut up and metallicize so many shorts and paint-splatter so many shoes before it just gets old; I can't sew, and neither can so many of the creative, stylish men who read this blog. This is why I've decided to branch out into do-it-yourself projects that go beyond just fashion and bring you easy and charmingly odd DIY projects that help you embody the dandy lifestyle. Today, I thought I'd give a facelift to one of the items a well-groomed man makes use of everyday: the razor.

small deer antler from Evolution, Gillette Mach 3 razor

Shaving is one of the everyday activities that makes us feel manly; it is in the upkeep, or lack thereof, of facial hair that reminds us that our bodies produce hormones that make us grow beards, and not breasts. And so I thought manly.. huntsman.. taxidermy.. antlers---let me make a shaving razor handle out of deer antlers! I purchased a piece of deer horn at the Evolution "Natural History" Store in NYC, took my old Gillette Mach 3 razor, and got to work.

I went to the nearest hardware store and had the kind fellows there saw the antler and the razor handle at points I marked. (EDIT: You can very easily do this step yourself with a clamp and a hacksaw.) As you can see, I had the antler cut on two points. I mocked the razor connector up on both the thicker and the skinnier segment, and decided I liked the heft and the organic detail on the thicker base piece so I decided to go with that.

Sawing left the edges rather rough,

so I sanded the ends of both pieces. On a rough emery cloth first to get rid of the splinters,

then on finer sandpaper to smoothen everything out.

I then applied Super Glue to the cut end of the razor connector. It would be wise at this point to have removed the razor blade cartridge from the connector; you wouldn't want to be holding on to the sharp blade during the quick motions of applying the glue and pressing the pieces together as the glue quickly dries.

To strengthen the bond, I added a little more glue to the edges of the razor blade connector.

I re-affixed the razor blade cartridge, and behold, my handsome new urban-huntsman deer antler razor. I love how the wild, organic shape of the deer antler flows into the iconic smooth steel lines of the metal razor.

with my two new favorite bathroom products: Buckler's Chapped Skin Remedy--a thick, hearty skin moisturizer perfect for combatting winter dryness, and Lab Series Root Power Restorative Style Wax--the lightest, subtly shiny hair wax for those days when you want to give your hair a break from heavy product and just let it hang loose with minimal control

Happy shaving.

Special thanks to Ivy for her words of encouragement and her abundance of taxidermy.

Guyliner, a Tutorial

We've all had our eyes lined before---Halloween, school plays, afternoons spent curiously fiddling around at Sephora...---often to a much too harsh, unflattering effect. Though I do maintain that men look their best natural and simply groomed, I'm also all for advocating the idea of men having the freedom to change up their look from time to time the same way women have fun with cosmetics. Guyliner may not be as everyday-wearable as concealer, but on the nights you decide to break out the huge Yohji Yamamoto coat and the floor-sweeping vintage Dior Homme scarf, having a pair of dramatic, intriguingly smoldering eyes in your arsenal might just come in handy. Our mangy make-up model Mike Shaeffer returns for another installment of my little series on make-up for men.

We tried on a few shades of brown and found that YSL's pencil liner in Leather Brown, a dark brown with undertones of gray, worked best with Mike's olive-pink skin. Brown blends with skin tones much more naturally than black, which when smudged shows some hints of green.

We started by priming Mike's eyes with the Auto Pilot primer from Napoleon Perdis. This isn't an absolutely necessary step, but this pre-makeup moisturizer helps the liner smudge more evenly and stay on longer.

Apply a very small amount over the lids and under the eyes, and wait to dry.

Then with the eye pencil, draw a line from the the corner of the eye to the tear duct, as close to the lash line as possible. Draw it in with little strokes until you complete a line.

The line needn't be perfect, you'll be smudging it anyway. Mike's slightly jagged job works just fine.

Immediately after application, before the liner sets, smudge the line gently across the lower part of the lid with your ring fingertip until all visible lines are blurred. Then, with the fingertip stained with the eye pencil, smudge some color to the outer 1/3 of the lower lash line to define the eye from below. Do this with a very light touch; heavy lower liner can easily look very severe.

Soften those stares with your secretly guy-lined smoldering eyes. You are one dashing dark dandy.

The Perfect Slick-back, a Tutorial

They ask, "How do you get your hair looking so perfect everyday?" "With hot and painful morning hair-pulling, and a cup of hair spray!" I reply, half-jokingly. Knowing how to do the perfect, sharp slick-back is great to keep in one's arsenal for that hot date or the occasional black-tie affair, or for those with the same commitment to dandyism as I have, everyday. Admittedly, it does take a little more time and effort than a tousled dirty-wax hairstyle, but with technique and lots of practice, this 'do can be most certainly do-able.

You might notice the rigor and severity of my technique; I do have to contend with the stubbornness of my horse-thick Asian hair. For those with finer hair, feel free to skip the blow-drying step, or use a gel or pomade with a little less hold. Here's how to do it:

Begin with your hair fresh from the shower; it is most pliable at this state. Towel-dried until it is very slightly damp, parted where preferred.

Start by blow-drying the sides of your hair closer to the head for a slim, sleek profile. Comb the hair down and back, and follow the motion with the hair dryer. Repeat until dry.

Take time to blow-dry the top portion of your hair that falls right opposite the part: this section will carry the most weight, and blow-drying it would prevent it from collapsing throughout the day. Brush back with the comb and follow with the hair-dryer on high.

When all is dry and set, it's time for gel or pomade. I like the sharpness and the volume that gel permits, but if you prefer the more throwback, closer-to-the-head sort of slick-back, by all means use pomade. I use about two teaspoons of Goldwell's mello goo gel, it's thick as jam.

Rub the product thoroughly between your hands, and carefully shape your hair the desired way. I think having it slim on the sides, with a slight bit of volume on the top-front, gradually tapering down is universally flattering.

Follow through with a comb to distribute the product.

And set with hair spray.

I like to run my fingers through the top about ten seconds after spraying it. It gives my pencil-straight hair a bit of texture and it makes for a bit of a controlled messy look. For something more runway-pristine, skip this step and use more hair spray. Make sure to lay the hair spray on twice as heavy on the top portion right opposite the part; this section needs the most support. Set everything with a hair dryer on low.

As an extra flourish, I like to finish it off with a glossing serum. I use the medium-thickness Nigelle Rx from Hair Mates in the East Village.

Rub a squirt or two vigorously between your palms.

And carefully work it through your hair. That extra glint, that shine when the halogen lights at a gallery opening hit your mane, ah, with that perfectly slicked-back mane you will stand out in the crowd.

Finished. Smile, you movie star you.

photographs by Austin A. Wong

DIY: Make-up for Men: Easy Eyeshadow

Fellows, today I will teach you a simple, easy way to wear eye makeup. A cornerstone of Dandyism is challenging boundaries, with the Dandies of the 1700s wearing radical haircuts and unconventionally tailored clothing that pushed the limits back then. Here at The Dandy Project, I refuse to stay put and live forever within convention--though I usually try to execute it with some semblance of subtlety--and with that, I bring you this eyeshadow tutorial.

bare-eyed Mike. Our mutinously ungroomed grooming model Mike Shaeffer returns for this installment of the Make-up for Men series.

I like eyeshadow, applied subtly on men. I've seen it done countless times on the runway, and when done rather faintly (the idea is to be wearing "no-makeup makeup"), it is much more foolproof and much more flattering than the seemingly more socially accepted rocker lined eyes.

We used a matte medium-dark taupe shadow (Bali by Nars) just a couple of shades darker than skin tone and applied it casually yet precisely on the lower part of the lid with the ring finger tip.

Mike smudges it about, keeping the stripe of shadow relatively narrow, and sufficiently blended in.

halfway done: Mike's subtly shadowed right eye looks ever so slightly deeper-set, more expressive, and more tender than his naked left eye.

Blinking brings forth a splitsecond of pretty mystery,

but eyes open, they become ever so gingerly deeper-set and darker.

DIY: Make-up for Men: Cover-up

Many men wear make-up; most of you just don't know it yet. On a bad face day, you can't just Photoshop that pimple off of the tip of your nose and have your facade match the impeccable handsomeness of your new Belvest suit. I have a closet full of impeccably handsome clothes, and, lamentably, my fair share of bad face days. Luckily, having practiced concealing and blending with and on the women in my life, and having worked backstage at a handful of fashion shows, I have got a quick technique down pat. I've enlisted the help of my friend Michael Shaeffer, full-time menswear designer and part-time Brooklyn caveman, to demonstrate my easy-peasy technique.

bare-faced Mike

Mike has a blemish: a popped pimple, unmasked even by his jungly beard.

Here's what you do.

Squeeze a tiny amount of cover-up on the fleshy part of your hand. I use MAC select cover-up: it's handy, it's light, yet it conceals blemishes very effectively. Find the one that matches your skin tone the best. If you can't grapple with the idea of wearing cosmetics, try using tinted creams with benzoyl peroxide or tea tree oil and tell your gullible, delusional self it's medicine and not make-up.

Rub it around, warming it up with your finger. Use your ring finger to apply the product; this is the finger that would exert the least amount of pressure.

Dab the concealer, a little at a time, on the area to be covered. Start at the center of the blemish and take time to blend around it to make it appear as even as possible. Look in the mirror twice to make sure you don't look as if you have a glob of flesh-colored paste smeared on your cheek.

And smile, you are now obscenely handsome.

The idea is to have the product on as lightly as possible, and with the blemish gone, walk into your day electrified, forgetting you've got anything on your face.

Staples: The Dark Debonair

If there’s one thing that helps me get dressed in the morning, it is my imagined persona. Embodying such a character helps streamline the task of picking things out of my wardrobe vast as the facets of my idiosyncratic personality. I’ve gone through quite a few in the past, most of them too shameful to reveal, but this one, I believe, will stick around for quite a while.

Beloved readers, meet The Dark Debonair.

He is gentlemanly, smart, and refreshingly proper---but at the same time elusive and intriguingly weird. Think young Sean Connery as the old James Bond in head-to-toe Comme des Garcons taking a private jet to the Maldives to do a performance art piece solely for his three wire-haired dachshunds.

Aramis had approached me to share my staples, and I thought it would be the perfect opportunity to introduce you to The Dark Debonair. Suave yet relaxed, with a penchant for the charmingly odd, The Dark Debonair keeps ten things in his arsenal as he goes about his business and trots the globe.

The Dandy Project's Dark Debonair Staples: 1) Comme des Garcons black blazer, 2) vintage black lace-ups, 3) black-faced Rolex, 4) Thom Browne cashmere wool tie, 5) Number (N)ine sunglasses, 6) Hong Kong, 7) Erotic Poems by e.e. cummings, 8) Seth Price mix CD, 9) Goldwell hair gel, 10) Sabatino Tartufi truffle honey

Here they are in detail:

clothing: the Comme des Garcons Homme black blazer

The soft tailoring on this Comme des Garcons Homme blazer in subtly crinkled black wool makes it an easy versatile piece, and the luxe red silk lining makes putting in on a simply delicious experience.

footwear: vintage black cap-toe lace-ups from London

These shoes, scuffed beyond decency, have been with me through two re-solings and one painful breaking-in. The classic almond-shaped cap-toe is perfect, and the patina adds that touch of street-grit shiny new shoes just can’t give.

time: black-faced Rolex

I’ve had it since I was a child, and wore it to elementary school with its original bezel of pavé white diamonds, much to the puzzlement of my classmates. Ah, the beginnings of a grown-up eccentric...

neckwear: gray houndstooth Thom Browne cashmere wool tie

Handsome and understated, and the soft cashmere makes it such a pleasure to stroke.

eyewear: round tortoise sunglasses by Number (N)ine

There’s something about round glasses that connotes eccentricity: John Lennon, Willie Wonka, Freddie Aguilar… The tortoiseshell gives it a softness that makes it more versatile than black.

travel: Hong Kong

The glossy boutiques of Hong Kong may carry all the goodies that the dark debonair needs to fill his closet with joy, but it’s the noisy, smelly, neon-hazy streets of authentic Hong Kong that fill his nights with wonder. He meanders about Kowloon, possibly lost on the way home to his hotel, he makes eye contact with a stranger or two, and is convinced he is Chow Mo-Wan from In the Mood for Love.

literature: Erotic Poems by e. e. cummings

e. e. cummings’ love notes embody the way the dark debonair lives his life: passionate and irreverent. The best subway read.

music: Seth Price Fashion

New York-based conceptual artist Seth Price put together a mix of both smooth, danceable beats and hauntingly jarring sounds for his latest collaboration with Tim Hamilton on the designer’s Spring 2011 line. The CD, a limited-edition giveaway at the Tim Hamilton presentation, is a carefully orchestrated audio file featuring Severed Heads, Philippe Besombes, and Zsa Zsa Laboum.

grooming: Goldwell hair gel

How else does the dark debonair achieve his bulletproof slick-back but with the thickest, most high-tech hair gel available? Goldwell’s Lagoom Jam is thick to the consistency of jam, yet washes out cleanly with warm water.

entertaining: Sabatino Tartufi truffle honey

Generously bespeckled with black truffles, this honey is a jewel in the dark debonair’s kitchen: slathered on cheese and crackers, drizzled over buttered pasta---or even on ice cream.

Here I am channeling my alter-ego du jour in a bruise-inspired color palette of black and blue:

Comme des Garcons blazer, Eton of Sweden shirt, Margiela denim cummerbund, Uniqlo jeans, and vintage lace-ups

details: round collar on the Eton shirt and a vintage astronaut pin with a moonstone head

Fellow menswear bloggers Mat of Buckets and Spades and Pelayo of Kate Loves Me have also collaborated with Aramis on similar posts on their ideas of how to be a gentleman. Check out theirs and other bloggers’ posts here:

Buckets and Spades

Kate Loves Me

Guerreisms

Impossible Cool

Man of the Cloth

photographs and collage by Hudson Shively

blog post written in partnership with Aramis