June 23, 2025 • 49 mins
Most men never received proper instruction on the fundamentals of personal grooming. From skincare routines to cologne application, haircare to nail maintenance - these skills aren't intuitive, they're learned. When a woman complains about her partner's hygiene, it often signals a gap in knowledge rather than laziness.
At The Men's Refinery in Conyers, Georgia, owners Cedric Mews and Alvino Sanders have created a sanctuary where men can receive grooming services without the discomfort of traditional salons. This clothing and grooming lounge offers everything from haircuts and shaves to manicures, pedicures, custom clothing & shoes, and even features a members' area with a golf simulator - all designed specifically with men in mind.
Our fascinating conversation with Cedric, master barber Alvino Sanders, therapist Quentin Opong, and veteran Kelly Saunders explores how personal appearance affects both others' perception and self-confidence. We tackle sensitive topics like male baldness (and the psychological impact of hair loss), proper cologne application (hint: two spritzes, not a shower), and why those neglected feet matter more than you think. The experts share wisdom on building proper grooming rituals, finding authentic personal style beyond expensive brands, and teaching young men the self-care habits that build lifelong confidence.
Whether you're struggling with thinning hair, never had a proper skincare routine, or simply want to elevate your personal presentation, this episode delivers practical guidance from men who understand the intimate connection between grooming, confidence, and success. Your appearance speaks volumes before you say a word - make sure it's telling the right story. Follow us and leave a five-star review to support conversations that truly matter for modern men.
MEN’S REFINERY: 948 Railroad St NW, Conyers GA 30012
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You have to start bringing back is because I
(00:01):
remember I was growing up my dadwould call me out on it and I
have to go back and like, goback and do this, go back.
And so I think, just reteachingthat with two young boys, of
taking your time in the morning,the evenings, to make sure you
do that, because they move intoo fast, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I can add to that too .
It's building up a habit, butalso a ritual.
I'm into, like the skincarething.
Have a good routine foryourself, because when you're
stepping out that door andgetting ready to take on the day
, you want to be the bestversion of yourself when you
step out the door and comingback into you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
From personal grooming manicure, pedicures,
how to properly wear cologne,having a sense of fashion.
You would think that thesethings would be intuitive,
innate, but they're not.
Men have to learn all thatstuff or, at the very least, be
exposed to them.
Ladies, for that dude in yourlife whose feet look like he
(00:58):
should have had a starting roleon Jurassic Park, that's not
normal, and you probably thinkit is because you're like well,
I just guys.
No, it's not.
Trust me, we can do better.
And fellas, not only is itperfectly okay to take care of
yourself, personal grooming is arequired part of your life.
We find ourselves today in aconversation with young
(01:20):
therapist Quinton, militaryveteran veteran Kelly and the
owners of the men's refinery,alvino and Curtis.
It's a place where we can getmanicures, pedicures, facials,
tailored suits, chill back inthe pool room or even enjoy the
golf simulator.
So when it comes to personalgrooming for men, these guys are
(01:41):
the experts, so we went to themfor this very insightful
dialogue.
Welcome to Manhood Matters.
Let's get to it.
It's going to be a super coolepisode, because this is
something I've been wanting totalk about.
People talk about metrosexuals,people talk about grooming.
(02:02):
I even heard women, grown women, complaining about personal
hygiene from their dudes.
So there's so many things thatwe can touch on here, and it's
not just about pamperingourselves, coming in for a
manicure and pedicure.
There's so much more to it andthis, I think, is more of a gift
yeah, to ourselves, but I think, to our partners, our spouses
how we take care of ourselves,how we show up.
(02:23):
So I want to introduce firstthe owner of this dope ass
establishment.
It's called the Men's Refineryand I want to tell you real
quick, cedric, I thought aboutsomething like this a long time
ago.
Years ago, I was going to callit the lion's den, and then I
realized it was about 15 lion'sdens that already existed, but
it wasn't a passion of mine, itwas just something that I felt
was missing.
(02:43):
I was living in Memphis,tennessee.
I felt something like this wasmissing.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah, thank you, absolutely.
I'm Cedric Mews.
I'm the owner of the Men'sRefinery.
The Men's Refinery is aclothing and grooming lounge
specifically set up for men.
We offer haircut shaves,manicures, pedicures for men.
We do custom clothing, customshoes.
We have a members lounge andalso a golf lounge, and I came
(03:11):
up with this concept I don'tknow, it's probably been 15
years ago and the reason that Icame up with it is because my
wife invited me to come out andget a manicure and pedicure with
her, so she drug me to thesalon and I actually really,
really enjoy the experience.
(03:33):
But I hated the environment.
Yeah, you know, I know what youmean.
The smell of what is it?
Acetone in the air.
Yeah, and even the other womenthat were in there.
You know, there were women thatwere sitting across from me.
They had on skirts that lookedlike belts, so they were
constantly crossing their legs.
I could tell that they wereuncomfortable with me sitting
(03:53):
across from them.
So I was thinking, man, it'd bereally nice to create a place
where a man can go andcomfortably get services like
this done.
And I partnered up with AlvinoSanders, who was my barber at
the time, and my other partner,gary Moore, and Gary kind of
(04:13):
specializes in the clothing sideof it, vino kind of specializes
on the grooming side of it, andfor me I'm pretty much
operations that's kind of mybackground.
So we kind of all teamed up.
I pitched the concept to them,we put in the work, sweat equity
and created the men's refinery.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's a beautiful place.
I walked in here this morning.
I was totally impressed.
You hit the nail on the head,brother, I appreciate it.
It's a great place, and I can'twait to start coming here.
It's a little drive away, butit's one of those things where
you, just like you, dedicate aday just taking care of yourself
everywhere in atlanta is adestination man.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
What exactly?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
exactly, and who would you introduce yourself,
brother?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
my name is quentin quentin opong.
I am well, first and foremost,um, I would identify myself as a
disciple of jesus, a believer.
I'm a husband and I'm also atherapist a mental health health
therapist almost five years nowand, man, I enjoy it.
I tell people all the time it'sa calling.
Most people I don't think wakeup when they're kids and say I
(05:13):
want to be a therapist, but itfinds you, you know it finds you
, and so I just really enjoyedthis work and Cedric was talking
about men having space.
I particularly have found moreand more the more I've done this
work, how much men don't feellike they have that space just
to either be pampered, to taketheir armor off, as I usually
say in therapy.
(05:33):
That's just been a big passionof mine these past couple of
years just really being thatspace, that safe space for men.
And so I'm glad to be here, I'mexcited to learn.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Thank you for having me, man.
I appreciate you being here,brother, yeah, hey, this is
Kelly Saunders.
I'm the founder of ElevateTransitioning Service Members,
which is a nonprofit dedicatedto helping veterans transition
from service back into civiliansociety.
And then I'm also on theplanning committee for the
Brotherless Talk About itinitiative for the 100 Black Men
of South Metro Atlanta.
I'm just excited to be hereagain to talk on veterans
transitioning and grooming, butto hear other perspectives as
well.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So let's jump right into it.
So let's talk about imageperception versus reality.
Why does image matter?
Let's start with you, cedric.
What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Image is everything.
And the reason I say that?
Because your image gives thepeople around you a perception
of who you are and people makean opinionated guess of who you
are within the first threeseconds of when they meet you.
So image doesn't always have tobe dressed up.
(06:38):
You know, you mentioned thatyou're most comfortable in your
T-shirt and that's okay.
But when you couple yourgrooming with that, your eyewear
, your beard, your haircut, allof that helps to make your image
.
It's important, depending onwhich space you're operating in.
If you're going for a jobinterview, you want your
perception to look a certaintype of way.
(06:59):
If you're trying to entice ayoung lady, you want your image
to look a certain type of way.
And if you're just hanging outwith the guys, you want your
image to look a certain type ofway.
But there's something calledperception and reality, because
many times with your image, theperception is your individual
(07:19):
thoughts about how you look,about how you feel about
yourself, and then there's areality portion of it,
especially when it comes tofashion.
I had the privilege of helpingout in a fashion show a couple
of days ago and they bought in agroup of models.
All of them had their own look,their own perception of who
(07:40):
they are.
And, it's interesting, Idressed three different guys in
a more traditional look.
It was so much different thanwhat they were used to.
Right, they never sawthemselves that way Exactly.
Exactly, and one of the thingsthat they asked me.
They were like how did you knowI would look good in this
(08:01):
outfit?
There are certain aspects ofdress that most anyone will look
at and say that looks nice.
And then there are the extremes.
Think about the 1970s the pimplook If we were to see somebody
walking in and something likethat is going to catch our
attention.
But is it going to be positiveattention or negative?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
attention More like comical attention.
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
So the person that's wearing that has a certain
perception about how they look,but what's the reality?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, I don't have stats on it, but if I had to
just do a quick observation,especially with our folks, when
I look around, they're moreconcerned about how others view
them in the sense of name brandand things like that.
I will never in a million yearswear somebody's name across my
chest.
You'll never see a Gucci,balenciaga, whatever the hell
names out there, it's not myname, right, so it doesn't make
(08:58):
sense to me Now, if we'retalking quality and we're
talking craftsmanship, I mightspend a lot of money getting
something, but yet I'm notadvertising it, if that makes
sense.
So I guess the question is andI can ask any of you guys how do
you feel about the wholeshowing up for yourself, being
(09:18):
comfortable being?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
clean, being groomed, versus oh, I need people to see
that I've got this brand on.
Yeah, just to speak to that alittle bit.
One thing I didn't mention inthe intro so I'm also African.
Right, I'm Ghanaian, and my dadgrowing up, my dad is a huge
fashion guy.
He likes to make boldstatements, so my dad's the type
of guy who wear maroon onmaroon, with maroon shoes and
maroon socks, and might have amaroon watch.
Right, he's coming in.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
We call that a one piece yes exactly right that
sounds.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
African yeah, for sure exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Oh man, bold colors in Haiti.
They call that a complete yes,actually we use the same word
wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, we call that a complete that means from toes
head to toe.
Man, you got that one piececolor and you start getting.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Come back, chale, you look complete you look complete
.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
That's yeah, man, and so for me growing, you start
getting.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
come back Chale, you look complete, you look complete
.
That's yeah, man, and so for megrowing up, he has that piece
about him.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
but he also is a big Tommy guy, Tommy.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Hilfiger.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So I was born in Italy, I grew up in Italy for a
little bit and then he livedthere with my mom for a while,
so got in Tommy Hilfiger stuff.
But I remember, as I wasstarting to come up this idea
that, man, when I put this on,people are going to associate a
certain level of status, acertain level of wealth with
that we all can attest to, likepeople who are not really
(10:33):
fashionable but they're justthrowing the name brand.
My best man at my wedding weused to room together.
One of the things that I usedto talk to him about is like man
, how do you put yourselftogether?
He was always so fashionableand I remember he always used to
share how.
For him it wasn't about thebrand, it was about being
creative right, and creativitycomes from within.
You can tell when somebody isjust copying something or
(10:54):
they're being original, and so Ithink, when you go back to the
question of showing up foryourself, you know, in therapy
we often talk about this idea ofthe perceived image and then
the actual image Right.
We often talk about this ideaof the perceived image and then
the actual image Right, and alot of times our actual image is
the part of us that we reallyare afraid for people to see.
Right, it's the one that'shidden, it's the one that only
maybe close, close people to usknow or see, and the perceived
(11:20):
image is the one that we wanteverybody to see, because we're
really, at the end of the day,sometimes afraid of being
vulnerable.
And so I find that if we cantap into that actual image and
be okay with it, like you said,like I don't care, I don't care
who thinks what of me, like Iknow who I am internally,
whatever you wear, however youshow up, people are attracted to
that.
People are attracted touniqueness.
No one wants just to seemultiple carbon copies.
And I think the other thing Iwould add when I work a lot of
(11:41):
teen, teen boys.
This is a big thing that I'moften wrestling with, because if
a lot of my teen boys they'renow be trying to figure out who
they are right, but particularlyin this generation, gen Z, gen
Alpha they got so muchinformation coming at them
telling them who they should be.
Absolutely so when I'm asking ateen boy, like why you want to
be a twitch streamer, why youwant to do that, all they can
give me is well, you know, thegirls like it, or man, you know,
(12:04):
I saw this social media persondoing it.
They can't fully tell me theirwhy.
Right, I think that's just so,so important to do that so that
we don't have a bunch of youngboys becoming men who are lost
it drives me crazy like I.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
I went into a store I don't remember if it was louis
or something else, but we're inviami.
I went to a store with a friendof mine and you know I wouldn't
be caught dead in that store.
It had nothing to do with themoney man, it just had to do
with the fact that it feltpompous to me.
We went in and he's looking atthese shoes and they're sneakers
, right, and they have metal allover them like spice and stuff
like that.
It's a $3,000 pair of sneakers.
(12:36):
I'm like for what?
That doesn't matter if I havethe money to throw me.
The only reason I'm wearing thatis so someone else could look
at it and go that's interestingand notice the brand name and
know that this guy's got $3,000shoes on.
That's all.
This is a statement.
Would you put that on for anyother reason?
I don't mean to criticizepeople who do, because there are
people that I know I'm wearingNike.
It's Nike all the way down tothe socks and that doesn't make
(12:57):
sense to me.
I don't understand it, but Iwas 20.
I'm not 20 anymore.
So I don't understand how thatstill works with grown men.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
One of the things you know, being in the fashion
industry, that I see isentertainment leads fashion 100%
.
So a lot of people that aren'tcomfortable at who they are or
have established an identity.
That's what they look to.
An identity that's what theylook to.
I deal with different customersand a lot of times they talk to
me about a certain brand ofsuit or a certain brand of
(13:29):
clothes and I'm like I have noidea who that is and they're
like, but you're in the fashionindustry.
How do you not know who that is?
I said are you concerned abouta certain brand or a look?
because you can create greatquality, a great look, and it
doesn't have to be a particularbrand.
(13:49):
And being in the clothingindustry, see, I understand
behind the scenes.
I understand that some of theseoff the rack $2,000 suits come
down the same line as a three or$400 suit and in the back they
have all of these different tagsand, depending on who your
(14:09):
brand is, they pull that tag andthey put it in that suit and
they send it out to thewhichever so the only difference
, then, cedric, is the tagthat's on there in some cases.
Now I will say the different,different brands put a little
more into the quality, you know,but it can still go through the
same factory to be manufactured.
(14:31):
It just may be okay.
My brand is going to have pickstitching.
My brand is going to haveworkable buttons to give it a
more expensive.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Look Right, and you know it's funny.
You should say that because Ispent a lot of years in
corporate America and in sales,so I was always suit and tie.
I mean, you know, I'm one ofthose guys with a bow tie.
You'll never catch me with aclip on.
That's ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
I know how to tie a bow tie right.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You know I buy certain suits.
I'd go to whatever store thereis, spend $500, $600 on a suit,
$1,000 on a suit.
But my most expensive suit todate and I started learning from
another dude kind of likeyourself it has no brand, it
just was at a place like this.
I went in yeah, it was inNashville Picking not just the
(15:16):
measurements, but from pickingthe fabric to material what do
you want on the inside?
What do you want that to looklike?
What do you want this to look?
What kind of stitching.
He was asking me questions thatI didn't even know existed.
I didn't know what I didn'tknow and I was like dude, I have
no clue.
You need to guide me.
I mean, I already knew going init was going to be expensive,
right, right, but the brand onthe suit is a label with my name
on it, right, absolutely,because you can get it done any
(15:38):
way you want.
So it's myself and my wife'sname on it and a date.
I hate when I hear someone,especially men oh man, this is
so-and-so, this is Balenciaga.
Them shoes are ugly, bro.
What are you talking about?
Why is it a hundred thousand?
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I don't know how much it costs, but like, yeah, it's
stupid as you.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I don't understand why you would spend a lot of
money Cause if that was sittingat pay less for $15, you
wouldn't look at it twice.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Absolutely, and you know we just get caught up into
that.
Everything is about brand,everything is about how much it
costs and quality gets lost.
And when I tell you, for a lotof the big brands that are in
the industry, they love it, ofcourse, because they don't have
to spend money on their endputting in the quality you know.
To find a good quality pair ofdress shoes now it's almost
impossible.
People throw around the termbespoke suits and I want to talk
(16:32):
about the difference between amade-to-measure suit and a true
bespoke suit.
With a made-to-measure suit,someone takes all of your
measurements.
You can pick out your fabric.
They send it to wherever themanufacturer is and they put
together your suit.
They send it back.
You probably have a localtailor that makes whatever
(16:53):
adjustments need to be made.
But it's still done in amanufacturing facility.
So what I do is kind of acombination of bespoke and made
to measure Because of my tailoris not here, he's in bangladesh,
so I have to take all themeasurements.
He sends me all of the suitbooks, so these are the same
suit books as far as the fabricsthat he has.
(17:15):
So I pick out the fabric, doyour design, I send all your
measurements over to them andthey hand make the suits.
So that's a true bespoke suit.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I was going to say, yeah, just because he's not
sitting here in your shop.
But that's bespoke.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
yeah, yeah, the only difference is a true bespoke is
you come here, you pick out yourfabric.
The tailor will get the fabric.
He'll take your measurements,he'll pre-sew the suit.
You'll come back in, he'll tryit on.
You take more measurements andyou go through a process of
three or four of those fittings.
So when you're finished, oh,it's a perfect fit you know, as
(17:52):
opposed to having to send it outsomewhere.
But I did a lot of trainingsessions with my tailor.
He shows me exactly how to makethe same measurements that he
would do, so once we get yoursuit back, it's a great fit.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I had no clue.
All that was involved.
Right, yeah, that explains whyit costs a lot of money Switch
gears.
This must have come up quite abit at the men's refinery men's
baldness and the psychologicaland emotional impact.
Why do you bring that up?
Is that something that peoplehere struggle with?
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Well, actually I'm going to let my business partner
Alvino speak on that.
He's the expert.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
He is a master barber .
He's been barbering for what?
30 plus years.
He is the expert on that andI'm going to tag him in to speak
on that.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, tag him in, come, take a seat right next to
him and just uh Alvino can talkabout this man.
Speaker 6 (18:44):
He's still got hair Welcome brother, hey how you
doing, how you doing Going goodman, Introduce yourself if you
don't mind.
My name is Alvino Sanders.
Everybody affectionately callsme Vino.
As Cedric mentioned, I've beenin the hair industry for 30 plus
years.
I've worked on all types ofhair.
I do women's hair as well.
(19:04):
But since we started the men'srefinery, you know, I've kind of
focused my energy on helpingmen with their appearance.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I remember I started thinning when I was in my
twenties.
What's crazy is, for me it wasextreme right Cause I had every
type of hairstyle.
But then I had locks, so I wentfrom having locks going down to
my back, but it was thinning,you know, and I struggled with
that.
I try to cover it up, causeagain, I'm in my twenties.
I'm like what's going on?
And I remember my oldest.
She was four years old, so nowI'm 30.
(19:32):
And it got to the point where Iwas just like if you were
sitting behind me and I leanback, you'd be like dude, you
need to do something about thisLike this is ridiculous.
I had one dude called mePredator.
Remember Predator?
Oh, no Because you had hands of
Speaker 5 (19:47):
water, oh my.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
God, I had another Jamaican dude.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That's ruthless Imagine.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Grew up in New York Right, and this was my friend.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Duh, these are friends, by the way.
Right, I had another friend ofmine, a Jamaican dude.
He used to call me me bald headdread he's like how are you
going?
to be bald and dread the sameMeanwhile it's very common in
Jamaica.
But I digress, I'll be totallyhonest here, man, I considered
other options.
I considered I saw thiscommercial.
I was like there's got to besomething I can do, right.
(20:17):
So I go into this clinic andI'm with my little girl this
time.
You know, she was always myride or die.
She's with me.
We were spending the daytogether and I go into this
place and I thought it was somekind of medication or maybe they
put some kind of ointment andit grows back.
So they do this fullconsultation, spend an hour with
me going back and forth, andtowards the end, when it's time
to close, they hit me with thislittle well, we can graph this
(20:39):
patch and it's basically, it's atoupee, right, right, and this
is like a patch with dreads andI'm like y'all kidding me,
that's coming.
They're like yeah, just, youknow you can go in the pool,
everything will be cool, but ifyou don't come back because you
have to come back to them tomaintain this process- there's a
business, yeah, it's like ifyou don't come back and you go a
month without it, you mightjump in the pool and this shit
(21:02):
might just float away.
Right, you know I'm.
You know what?
Come on, baby, grab my babygirl.
I was like I'm out of here.
I went to the nearestbarbershop and I said shave it
all off, which traumatized mydaughter because she had never
seen me any different from thetime she was born to me having
long hair.
That's all she knew.
And she's sitting there andshe's watching these people just
shave my head, shit flippingout right.
(21:23):
I'm like it's okay, it's okay.
Very next day I went to work.
No one recognized me.
I just walk in.
Who's this new guy, right?
Speaker 5 (21:29):
because that's how different.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I look wow.
And then one guy says to me yougot a nice shape head and that
kind of like did it for me.
I don't know why?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
it was something as simple.
Because I was like, as long asI get a nice shape head, I was
like, right, because you don'tknow what's under there, right
your whole life.
You don't know what's underthere, right your whole life you
don't know what's under there.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And he goes, you got a nice shaped head.
He was like you're one of thefew ones who can get away with
it.
I was like, oh cool, and myconfidence was right back up.
But I did struggle with thatfor a long time leading up to it
.
It was kind of like you'rescared to jump, but when you
jump you're like it's not a bigdeal.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
The way society perceives baldness involvedness.
It varies.
It's more accepted now thanksto individuals like Michael
Jordan.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Hell yeah, 90s, baby.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
You know the Rock and people like that, that's right
Because it can be associatedwith masculinity and how a man
is perceived as being a man.
I would venture to say, beforeMichael Jordan really came on
the scene, it wasn't reallylooked at as something favorable
.
Yeah, it wasn't cool,particularly in the case, like
you said, when you're young.
I had a friend he was 23, andhe had the bozo going on.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
And that was traumatic.
Yeah, because during thatperiod of time, that's when
you're rocking your waves.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
He said he had the bozo going on.
I mean, you might even knowwhat that is.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I was going to say what is a bozo?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Well, see, that's when you don't have anything up
here at the top and you justhave the hair around the sides,
kind of like a cul-de-sac,almost a little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Exactly.
Yeah, a bozo is a clown.
That's when you have yoursunroof is fully open.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Wow, that's a barber joke, yeah, but.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
But yeah, it can be very traumatic because how
people perceive you and, likeyou mentioned, now there are
options but it really depends onthe individual, on how they
look at themselves Right, andalso what type of field of
employment they're in.
It makes a difference too.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Command.
Yeah Like what what job.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Well, take for instance news.
Okay, You'll see newscasts, youdon't?
You rarely see any newscastersthat are completely bald.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, and it's just the perception that they have.
I never thought about that,yeah.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Yeah, and, like I said, nowadays it's becoming a
little bit more accepted, butbefore it's it was really rough
for individual, for men who werelosing their hair.
You said there are options.
What options?
Well, there are severaldifferent options.
What you were speaking of iscalled a hair unit.
They called it a toupee.
It is.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
That's what it is, you know, but to be politically
correct.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
But it actually looks better than what a toupee used
to look like.
Gotcha Back in the day a toupeelooked like a toupee.
You could look at them and tellthey had something sitting on
top of their head.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Let me ask you this Back in the day, right, did they
have toupees for people ofcolor?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Nah, not really, because I see some crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
You just went hand units.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Not really.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
Not really.
Not like they have today.
I mean they had some, but, likeI said, you could tell Right,
you could tell it was somethingsitting on top of their head.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
It didn't look natural at all.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
It looked alive, yeah , but nowadays you could see
someone with a brush fade or abrush, wave, cut and it could be
a hair unit.
You would never know thedifference.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, I've seen those on social media.
Man, they add all this stuffand then they shave it and they
glue it and it looks amazing.
I would never, but I'm like Ican't I do it myself?
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Oh my God.
I had a client that flew allthe way from England to have his
done.
I forgot what occupation he had, but you know it was important
that he Doesn't it have to bemaintained.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yes, it did so.
How often does he need to comeback to you, or can he go to
someone else on this pointforward?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
Well, usually if you find someone who knows how to do
it correctly, you want to stickwith that person.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
And how often does a person have to come back?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Well, it depends on it's different methods.
You have the inexpensive, wherethey just take braid hair, glue
it to your scalp and then theycut it down and blend it.
You know that will last youabout a week.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, a week.
Yeah, especially if you'reworking out, but that's usually
yeah if you're sweating.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
You can't get in the pool with it.
You know You're like no, Ican't swim Right, right, but
that's usually if somebody hassomething like they're going on
vacation or going somewherewhere nobody really knows them.
And you know they want to rockthe brush fade or the brush cut
Wow.
Then they can put that on.
Then you have the other, whereyou actually have the unit.
(26:02):
It's a hair unit on a thin likea plastic almost, but it's
breathable and you shape it, youglue it onto the scalp.
That usually lasts about threeto four months.
Again, it depends on theindividual and what their
lifestyle is.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
And how they perceive , as Cedric was saying earlier,
is how they perceive themselves.
Yeah, then you have morenon-invasive methods, such as
the minoxidil, and this is likea drop that drops that you can
put on your scalp and everything.
You have really inexpensiveways, and these are often joked
about the hair fibers.
Yes, you know, you see wherethey do the hair fibers.
(26:40):
Hey, I was going to talk onthat.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
A little powder.
Yeah, it's little like fibers,you know you just put it on and
then you put like a hole on itand you shape it.
That works.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I mean, I have them on here, fibers right now, what?
Yeah, you said, you got it onright now.
Yeah, I got it on right now.
Speaker 6 (26:57):
And see that goes to the professionalism of the
particular barber who's doing it, because it's not supposed to
be a whole head of hair, it'ssupposed to enhance what you
already have.
If you have areas that may be alittle thinner than others,
that's what you typically useyour fibers for to fill those in
the same.
You know we do it with beardsand everything If you have areas
(27:18):
that's not really full you usethe fibers to kind of just fill
that in, and it's not meant tolast for a long period of time.
If you got something going onor, you know, if you're trying
to make it through the week,then that's when you use the
fibers.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I got a question because, as you were talking,
vino, you were talking aboutcareer, right?
I just want to know if thisstatement is a myth or a fact.
I've always heard people saydon't go to a barber who is bald
.
That makes no sense trying toget your hair cut.
Is that a myth?
That a fact?
Because I've heard that rightand people will actually go by
(27:53):
that.
Speaker 6 (27:54):
No, that's a myth.
That's a myth.
I don't, I don't hear that.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
The only thing that I hear that I believe is I'm not
going to a fat physical trainerif you're out of shape.
You can't tell me what to dobecause you're out of shape,
right?
People say don't what to dobecause, you're out of shape,
right?
People say don't go to a skinnychef.
Maybe they're.
They take care of their bodies.
They eat a certain way, butthey can still cook they have to
.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You know what I mean so.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
I've never heard that one don't go to a barber.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That was a thing I used to hear a lot like man you
know if you have hair.
The assumption is they don'tknow.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
At one time they had hair.
That's true, they may not haveit now, but they had hair at one
time.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
So let me ask you this With all the options, why
are some men, with all the moneyin the world, still struggling
like KD and LeBron?
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Like what's up with those dudes, man, because they
look like they're trying butit's not working.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I'm like you have money.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
I would be happy to kind of straighten it out, to
take care of your kid and LeBron.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, if this ever gets to him, Just cut it
down low man.
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I'm struggling with that right now.
Yeah, Just a matter of it's notimportant.
I'm going to be like you,Stephon, in a couple of months.
I've been that way since.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Why do some men choose to keep the bozo on?
There's only one option.
You start to thin out, shave it, look uniform and it still goes
to the barbershop.
More white men do it than blackmen.
We tend to shave and just giveup on it and just say we're
going to shave the whole thingoff.
But some men still keep it.
It's gray, it's whatever.
Why do some people choose tokeep that?
Speaker 6 (29:19):
at all.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
It's like when you were saying you had the dreads,
yeah, um, during the time thatyou had your dreads and you were
thinning, you didn't want tolet that go, yeah, but I could
cover it because I could takeone strand of hedge like I moved
.
Well, you know there wascoverage, you have some guys,
they try to do the no, there'snothing there.
Speaker 6 (29:38):
It's ball and you just got that thing around they
don't want to let it go, becausethey may not have the the
self-confidence to just gocompletely bald.
So they they still want to holdon to their perception, like,
like we were saying, perceptionversus reality.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, it's interesting, because to me they
look older it actually does anda lot of men.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
If they decided to just completely go bald, they
would actually look.
It would look better.
Women seem to prefer that,opposed to you walking around
with the cul-de-sac yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
So confidence boosters, embracing your look
and owning your presence.
Let's talk about that for alittle bit.
Yeah, can I?
Speaker 2 (30:19):
touch on that?
Um, I don't need.
In the marine corps, we had toget our haircuts every week
before formation, but theydidn't teach us a sense of style
, so, so every time that I wentout, I didn't have that
confidence.
I was wearing like militaryboots and and this jeans, and I
was looking like oh, this is notmy style, what I'm doing Right.
So I get out of military andI'm going to bars and stuff like
(30:42):
that and I'm not getting noreplies from any women.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
No, play no play at all.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Like what the hell is going on?
I got all my you know, my bootsand all this other stuff.
Don't y'all see the boots?
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Don't y'all see the?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
boots.
I've been in combat, right.
Nah, that's not how it works.
So, hey, I had to download thisapp called Pinterest.
You know you can create yourvision board and everything like
that.
So I started to put some piecestogether and when I did that,
it gave me a boost of confidencein my appearance.
You know, self-grooming comesfrom going out and taking the
(31:18):
time to have someone else dothat for you.
You know what I'm saying.
It's like planning a wedding.
You're not going to plan yourown wedding, you're going to
have someone else do it.
You want to feel relaxed onyour day.
So, going back to adjusting tothis new, different fashion for
myself, I had to create my ownfashion.
I have a good physique.
(31:38):
It's like yourself, stefan, youwear shirts because you have a
nice physique, right.
So that confidence helped mepave the way for my success in
life.
Like I feel good when I go intoa meeting with some of my
stakeholders and presentinginformation to them.
They take me seriously.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, there's something to be said about that.
Whenever I play sports it waslike you look good, you feel
good, you play good Even down,the way you put on that uniform,
the way you put on those cleatsright.
It was always that way for mein sales.
Most of the guys we weren't inmy, our team for years we were
in door-to-door.
The most successful guys andgirls in a team were the best
looking ones.
It wasn't the most skillfulones.
(32:17):
They became skillful because ofthe habit of talking to
different people, dealing withobjections.
But initially, when a personknocks on your door, it's crazy
what that will do.
When you look good, when youlook a certain way, that polo
fits you right and you're inshape and things like that.
And same thing for the women.
You know, the best looking onemade the most sales.
(32:39):
It was just.
It just never failed.
It's unfair, but it is what itis.
And plus, even when it wasn'tthe case, it's still to your
point.
Kelly gave you that boost ofconfidence.
When you have that look, whenyou have that confidence, you
leave your home a certain way.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
You feel like you can walk on water, and I wanted to
touch on that point as well.
That's one of the things, Ithink, that sets us apart here
at the refinery.
We are all experts in our fieldand we understand that it's
important, as Cedric said at thevery onset your image, how you
perceive yourself.
We can see what you may not seewhen it comes to your
(33:14):
appearance, when it comes toyour hair and you know we were
joking earlier about thebaldness and all that.
But my job is if I have aclient to come in he's not sure
about his appearance, he's notsure about what looks right on
him or how he's supposed topresent himself to the public,
my job as a professional is toshow him, to give him the
(33:36):
blueprint, more or less, as towhat looks best on him and how
he should be perceived, be ithair fibers, be it hair units,
be it if he wants to just gocompletely bald.
That's where my expertise comesin.
And, like I mentioned, we werejoking, but, all seriousness,
how you feel about yourself ismore important than what anybody
else feels about you.
It matters 100%.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
So you guys have more of a consultative approach,
exactly, and then you can gofrom there.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
And I try to instruct my young men at least take care
of your hair, shampoo it,condition it, you know, because
some of these young men theydon't even I don't think they've
ever washed their hair.
You know, all they want to dois do the sponge and keep it
moving.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And honestly, just to be transparent, that was me and
still sometimes I'm stillworking through it where my dad
was always big on me getting ahaircut right, making sure
everything was clean growing up.
It was don't have too much atthe top, but no one ever really
told me how do I actually takecare of my scalp?
It's just I'm just curious,where do you even start with
young man when you're puttingyoung black man?
(34:40):
Because, like I, I remember II've tried so many different
products like, like the as I Am,and the Cantu.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Did you ever try a Soul Glow?
Because?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
that's where it's at.
You've never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
You've never heard of Soul Glow.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Right, right, right.
I caught on when he said that,but for real, where do you start
with young men when figuring itout?
Speaker 6 (35:01):
I will say this much and a lot of people don't
understand.
Products that are on the marketare not specifically for us.
Caucasian hair tends to be oily, so their products are designed
to strip oil from the hair.
Our hair is not oily, it'stypically dry.
That's why we have to putgrease and moisturizers, and
(35:21):
things in it and moisturizersand things in it.
So, when it comes to shampoos,things of that nature, try to go
with brands that are designedfor our hair, because what you
wind up doing if you're using aparticular shampoo and you're
shampooing your hair and you'retrying to figure out why are my
scalp always dry, why is my hairalways dry?
Because it's stripping whateveroils that you have.
(35:43):
It's stripping them out of yourhair.
I would advise going to beautysupply stores and purchasing,
opposed to, let's say, going toTarget or, you know, walmart,
because they have a smallsection for us, but you know you
have more variety if you golike to a beauty supply store
and purchase your shampoos andthings of that nature.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
So what you're saying is I need to go and ask for
SoGlo.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
A hot commodity.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
You said something earlier, vino.
That's going to help me segueto this next part of the
conversation here, and I want totalk about something that you
would think would be secondnature.
You would think would be prettystraightforward, but it doesn't
seem to be.
I had a gentleman I was talkingto a few weeks ago.
He was saying how his ex-wifecalled him and said our son is
(36:32):
not taking care of his body interms of hygiene, and it was
clear that he had never beenshown how, and so he goes.
You know, that's my bad as adad.
We just assumed that at somepoint you just know how to do
that.
So what happens is when certainthings are not imparted upon
you, I think we grow up thinkingthat people just know how to do
these things.
Women will complain and go yeah, he's not the best at hygiene
(36:54):
and things like that.
Right now there's a trend goingaround the Internet.
Every black person has rejectedthat trend, thank God.
But it's a trend about how youonly need, as humans, you know
the way we evolve we only needto shower once every three days
or shit like that.
Obviously we're like nah, bro,I'm not leaving the house, you
know, until I shower.
(37:15):
I'm not going to bed withoutyou know, without taking a
shower.
What are your thoughts onpersonal hygiene from manicure,
even the way we wear clothes?
How offensive it is.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
Do you put too much on?
Do you know how to put it on?
I'm glad you brought that up,because our neotechs probably
would kill us if we didn't bringthis up.
Nail care for men.
As you noticed when you come in, we have pedicure bowls.
We offer nail care for men,manicures, pedicures.
One of the myths that men haveis that pedicures and manicures
are for women only.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, make you soft.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Yeah, make you soft you know you're trying to be
pretty and all that that conceptderived from.
In order for you to get yourhands and feet done, you had to
go to a female establishment.
You got the nail polish andit's all pretty and pink and
everything.
So it makes you uncomfortableto be in that setting.
But it's important that you dotake care of your hands and feet
(38:11):
just like you do any part ofyour body.
That was the driving point whenCedric and I came up with this
concept is to create anatmosphere where men feel
comfortable taking care of theirhands and feet.
As one of our nail technicians,a friend, she always asked
their clients how long have yourfeet been taking care of you?
And once they get it done, youknow they're like man.
(38:32):
I should have did this a longtime ago.
It's a wonderful experience andwe have two very exceptional
nail technicians that are partof our team here.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Awesome, yeah, even down to like wearing cologne.
I could be wrong about this,but I believe it was invented in
France and it was really tomask people not showering and
taking care of themselves.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
So it was just kind of covering themselves up with
perfume.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
And I was in an environment once where I
remember this woman.
She walked in the room and wewent into the break room.
She could have been gone 20minutes.
I would walk in and go, damn,was Jackie in here?
And sure enough, jackie was inthere because he was the most
offensive.
Not that it smelled bad, it wasjust too much of it.
This is something my uncleshowed me a long time ago.
Because I wear cologne and it'stwo spritzes.
(39:16):
I get out of the shower, it'son my skin because it has to mix
with body chemistry.
A little bit on my wrist andI'm done.
I put my clothes on.
You're going to smell it ifyou're close to me, if you come
in for a handshake, if you comein for a hug or something like
that.
If I'm in the elevator, youmight be like, hey, that's a
nice cologne, what is that?
But I'm not going to walkthrough a hallway and every room
can smell me.
And if you're in the car withme all the way down the pants
(39:42):
leg and I'm like, what are youdoing?
They're showering, yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Yeah, it's supposed to act as an enhancement.
Yeah, a lot of times, man tendto want to overdo it.
Yeah, hey, I was like thatmyself.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Spray it all over you , spray it all over me, the
expensive Creed cologne andstuff like that.
But with Creed cologne.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You got to make that creed last too, and on top of
that it is it is already strong.
If you understand the waycologne works yes, it works
differently on me than it willon you exactly you know, like my
wife will smell something on meif you.
I like the way that smells onyou.
It's not even my favoritecologne, but I like the way that
smells on you it's different,which is why it?
Speaker 5 (40:23):
goes on your skin exactly.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, just to even piggyback on what you shared
about the hygiene piece for ayoung man, one of the things
I've noticed, like when I haveyoung guys come into the therapy
space and like their parentsare complaining this person's
not showering.
A couple things I've noticedsometimes is either you have the
young man who is just feelingunmotivated in general there's a
level of maybe I wouldn't sayclinical depression, but they're
(40:46):
just unmotivated.
They don't really see whatthey're going to do with their
life.
There's no drive, right, sojust they're not even trying,
right.
I think in those times it'simportant to speak to that part
of that young man.
But I think the other piece ofthis they're not even being
taught about the summertime.
I'm waking up, eating somecereal and I'm jumping on my
(41:07):
video game, Right, and this ishigh stimulation and so they're
not really being taught how toslow down and work your way into
the day by taking a shower,brushing your teeth, making sure
you lotion your face, Right,Like.
I think that's something thatwe have to start bringing back
is because I remember I wasgrowing up my dad would call me
out on it and I have to go backand like go back and do this, go
back, and so I think, justreteaching that with two young
(41:29):
boys, of taking your time in themorning, the evenings, to make
sure you do that because theymove in too fast now you know, I
can add to that too.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
It's building up a habit, but also a ritual.
I'm into, like the skincarething.
Have a good routine foryourself, because when you're
stepping out that door orgetting ready to take on the day
, you want to be the bestversion of yourself.
When you step out that door andcoming back into your home,
wash all that energy, bad energy, off.
Watch all of that stuff thatyou, you know you went to maybe
(42:00):
a networking event, or you knowyou went to work and it was just
a lot of this negative stuff.
Watch all this stuff.
You know, I never thought of itthat way.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
I was just like you watch like outside off of you,
but even on a spiritual levelyeah, that makes sense.
Cleanse yourself yeah, you knowat the risk of sounding a little
ignorant here, one of the worstmassages I ever had in my life
was I went and there was acouples massage and there was a
Tony and some other name the twomassage therapists.
I don't want Tony, so I wasclear on that.
(42:32):
Well, it turned out that theother name that sounded like a
woman's name was a dude, so Iwas really uncomfortable and it
was like I was stiff the wholetime and he was like relax.
I was like stop talking to me,you know, and I say it sounds
ignorant because I realized thatwas like relax.
I was like stop talking to melike that, you know, and I say
it sounds ignorant because Irealize that it does.
But I have not been able toovercome how uncomfortable I am
(42:54):
with that or a man giving me apedicure.
It's just something intimateabout it.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
You know I'm thinking about a day to myself.
Go to the gym early in themorning, I do my prayer, I do my
prayer, I do my meditation.
I come in into the men'srefinery, I get all these
services.
I go to brunch, I go hit thegolf course.
That's the perfect day for me,right?
It would ruin it if Jim wasdoing my feet.
So what do you have going onhere, is that?
Speaker 6 (43:18):
something that you guys take into consideration?
Yeah, well, we do facialmassages me and another barber
that we have here.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I'm cool with that, because you're washing the hair
and you clean.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
It's like you're still cutting my hair right and
I'm cool with all that, but thefeet we have two beautiful women
that are part of our team andthey do the feet and I
understand to your point.
That is something that's alittle bit more intimate.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
It feels intimate.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
Yeah, it's just something about that and the
same with you know, body massagemyself.
Personally, I prefer to have awoman you know, and that's, and
I think that just goes to yourpreference yeah, you know it
goes to your preference, it's,it's nothing wrong.
If a man does a massage, heit's like a doctor.
I prefer a female doctor.
(44:03):
I just don't want, you know,man checking me like that you
know what I'm saying?
yeah, that's just my preference.
Yeah, um, and it depends on onthe individual, so, uh, but we
try to alleviate any, anyuncomfortable feelings or
anything so I'll be the it's,it's, it's immature, and I
realize it.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
You know, I know it, I'll be the odd one out.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
I've actually gotten a couple's massage with a male
therapist genuinely like one ofthe best massages I had and mine
would have been perfect.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
If only I could relax .
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I just couldn't yeah, yeah, I'm curious like y'all
think some of that is also asocial norm.
I used to think about theconcept of like a barber's like
touching up your face, gettingbehind the ears and stuff like
that.
I used used to be like man.
That's pretty intimate as well,like you're up in my nose,
you're up, you know, up under mychin.
So do y'all think that's justmore of something where, if that
(44:55):
gets more normalized, itprobably would go?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
away.
I think that's what it is.
I think it's a social norm,like you said, because that's
all I've ever known.
Speaker 5 (45:02):
Male barber.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
And if a woman is a barber, then great doesn't
matter to me, right, myexperience with the pedicure and
manicure was you know in theregular Asian nail salon and the
one thing that I found I wouldsay disrespectful is them
talking to one another in adifferent
Speaker 6 (45:21):
language and I'm not sure if they're talking about my
feet and the look back, thelanguage, and I'm not sure if
they're talking about my feet.
I've heard that.
Oh, yeah, they were talkingabout you.
Yeah, they were talking aboutme.
In case you didn't know,especially if anybody started
laughing, right, yeah, yep, yep,but when?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I came here at the men's refinery right.
I never went to no other nailtechnician.
I have to get my feet donetoday.
But her experience was like hey, we had a good conversation.
She knows me that type of thing, and then she does a really
good job.
And she doesn't put like thepolish on there she buff them to
(45:56):
a point where they look I'mlike wow, look at my.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
And it lasts longer too.
The polish starts to peel off.
The buffing man lasts for weeks.
That's where it's at For weeks.
Yeah, high quality man, yeahhigh quality.
Speaker 6 (46:08):
She also instructs you on the care of your hands
and feet, because that's one ofthe things.
If you go to some of the otherestablishment, they're not
really interested in educatingyou on the care Right, what you
need to do to maintain.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Correct.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
It's just a matter of let me go and get you out this
chair so I can get the nextclient.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
It goes back to that consulting piece.
Right, talk to your clients.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Talk to us about where people can find you, both
physical location as well associal media website, etc.
Speaker 6 (46:37):
Well, address is 948, suite C, railroad Street,
conyers, and you can find us onfacebook, at the refinery, and
on instagram, the refineryunderscore.
You know, come check us out.
I guarantee you, it's anexperience like no other.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
We pride ourselves and setting ourselves apart from
any other establishment that isin this particular field just
the look alone from you walkingin, I can tell when I walked in
I was like, yeah, this is dopeas hell we're open from t
Tuesday to Saturdays, from 10o'clock to 7.
Speaker 6 (47:09):
Fridays and Saturdays we open up at 9.
Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
So traditionally, towards the end of every podcast
that we do, we do somethingwhere one of the guests slash
co-hosts has to read the outronotes doing an impersonation
I'll take a stab at it.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I'll take a stab at it.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
I'll take a stab at it yeah, all right, it's gonna
be, uh, quentin.
Yeah, so it's you, bro.
And what are you?
What are you doing?
Who's?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
impression I'm gonna be a straight up ghanian fresh
off the motherland right here,fresh off the motherland, right
here, fresh off the motherland.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
All right, let's go for it, brother.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Please support us, please, please support us by
following the show.
Please follow the show andleave us a five-star review on
Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 5 (47:59):
We don't want a four-star review.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
We don't want a 4.5-star review.
We don't even want a 4.9-starreview.
Five-star review on the podcast.
If you don't even want A 4.9star review, 5 star review On
the podcast.
If you don't do that, we'llfind you.
Thank you so much For listening.
We'll catch you next week whenwe share Conversations
surrounding Real issues we dealwith Every day Manhood matters,
manhood matters, it matters, itmatters, and we're out.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Oh man, that was phenomenal.
That was awesome.
I enjoyed that one.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
Hey everyone, I'm Eva Steph's youngest daughter.
Just a quick reminder that thispodcast is intended solely for
entertainment and educationalpurposes.
If you're struggling withanything, please contact a
licensed therapist.
As always, we are sending youour strength and our love.
See you next Monday.
You have to start bringing back is because I
(00:01):
remember I was growing up my dadwould call me out on it and I
have to go back and like, goback and do this, go back.
And so I think, just reteachingthat with two young boys, of
taking your time in the morning,the evenings, to make sure you
do that, because they move intoo fast, you know.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
I can add to that too .
It's building up a habit, butalso a ritual.
I'm into, like the skincarething.
Have a good routine foryourself, because when you're
stepping out that door andgetting ready to take on the day
, you want to be the bestversion of yourself when you
step out the door and comingback into you.
Speaker 3 (00:35):
From personal grooming manicure, pedicures,
how to properly wear cologne,having a sense of fashion.
You would think that thesethings would be intuitive,
innate, but they're not.
Men have to learn all thatstuff or, at the very least, be
exposed to them.
Ladies, for that dude in yourlife whose feet look like he
(00:58):
should have had a starting roleon Jurassic Park, that's not
normal, and you probably thinkit is because you're like well,
I just guys.
No, it's not.
Trust me, we can do better.
And fellas, not only is itperfectly okay to take care of
yourself, personal grooming is arequired part of your life.
We find ourselves today in aconversation with young
(01:20):
therapist Quinton, militaryveteran veteran Kelly and the
owners of the men's refinery,alvino and Curtis.
It's a place where we can getmanicures, pedicures, facials,
tailored suits, chill back inthe pool room or even enjoy the
golf simulator.
So when it comes to personalgrooming for men, these guys are
(01:41):
the experts, so we went to themfor this very insightful
dialogue.
Welcome to Manhood Matters.
Let's get to it.
It's going to be a super coolepisode, because this is
something I've been wanting totalk about.
People talk about metrosexuals,people talk about grooming.
(02:02):
I even heard women, grown women, complaining about personal
hygiene from their dudes.
So there's so many things thatwe can touch on here, and it's
not just about pamperingourselves, coming in for a
manicure and pedicure.
There's so much more to it andthis, I think, is more of a gift
yeah, to ourselves, but I think, to our partners, our spouses
how we take care of ourselves,how we show up.
(02:23):
So I want to introduce firstthe owner of this dope ass
establishment.
It's called the Men's Refineryand I want to tell you real
quick, cedric, I thought aboutsomething like this a long time
ago.
Years ago, I was going to callit the lion's den, and then I
realized it was about 15 lion'sdens that already existed, but
it wasn't a passion of mine, itwas just something that I felt
was missing.
(02:43):
I was living in Memphis,tennessee.
I felt something like this wasmissing.
Speaker 4 (02:46):
Yeah, thank you, absolutely.
I'm Cedric Mews.
I'm the owner of the Men'sRefinery.
The Men's Refinery is aclothing and grooming lounge
specifically set up for men.
We offer haircut shaves,manicures, pedicures for men.
We do custom clothing, customshoes.
We have a members lounge andalso a golf lounge, and I came
(03:11):
up with this concept I don'tknow, it's probably been 15
years ago and the reason that Icame up with it is because my
wife invited me to come out andget a manicure and pedicure with
her, so she drug me to thesalon and I actually really,
really enjoy the experience.
(03:33):
But I hated the environment.
Yeah, you know, I know what youmean.
The smell of what is it?
Acetone in the air.
Yeah, and even the other womenthat were in there.
You know, there were women thatwere sitting across from me.
They had on skirts that lookedlike belts, so they were
constantly crossing their legs.
I could tell that they wereuncomfortable with me sitting
(03:53):
across from them.
So I was thinking, man, it'd bereally nice to create a place
where a man can go andcomfortably get services like
this done.
And I partnered up with AlvinoSanders, who was my barber at
the time, and my other partner,gary Moore, and Gary kind of
(04:13):
specializes in the clothing sideof it, vino kind of specializes
on the grooming side of it, andfor me I'm pretty much
operations that's kind of mybackground.
So we kind of all teamed up.
I pitched the concept to them,we put in the work, sweat equity
and created the men's refinery.
Speaker 3 (04:31):
It's a beautiful place.
I walked in here this morning.
I was totally impressed.
You hit the nail on the head,brother, I appreciate it.
It's a great place, and I can'twait to start coming here.
It's a little drive away, butit's one of those things where
you, just like you, dedicate aday just taking care of yourself
everywhere in atlanta is adestination man.
Speaker 4 (04:48):
What exactly?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
exactly, and who would you introduce yourself,
brother?
Speaker 1 (04:52):
my name is quentin quentin opong.
I am well, first and foremost,um, I would identify myself as a
disciple of jesus, a believer.
I'm a husband and I'm also atherapist a mental health health
therapist almost five years nowand, man, I enjoy it.
I tell people all the time it'sa calling.
Most people I don't think wakeup when they're kids and say I
(05:13):
want to be a therapist, but itfinds you, you know it finds you
, and so I just really enjoyedthis work and Cedric was talking
about men having space.
I particularly have found moreand more the more I've done this
work, how much men don't feellike they have that space just
to either be pampered, to taketheir armor off, as I usually
say in therapy.
(05:33):
That's just been a big passionof mine these past couple of
years just really being thatspace, that safe space for men.
And so I'm glad to be here, I'mexcited to learn.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Thank you for having me, man.
I appreciate you being here,brother, yeah, hey, this is
Kelly Saunders.
I'm the founder of ElevateTransitioning Service Members,
which is a nonprofit dedicatedto helping veterans transition
from service back into civiliansociety.
And then I'm also on theplanning committee for the
Brotherless Talk About itinitiative for the 100 Black Men
of South Metro Atlanta.
I'm just excited to be hereagain to talk on veterans
transitioning and grooming, butto hear other perspectives as
well.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
So let's jump right into it.
So let's talk about imageperception versus reality.
Why does image matter?
Let's start with you, cedric.
What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 4 (06:17):
Image is everything.
And the reason I say that?
Because your image gives thepeople around you a perception
of who you are and people makean opinionated guess of who you
are within the first threeseconds of when they meet you.
So image doesn't always have tobe dressed up.
(06:38):
You know, you mentioned thatyou're most comfortable in your
T-shirt and that's okay.
But when you couple yourgrooming with that, your eyewear
, your beard, your haircut, allof that helps to make your image
.
It's important, depending onwhich space you're operating in.
If you're going for a jobinterview, you want your
perception to look a certaintype of way.
(06:59):
If you're trying to entice ayoung lady, you want your image
to look a certain type of way.
And if you're just hanging outwith the guys, you want your
image to look a certain type ofway.
But there's something calledperception and reality, because
many times with your image, theperception is your individual
(07:19):
thoughts about how you look,about how you feel about
yourself, and then there's areality portion of it,
especially when it comes tofashion.
I had the privilege of helpingout in a fashion show a couple
of days ago and they bought in agroup of models.
All of them had their own look,their own perception of who
(07:40):
they are.
And, it's interesting, Idressed three different guys in
a more traditional look.
It was so much different thanwhat they were used to.
Right, they never sawthemselves that way Exactly.
Exactly, and one of the thingsthat they asked me.
They were like how did you knowI would look good in this
(08:01):
outfit?
There are certain aspects ofdress that most anyone will look
at and say that looks nice.
And then there are the extremes.
Think about the 1970s the pimplook If we were to see somebody
walking in and something likethat is going to catch our
attention.
But is it going to be positiveattention or negative?
Speaker 3 (08:24):
attention More like comical attention.
Exactly, exactly.
Speaker 4 (08:28):
So the person that's wearing that has a certain
perception about how they look,but what's the reality?
Speaker 3 (08:36):
Yeah, I don't have stats on it, but if I had to
just do a quick observation,especially with our folks, when
I look around, they're moreconcerned about how others view
them in the sense of name brandand things like that.
I will never in a million yearswear somebody's name across my
chest.
You'll never see a Gucci,balenciaga, whatever the hell
names out there, it's not myname, right, so it doesn't make
(08:58):
sense to me Now, if we'retalking quality and we're
talking craftsmanship, I mightspend a lot of money getting
something, but yet I'm notadvertising it, if that makes
sense.
So I guess the question is andI can ask any of you guys how do
you feel about the wholeshowing up for yourself, being
(09:18):
comfortable being?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
clean, being groomed, versus oh, I need people to see
that I've got this brand on.
Yeah, just to speak to that alittle bit.
One thing I didn't mention inthe intro so I'm also African.
Right, I'm Ghanaian, and my dadgrowing up, my dad is a huge
fashion guy.
He likes to make boldstatements, so my dad's the type
of guy who wear maroon onmaroon, with maroon shoes and
maroon socks, and might have amaroon watch.
Right, he's coming in.
Speaker 4 (09:40):
We call that a one piece yes exactly right that
sounds.
Speaker 5 (09:44):
African yeah, for sure exactly.
Speaker 1 (09:46):
Oh man, bold colors in Haiti.
They call that a complete yes,actually we use the same word
wow, that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
Yeah, we call that a complete that means from toes
head to toe.
Man, you got that one piececolor and you start getting.
Speaker 1 (10:00):
Come back, chale, you look complete you look complete
.
Speaker 5 (10:03):
That's yeah, man, and so for me growing, you start
getting.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
come back Chale, you look complete, you look complete
.
That's yeah, man, and so for megrowing up, he has that piece
about him.
Speaker 5 (10:09):
but he also is a big Tommy guy, Tommy.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
Hilfiger.
Speaker 1 (10:10):
So I was born in Italy, I grew up in Italy for a
little bit and then he livedthere with my mom for a while,
so got in Tommy Hilfiger stuff.
But I remember, as I wasstarting to come up this idea
that, man, when I put this on,people are going to associate a
certain level of status, acertain level of wealth with
that we all can attest to, likepeople who are not really
(10:33):
fashionable but they're justthrowing the name brand.
My best man at my wedding weused to room together.
One of the things that I usedto talk to him about is like man
, how do you put yourselftogether?
He was always so fashionableand I remember he always used to
share how.
For him it wasn't about thebrand, it was about being
creative right, and creativitycomes from within.
You can tell when somebody isjust copying something or
(10:54):
they're being original, and so Ithink, when you go back to the
question of showing up foryourself, you know, in therapy
we often talk about this idea ofthe perceived image and then
the actual image Right.
We often talk about this ideaof the perceived image and then
the actual image Right, and alot of times our actual image is
the part of us that we reallyare afraid for people to see.
Right, it's the one that'shidden, it's the one that only
maybe close, close people to usknow or see, and the perceived
(11:20):
image is the one that we wanteverybody to see, because we're
really, at the end of the day,sometimes afraid of being
vulnerable.
And so I find that if we cantap into that actual image and
be okay with it, like you said,like I don't care, I don't care
who thinks what of me, like Iknow who I am internally,
whatever you wear, however youshow up, people are attracted to
that.
People are attracted touniqueness.
No one wants just to seemultiple carbon copies.
And I think the other thing Iwould add when I work a lot of
(11:41):
teen, teen boys.
This is a big thing that I'moften wrestling with, because if
a lot of my teen boys they'renow be trying to figure out who
they are right, but particularlyin this generation, gen Z, gen
Alpha they got so muchinformation coming at them
telling them who they should be.
Absolutely so when I'm asking ateen boy, like why you want to
be a twitch streamer, why youwant to do that, all they can
give me is well, you know, thegirls like it, or man, you know,
(12:04):
I saw this social media persondoing it.
They can't fully tell me theirwhy.
Right, I think that's just so,so important to do that so that
we don't have a bunch of youngboys becoming men who are lost
it drives me crazy like I.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
I went into a store I don't remember if it was louis
or something else, but we're inviami.
I went to a store with a friendof mine and you know I wouldn't
be caught dead in that store.
It had nothing to do with themoney man, it just had to do
with the fact that it feltpompous to me.
We went in and he's looking atthese shoes and they're sneakers
, right, and they have metal allover them like spice and stuff
like that.
It's a $3,000 pair of sneakers.
(12:36):
I'm like for what?
That doesn't matter if I havethe money to throw me.
The only reason I'm wearing thatis so someone else could look
at it and go that's interestingand notice the brand name and
know that this guy's got $3,000shoes on.
That's all.
This is a statement.
Would you put that on for anyother reason?
I don't mean to criticizepeople who do, because there are
people that I know I'm wearingNike.
It's Nike all the way down tothe socks and that doesn't make
(12:57):
sense to me.
I don't understand it, but Iwas 20.
I'm not 20 anymore.
So I don't understand how thatstill works with grown men.
Speaker 4 (13:06):
One of the things you know, being in the fashion
industry, that I see isentertainment leads fashion 100%
.
So a lot of people that aren'tcomfortable at who they are or
have established an identity.
That's what they look to.
An identity that's what theylook to.
I deal with different customersand a lot of times they talk to
me about a certain brand ofsuit or a certain brand of
(13:29):
clothes and I'm like I have noidea who that is and they're
like, but you're in the fashionindustry.
How do you not know who that is?
I said are you concerned abouta certain brand or a look?
because you can create greatquality, a great look, and it
doesn't have to be a particularbrand.
(13:49):
And being in the clothingindustry, see, I understand
behind the scenes.
I understand that some of theseoff the rack $2,000 suits come
down the same line as a three or$400 suit and in the back they
have all of these different tagsand, depending on who your
(14:09):
brand is, they pull that tag andthey put it in that suit and
they send it out to thewhichever so the only difference
, then, cedric, is the tagthat's on there in some cases.
Now I will say the different,different brands put a little
more into the quality, you know,but it can still go through the
same factory to be manufactured.
(14:31):
It just may be okay.
My brand is going to have pickstitching.
My brand is going to haveworkable buttons to give it a
more expensive.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Look Right, and you know it's funny.
You should say that because Ispent a lot of years in
corporate America and in sales,so I was always suit and tie.
I mean, you know, I'm one ofthose guys with a bow tie.
You'll never catch me with aclip on.
That's ridiculous.
Speaker 5 (14:54):
I know how to tie a bow tie right.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You know I buy certain suits.
I'd go to whatever store thereis, spend $500, $600 on a suit,
$1,000 on a suit.
But my most expensive suit todate and I started learning from
another dude kind of likeyourself it has no brand, it
just was at a place like this.
I went in yeah, it was inNashville Picking not just the
(15:16):
measurements, but from pickingthe fabric to material what do
you want on the inside?
What do you want that to looklike?
What do you want this to look?
What kind of stitching.
He was asking me questions thatI didn't even know existed.
I didn't know what I didn'tknow and I was like dude, I have
no clue.
You need to guide me.
I mean, I already knew going init was going to be expensive,
right, right, but the brand onthe suit is a label with my name
on it, right, absolutely,because you can get it done any
(15:38):
way you want.
So it's myself and my wife'sname on it and a date.
I hate when I hear someone,especially men oh man, this is
so-and-so, this is Balenciaga.
Them shoes are ugly, bro.
What are you talking about?
Why is it a hundred thousand?
Speaker 5 (15:50):
I don't know how much it costs, but like, yeah, it's
stupid as you.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
I don't understand why you would spend a lot of
money Cause if that was sittingat pay less for $15, you
wouldn't look at it twice.
Speaker 4 (16:08):
Absolutely, and you know we just get caught up into
that.
Everything is about brand,everything is about how much it
costs and quality gets lost.
And when I tell you, for a lotof the big brands that are in
the industry, they love it, ofcourse, because they don't have
to spend money on their endputting in the quality you know.
To find a good quality pair ofdress shoes now it's almost
impossible.
People throw around the termbespoke suits and I want to talk
(16:32):
about the difference between amade-to-measure suit and a true
bespoke suit.
With a made-to-measure suit,someone takes all of your
measurements.
You can pick out your fabric.
They send it to wherever themanufacturer is and they put
together your suit.
They send it back.
You probably have a localtailor that makes whatever
(16:53):
adjustments need to be made.
But it's still done in amanufacturing facility.
So what I do is kind of acombination of bespoke and made
to measure Because of my tailoris not here, he's in bangladesh,
so I have to take all themeasurements.
He sends me all of the suitbooks, so these are the same
suit books as far as the fabricsthat he has.
(17:15):
So I pick out the fabric, doyour design, I send all your
measurements over to them andthey hand make the suits.
So that's a true bespoke suit.
Speaker 3 (17:26):
I was going to say, yeah, just because he's not
sitting here in your shop.
But that's bespoke.
Speaker 4 (17:31):
yeah, yeah, the only difference is a true bespoke is
you come here, you pick out yourfabric.
The tailor will get the fabric.
He'll take your measurements,he'll pre-sew the suit.
You'll come back in, he'll tryit on.
You take more measurements andyou go through a process of
three or four of those fittings.
So when you're finished, oh,it's a perfect fit you know, as
(17:52):
opposed to having to send it outsomewhere.
But I did a lot of trainingsessions with my tailor.
He shows me exactly how to makethe same measurements that he
would do, so once we get yoursuit back, it's a great fit.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
I had no clue.
All that was involved.
Right, yeah, that explains whyit costs a lot of money Switch
gears.
This must have come up quite abit at the men's refinery men's
baldness and the psychologicaland emotional impact.
Why do you bring that up?
Is that something that peoplehere struggle with?
Speaker 4 (18:24):
Well, actually I'm going to let my business partner
Alvino speak on that.
He's the expert.
Speaker 3 (18:30):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (18:31):
He is a master barber .
He's been barbering for what?
30 plus years.
He is the expert on that andI'm going to tag him in to speak
on that.
Speaker 3 (18:40):
Yeah, tag him in, come, take a seat right next to
him and just uh Alvino can talkabout this man.
Speaker 6 (18:44):
He's still got hair Welcome brother, hey how you
doing, how you doing Going goodman, Introduce yourself if you
don't mind.
My name is Alvino Sanders.
Everybody affectionately callsme Vino.
As Cedric mentioned, I've beenin the hair industry for 30 plus
years.
I've worked on all types ofhair.
I do women's hair as well.
(19:04):
But since we started the men'srefinery, you know, I've kind of
focused my energy on helpingmen with their appearance.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
I remember I started thinning when I was in my
twenties.
What's crazy is, for me it wasextreme right Cause I had every
type of hairstyle.
But then I had locks, so I wentfrom having locks going down to
my back, but it was thinning,you know, and I struggled with
that.
I try to cover it up, causeagain, I'm in my twenties.
I'm like what's going on?
And I remember my oldest.
She was four years old, so nowI'm 30.
(19:32):
And it got to the point where Iwas just like if you were
sitting behind me and I leanback, you'd be like dude, you
need to do something about thisLike this is ridiculous.
I had one dude called mePredator.
Remember Predator?
Oh, no Because you had hands of
Speaker 5 (19:47):
water, oh my.
Speaker 3 (19:47):
God, I had another Jamaican dude.
Speaker 1 (19:51):
That's ruthless Imagine.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Grew up in New York Right, and this was my friend.
Speaker 3 (19:56):
Duh, these are friends, by the way.
Right, I had another friend ofmine, a Jamaican dude.
He used to call me me bald headdread he's like how are you
going?
to be bald and dread the sameMeanwhile it's very common in
Jamaica.
But I digress, I'll be totallyhonest here, man, I considered
other options.
I considered I saw thiscommercial.
I was like there's got to besomething I can do, right.
(20:17):
So I go into this clinic andI'm with my little girl this
time.
You know, she was always myride or die.
She's with me.
We were spending the daytogether and I go into this
place and I thought it was somekind of medication or maybe they
put some kind of ointment andit grows back.
So they do this fullconsultation, spend an hour with
me going back and forth, andtowards the end, when it's time
to close, they hit me with thislittle well, we can graph this
(20:39):
patch and it's basically, it's atoupee, right, right, and this
is like a patch with dreads andI'm like y'all kidding me,
that's coming.
They're like yeah, just, youknow you can go in the pool,
everything will be cool, but ifyou don't come back because you
have to come back to them tomaintain this process- there's a
business, yeah, it's like ifyou don't come back and you go a
month without it, you mightjump in the pool and this shit
(21:02):
might just float away.
Right, you know I'm.
You know what?
Come on, baby, grab my babygirl.
I was like I'm out of here.
I went to the nearestbarbershop and I said shave it
all off, which traumatized mydaughter because she had never
seen me any different from thetime she was born to me having
long hair.
That's all she knew.
And she's sitting there andshe's watching these people just
shave my head, shit flippingout right.
(21:23):
I'm like it's okay, it's okay.
Very next day I went to work.
No one recognized me.
I just walk in.
Who's this new guy, right?
Speaker 5 (21:29):
because that's how different.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
I look wow.
And then one guy says to me yougot a nice shape head and that
kind of like did it for me.
I don't know why?
Speaker 2 (21:36):
it was something as simple.
Because I was like, as long asI get a nice shape head, I was
like, right, because you don'tknow what's under there, right
your whole life.
You don't know what's underthere, right your whole life you
don't know what's under there.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
And he goes, you got a nice shaped head.
He was like you're one of thefew ones who can get away with
it.
I was like, oh cool, and myconfidence was right back up.
But I did struggle with thatfor a long time leading up to it
.
It was kind of like you'rescared to jump, but when you
jump you're like it's not a bigdeal.
Speaker 5 (21:58):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (21:59):
The way society perceives baldness involvedness.
It varies.
It's more accepted now thanksto individuals like Michael
Jordan.
Speaker 5 (22:07):
Hell yeah, 90s, baby.
Speaker 6 (22:08):
You know the Rock and people like that, that's right
Because it can be associatedwith masculinity and how a man
is perceived as being a man.
I would venture to say, beforeMichael Jordan really came on
the scene, it wasn't reallylooked at as something favorable
.
Yeah, it wasn't cool,particularly in the case, like
you said, when you're young.
I had a friend he was 23, andhe had the bozo going on.
Speaker 5 (22:32):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (22:33):
And that was traumatic.
Yeah, because during thatperiod of time, that's when
you're rocking your waves.
Speaker 3 (22:38):
He said he had the bozo going on.
I mean, you might even knowwhat that is.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
I was going to say what is a bozo?
Speaker 6 (22:44):
Well, see, that's when you don't have anything up
here at the top and you justhave the hair around the sides,
kind of like a cul-de-sac,almost a little bit.
Speaker 1 (22:51):
Exactly.
Yeah, a bozo is a clown.
That's when you have yoursunroof is fully open.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
Oh my goodness.
Speaker 5 (22:58):
Wow, that's a barber joke, yeah, but.
Speaker 6 (23:02):
But yeah, it can be very traumatic because how
people perceive you and, likeyou mentioned, now there are
options but it really depends onthe individual, on how they
look at themselves Right, andalso what type of field of
employment they're in.
It makes a difference too.
Speaker 3 (23:21):
Command.
Yeah Like what what job.
Speaker 6 (23:23):
Well, take for instance news.
Okay, You'll see newscasts, youdon't?
You rarely see any newscastersthat are completely bald.
Speaker 3 (23:34):
Yeah, and it's just the perception that they have.
I never thought about that,yeah.
Speaker 6 (23:40):
Yeah, and, like I said, nowadays it's becoming a
little bit more accepted, butbefore it's it was really rough
for individual, for men who werelosing their hair.
You said there are options.
What options?
Well, there are severaldifferent options.
What you were speaking of iscalled a hair unit.
They called it a toupee.
It is.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
That's what it is, you know, but to be politically
correct.
Speaker 6 (24:05):
But it actually looks better than what a toupee used
to look like.
Gotcha Back in the day a toupeelooked like a toupee.
You could look at them and tellthey had something sitting on
top of their head.
Speaker 2 (24:16):
Let me ask you this Back in the day, right, did they
have toupees for people ofcolor?
Speaker 3 (24:25):
Nah, not really, because I see some crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
You just went hand units.
Speaker 5 (24:31):
Not really.
Speaker 6 (24:31):
Not really.
Not like they have today.
I mean they had some, but, likeI said, you could tell Right,
you could tell it was somethingsitting on top of their head.
Speaker 3 (24:40):
It didn't look natural at all.
Speaker 6 (24:41):
It looked alive, yeah , but nowadays you could see
someone with a brush fade or abrush, wave, cut and it could be
a hair unit.
You would never know thedifference.
Speaker 3 (24:53):
Yeah, I've seen those on social media.
Man, they add all this stuffand then they shave it and they
glue it and it looks amazing.
I would never, but I'm like Ican't I do it myself?
Speaker 6 (25:02):
Oh my God.
I had a client that flew allthe way from England to have his
done.
I forgot what occupation he had, but you know it was important
that he Doesn't it have to bemaintained.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
Yes, it did so.
How often does he need to comeback to you, or can he go to
someone else on this pointforward?
Speaker 6 (25:18):
Well, usually if you find someone who knows how to do
it correctly, you want to stickwith that person.
Speaker 3 (25:22):
And how often does a person have to come back?
Speaker 6 (25:24):
Well, it depends on it's different methods.
You have the inexpensive, wherethey just take braid hair, glue
it to your scalp and then theycut it down and blend it.
You know that will last youabout a week.
Speaker 2 (25:36):
Yeah, a week.
Yeah, especially if you'reworking out, but that's usually
yeah if you're sweating.
Speaker 6 (25:42):
You can't get in the pool with it.
You know You're like no, Ican't swim Right, right, but
that's usually if somebody hassomething like they're going on
vacation or going somewherewhere nobody really knows them.
And you know they want to rockthe brush fade or the brush cut
Wow.
Then they can put that on.
Then you have the other, whereyou actually have the unit.
(26:02):
It's a hair unit on a thin likea plastic almost, but it's
breathable and you shape it, youglue it onto the scalp.
That usually lasts about threeto four months.
Again, it depends on theindividual and what their
lifestyle is.
Speaker 5 (26:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (26:17):
And how they perceive , as Cedric was saying earlier,
is how they perceive themselves.
Yeah, then you have morenon-invasive methods, such as
the minoxidil, and this is likea drop that drops that you can
put on your scalp and everything.
You have really inexpensiveways, and these are often joked
about the hair fibers.
Yes, you know, you see wherethey do the hair fibers.
(26:40):
Hey, I was going to talk onthat.
Speaker 2 (26:41):
A little powder.
Yeah, it's little like fibers,you know you just put it on and
then you put like a hole on itand you shape it.
That works.
Speaker 3 (26:51):
I mean, I have them on here, fibers right now, what?
Yeah, you said, you got it onright now.
Yeah, I got it on right now.
Speaker 6 (26:57):
And see that goes to the professionalism of the
particular barber who's doing it, because it's not supposed to
be a whole head of hair, it'ssupposed to enhance what you
already have.
If you have areas that may be alittle thinner than others,
that's what you typically useyour fibers for to fill those in
the same.
You know we do it with beardsand everything If you have areas
(27:18):
that's not really full you usethe fibers to kind of just fill
that in, and it's not meant tolast for a long period of time.
If you got something going onor, you know, if you're trying
to make it through the week,then that's when you use the
fibers.
Speaker 1 (27:32):
I got a question because, as you were talking,
vino, you were talking aboutcareer, right?
I just want to know if thisstatement is a myth or a fact.
I've always heard people saydon't go to a barber who is bald
.
That makes no sense trying toget your hair cut.
Is that a myth?
That a fact?
Because I've heard that rightand people will actually go by
(27:53):
that.
Speaker 6 (27:54):
No, that's a myth.
That's a myth.
I don't, I don't hear that.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
The only thing that I hear that I believe is I'm not
going to a fat physical trainerif you're out of shape.
You can't tell me what to dobecause you're out of shape,
right?
People say don't what to dobecause, you're out of shape,
right?
People say don't go to a skinnychef.
Maybe they're.
They take care of their bodies.
They eat a certain way, butthey can still cook they have to
.
Speaker 1 (28:12):
You know what I mean so.
Speaker 3 (28:13):
I've never heard that one don't go to a barber.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
That was a thing I used to hear a lot like man you
know if you have hair.
The assumption is they don'tknow.
Speaker 6 (28:24):
At one time they had hair.
That's true, they may not haveit now, but they had hair at one
time.
Speaker 3 (28:31):
So let me ask you this With all the options, why
are some men, with all the moneyin the world, still struggling
like KD and LeBron?
Speaker 6 (28:39):
Like what's up with those dudes, man, because they
look like they're trying butit's not working.
Speaker 3 (28:41):
I'm like you have money.
Speaker 6 (28:42):
I would be happy to kind of straighten it out, to
take care of your kid and LeBron.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
You know, if this ever gets to him, Just cut it
down low man.
Yeah, you know.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I'm struggling with that right now.
Yeah, Just a matter of it's notimportant.
I'm going to be like you,Stephon, in a couple of months.
I've been that way since.
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Why do some men choose to keep the bozo on?
There's only one option.
You start to thin out, shave it, look uniform and it still goes
to the barbershop.
More white men do it than blackmen.
We tend to shave and just giveup on it and just say we're
going to shave the whole thingoff.
But some men still keep it.
It's gray, it's whatever.
Why do some people choose tokeep that?
Speaker 6 (29:19):
at all.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
It's like when you were saying you had the dreads,
yeah, um, during the time thatyou had your dreads and you were
thinning, you didn't want tolet that go, yeah, but I could
cover it because I could takeone strand of hedge like I moved
.
Well, you know there wascoverage, you have some guys,
they try to do the no, there'snothing there.
Speaker 6 (29:38):
It's ball and you just got that thing around they
don't want to let it go, becausethey may not have the the
self-confidence to just gocompletely bald.
So they they still want to holdon to their perception, like,
like we were saying, perceptionversus reality.
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Yeah, it's interesting, because to me they
look older it actually does anda lot of men.
Speaker 6 (30:01):
If they decided to just completely go bald, they
would actually look.
It would look better.
Women seem to prefer that,opposed to you walking around
with the cul-de-sac yeah, right.
Speaker 3 (30:09):
So confidence boosters, embracing your look
and owning your presence.
Let's talk about that for alittle bit.
Yeah, can I?
Speaker 2 (30:19):
touch on that?
Um, I don't need.
In the marine corps, we had toget our haircuts every week
before formation, but theydidn't teach us a sense of style
, so, so every time that I wentout, I didn't have that
confidence.
I was wearing like militaryboots and and this jeans, and I
was looking like oh, this is notmy style, what I'm doing Right.
So I get out of military andI'm going to bars and stuff like
(30:42):
that and I'm not getting noreplies from any women.
Speaker 3 (30:46):
No, play no play at all.
Speaker 2 (30:48):
Like what the hell is going on?
I got all my you know, my bootsand all this other stuff.
Don't y'all see the boots?
Speaker 6 (30:53):
Don't y'all see the?
Speaker 2 (30:54):
boots.
I've been in combat, right.
Nah, that's not how it works.
So, hey, I had to download thisapp called Pinterest.
You know you can create yourvision board and everything like
that.
So I started to put some piecestogether and when I did that,
it gave me a boost of confidencein my appearance.
You know, self-grooming comesfrom going out and taking the
(31:18):
time to have someone else dothat for you.
You know what I'm saying.
It's like planning a wedding.
You're not going to plan yourown wedding, you're going to
have someone else do it.
You want to feel relaxed onyour day.
So, going back to adjusting tothis new, different fashion for
myself, I had to create my ownfashion.
I have a good physique.
(31:38):
It's like yourself, stefan, youwear shirts because you have a
nice physique, right.
So that confidence helped mepave the way for my success in
life.
Like I feel good when I go intoa meeting with some of my
stakeholders and presentinginformation to them.
They take me seriously.
Speaker 3 (31:57):
Yeah, there's something to be said about that.
Whenever I play sports it waslike you look good, you feel
good, you play good Even down,the way you put on that uniform,
the way you put on those cleatsright.
It was always that way for mein sales.
Most of the guys we weren't inmy, our team for years we were
in door-to-door.
The most successful guys andgirls in a team were the best
looking ones.
It wasn't the most skillfulones.
(32:17):
They became skillful because ofthe habit of talking to
different people, dealing withobjections.
But initially, when a personknocks on your door, it's crazy
what that will do.
When you look good, when youlook a certain way, that polo
fits you right and you're inshape and things like that.
And same thing for the women.
You know, the best looking onemade the most sales.
(32:39):
It was just.
It just never failed.
It's unfair, but it is what itis.
And plus, even when it wasn'tthe case, it's still to your
point.
Kelly gave you that boost ofconfidence.
When you have that look, whenyou have that confidence, you
leave your home a certain way.
Speaker 6 (32:54):
You feel like you can walk on water, and I wanted to
touch on that point as well.
That's one of the things, Ithink, that sets us apart here
at the refinery.
We are all experts in our fieldand we understand that it's
important, as Cedric said at thevery onset your image, how you
perceive yourself.
We can see what you may not seewhen it comes to your
(33:14):
appearance, when it comes toyour hair and you know we were
joking earlier about thebaldness and all that.
But my job is if I have aclient to come in he's not sure
about his appearance, he's notsure about what looks right on
him or how he's supposed topresent himself to the public,
my job as a professional is toshow him, to give him the
(33:36):
blueprint, more or less, as towhat looks best on him and how
he should be perceived, be ithair fibers, be it hair units,
be it if he wants to just gocompletely bald.
That's where my expertise comesin.
And, like I mentioned, we werejoking, but, all seriousness,
how you feel about yourself ismore important than what anybody
else feels about you.
It matters 100%.
Speaker 3 (33:57):
So you guys have more of a consultative approach,
exactly, and then you can gofrom there.
Speaker 6 (34:02):
And I try to instruct my young men at least take care
of your hair, shampoo it,condition it, you know, because
some of these young men theydon't even I don't think they've
ever washed their hair.
You know, all they want to dois do the sponge and keep it
moving.
Speaker 1 (34:19):
And honestly, just to be transparent, that was me and
still sometimes I'm stillworking through it where my dad
was always big on me getting ahaircut right, making sure
everything was clean growing up.
It was don't have too much atthe top, but no one ever really
told me how do I actually takecare of my scalp?
It's just I'm just curious,where do you even start with
young man when you're puttingyoung black man?
(34:40):
Because, like I, I remember II've tried so many different
products like, like the as I Am,and the Cantu.
Speaker 3 (34:47):
Did you ever try a Soul Glow?
Because?
Speaker 1 (34:48):
that's where it's at.
You've never heard of it.
Speaker 2 (34:51):
You've never heard of Soul Glow.
Speaker 1 (34:54):
Right, right, right.
I caught on when he said that,but for real, where do you start
with young men when figuring itout?
Speaker 6 (35:01):
I will say this much and a lot of people don't
understand.
Products that are on the marketare not specifically for us.
Caucasian hair tends to be oily, so their products are designed
to strip oil from the hair.
Our hair is not oily, it'stypically dry.
That's why we have to putgrease and moisturizers, and
(35:21):
things in it and moisturizersand things in it.
So, when it comes to shampoos,things of that nature, try to go
with brands that are designedfor our hair, because what you
wind up doing if you're using aparticular shampoo and you're
shampooing your hair and you'retrying to figure out why are my
scalp always dry, why is my hairalways dry?
Because it's stripping whateveroils that you have.
(35:43):
It's stripping them out of yourhair.
I would advise going to beautysupply stores and purchasing,
opposed to, let's say, going toTarget or, you know, walmart,
because they have a smallsection for us, but you know you
have more variety if you golike to a beauty supply store
and purchase your shampoos andthings of that nature.
Speaker 1 (36:02):
So what you're saying is I need to go and ask for
SoGlo.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
A hot commodity.
Speaker 3 (36:12):
You said something earlier, vino.
That's going to help me segueto this next part of the
conversation here, and I want totalk about something that you
would think would be secondnature.
You would think would be prettystraightforward, but it doesn't
seem to be.
I had a gentleman I was talkingto a few weeks ago.
He was saying how his ex-wifecalled him and said our son is
(36:32):
not taking care of his body interms of hygiene, and it was
clear that he had never beenshown how, and so he goes.
You know, that's my bad as adad.
We just assumed that at somepoint you just know how to do
that.
So what happens is when certainthings are not imparted upon
you, I think we grow up thinkingthat people just know how to do
these things.
Women will complain and go yeah, he's not the best at hygiene
(36:54):
and things like that.
Right now there's a trend goingaround the Internet.
Every black person has rejectedthat trend, thank God.
But it's a trend about how youonly need, as humans, you know
the way we evolve we only needto shower once every three days
or shit like that.
Obviously we're like nah, bro,I'm not leaving the house, you
know, until I shower.
(37:15):
I'm not going to bed withoutyou know, without taking a
shower.
What are your thoughts onpersonal hygiene from manicure,
even the way we wear clothes?
How offensive it is.
Speaker 6 (37:27):
Do you put too much on?
Do you know how to put it on?
I'm glad you brought that up,because our neotechs probably
would kill us if we didn't bringthis up.
Nail care for men.
As you noticed when you come in, we have pedicure bowls.
We offer nail care for men,manicures, pedicures.
One of the myths that men haveis that pedicures and manicures
are for women only.
Speaker 3 (37:47):
Yeah, make you soft.
Speaker 6 (37:48):
Yeah, make you soft you know you're trying to be
pretty and all that that conceptderived from.
In order for you to get yourhands and feet done, you had to
go to a female establishment.
You got the nail polish andit's all pretty and pink and
everything.
So it makes you uncomfortableto be in that setting.
But it's important that you dotake care of your hands and feet
(38:11):
just like you do any part ofyour body.
That was the driving point whenCedric and I came up with this
concept is to create anatmosphere where men feel
comfortable taking care of theirhands and feet.
As one of our nail technicians,a friend, she always asked
their clients how long have yourfeet been taking care of you?
And once they get it done, youknow they're like man.
(38:32):
I should have did this a longtime ago.
It's a wonderful experience andwe have two very exceptional
nail technicians that are partof our team here.
Speaker 3 (38:43):
Awesome, yeah, even down to like wearing cologne.
I could be wrong about this,but I believe it was invented in
France and it was really tomask people not showering and
taking care of themselves.
Speaker 5 (38:52):
So it was just kind of covering themselves up with
perfume.
Speaker 3 (38:55):
And I was in an environment once where I
remember this woman.
She walked in the room and wewent into the break room.
She could have been gone 20minutes.
I would walk in and go, damn,was Jackie in here?
And sure enough, jackie was inthere because he was the most
offensive.
Not that it smelled bad, it wasjust too much of it.
This is something my uncleshowed me a long time ago.
Because I wear cologne and it'stwo spritzes.
(39:16):
I get out of the shower, it'son my skin because it has to mix
with body chemistry.
A little bit on my wrist andI'm done.
I put my clothes on.
You're going to smell it ifyou're close to me, if you come
in for a handshake, if you comein for a hug or something like
that.
If I'm in the elevator, youmight be like, hey, that's a
nice cologne, what is that?
But I'm not going to walkthrough a hallway and every room
can smell me.
And if you're in the car withme all the way down the pants
(39:42):
leg and I'm like, what are youdoing?
They're showering, yeah.
Speaker 6 (39:45):
Yeah, it's supposed to act as an enhancement.
Yeah, a lot of times, man tendto want to overdo it.
Yeah, hey, I was like thatmyself.
Speaker 2 (39:55):
Spray it all over you , spray it all over me, the
expensive Creed cologne andstuff like that.
But with Creed cologne.
Speaker 3 (40:09):
You got to make that creed last too, and on top of
that it is it is already strong.
If you understand the waycologne works yes, it works
differently on me than it willon you exactly you know, like my
wife will smell something on meif you.
I like the way that smells onyou.
It's not even my favoritecologne, but I like the way that
smells on you it's different,which is why it?
Speaker 5 (40:23):
goes on your skin exactly.
Speaker 1 (40:25):
Yeah, just to even piggyback on what you shared
about the hygiene piece for ayoung man, one of the things
I've noticed, like when I haveyoung guys come into the therapy
space and like their parentsare complaining this person's
not showering.
A couple things I've noticedsometimes is either you have the
young man who is just feelingunmotivated in general there's a
level of maybe I wouldn't sayclinical depression, but they're
(40:46):
just unmotivated.
They don't really see whatthey're going to do with their
life.
There's no drive, right, sojust they're not even trying,
right.
I think in those times it'simportant to speak to that part
of that young man.
But I think the other piece ofthis they're not even being
taught about the summertime.
I'm waking up, eating somecereal and I'm jumping on my
(41:07):
video game, Right, and this ishigh stimulation and so they're
not really being taught how toslow down and work your way into
the day by taking a shower,brushing your teeth, making sure
you lotion your face, Right,Like.
I think that's something thatwe have to start bringing back
is because I remember I wasgrowing up my dad would call me
out on it and I have to go backand like go back and do this, go
back, and so I think, justreteaching that with two young
(41:29):
boys, of taking your time in themorning, the evenings, to make
sure you do that because theymove in too fast now you know, I
can add to that too.
Speaker 2 (41:37):
It's building up a habit, but also a ritual.
I'm into, like the skincarething.
Have a good routine foryourself, because when you're
stepping out that door orgetting ready to take on the day
, you want to be the bestversion of yourself.
When you step out that door andcoming back into your home,
wash all that energy, bad energy, off.
Watch all of that stuff thatyou, you know you went to maybe
(42:00):
a networking event, or you knowyou went to work and it was just
a lot of this negative stuff.
Watch all this stuff.
You know, I never thought of itthat way.
Speaker 3 (42:09):
I was just like you watch like outside off of you,
but even on a spiritual levelyeah, that makes sense.
Cleanse yourself yeah, you knowat the risk of sounding a little
ignorant here, one of the worstmassages I ever had in my life
was I went and there was acouples massage and there was a
Tony and some other name the twomassage therapists.
I don't want Tony, so I wasclear on that.
(42:32):
Well, it turned out that theother name that sounded like a
woman's name was a dude, so Iwas really uncomfortable and it
was like I was stiff the wholetime and he was like relax.
I was like stop talking to me,you know, and I say it sounds
ignorant because I realized thatwas like relax.
I was like stop talking to melike that, you know, and I say
it sounds ignorant because Irealize that it does.
But I have not been able toovercome how uncomfortable I am
(42:54):
with that or a man giving me apedicure.
It's just something intimateabout it.
Speaker 5 (42:59):
Right.
Speaker 3 (43:00):
You know I'm thinking about a day to myself.
Go to the gym early in themorning, I do my prayer, I do my
prayer, I do my meditation.
I come in into the men'srefinery, I get all these
services.
I go to brunch, I go hit thegolf course.
That's the perfect day for me,right?
It would ruin it if Jim wasdoing my feet.
So what do you have going onhere, is that?
Speaker 6 (43:18):
something that you guys take into consideration?
Yeah, well, we do facialmassages me and another barber
that we have here.
Speaker 3 (43:24):
I'm cool with that, because you're washing the hair
and you clean.
Speaker 6 (43:27):
It's like you're still cutting my hair right and
I'm cool with all that, but thefeet we have two beautiful women
that are part of our team andthey do the feet and I
understand to your point.
That is something that's alittle bit more intimate.
Speaker 3 (43:42):
It feels intimate.
Speaker 6 (43:43):
Yeah, it's just something about that and the
same with you know, body massagemyself.
Personally, I prefer to have awoman you know, and that's, and
I think that just goes to yourpreference yeah, you know it
goes to your preference, it's,it's nothing wrong.
If a man does a massage, heit's like a doctor.
I prefer a female doctor.
(44:03):
I just don't want, you know,man checking me like that you
know what I'm saying?
yeah, that's just my preference.
Yeah, um, and it depends on onthe individual, so, uh, but we
try to alleviate any, anyuncomfortable feelings or
anything so I'll be the it's,it's, it's immature, and I
realize it.
Speaker 3 (44:21):
You know, I know it, I'll be the odd one out.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
I've actually gotten a couple's massage with a male
therapist genuinely like one ofthe best massages I had and mine
would have been perfect.
Speaker 3 (44:33):
If only I could relax .
Speaker 1 (44:34):
I just couldn't yeah, yeah, I'm curious like y'all
think some of that is also asocial norm.
I used to think about theconcept of like a barber's like
touching up your face, gettingbehind the ears and stuff like
that.
I used used to be like man.
That's pretty intimate as well,like you're up in my nose,
you're up, you know, up under mychin.
So do y'all think that's justmore of something where, if that
(44:55):
gets more normalized, itprobably would go?
Speaker 3 (44:57):
away.
I think that's what it is.
I think it's a social norm,like you said, because that's
all I've ever known.
Speaker 5 (45:02):
Male barber.
Speaker 3 (45:03):
And if a woman is a barber, then great doesn't
matter to me, right, myexperience with the pedicure and
manicure was you know in theregular Asian nail salon and the
one thing that I found I wouldsay disrespectful is them
talking to one another in adifferent
Speaker 6 (45:21):
language and I'm not sure if they're talking about my
feet and the look back, thelanguage, and I'm not sure if
they're talking about my feet.
I've heard that.
Oh, yeah, they were talkingabout you.
Yeah, they were talking aboutme.
In case you didn't know,especially if anybody started
laughing, right, yeah, yep, yep,but when?
Speaker 2 (45:34):
I came here at the men's refinery right.
I never went to no other nailtechnician.
I have to get my feet donetoday.
But her experience was like hey, we had a good conversation.
She knows me that type of thing, and then she does a really
good job.
And she doesn't put like thepolish on there she buff them to
(45:56):
a point where they look I'mlike wow, look at my.
Speaker 3 (45:58):
And it lasts longer too.
The polish starts to peel off.
The buffing man lasts for weeks.
That's where it's at For weeks.
Yeah, high quality man, yeahhigh quality.
Speaker 6 (46:08):
She also instructs you on the care of your hands
and feet, because that's one ofthe things.
If you go to some of the otherestablishment, they're not
really interested in educatingyou on the care Right, what you
need to do to maintain.
Speaker 5 (46:22):
Correct.
Speaker 6 (46:23):
It's just a matter of let me go and get you out this
chair so I can get the nextclient.
Speaker 2 (46:27):
It goes back to that consulting piece.
Right, talk to your clients.
Speaker 3 (46:30):
Talk to us about where people can find you, both
physical location as well associal media website, etc.
Speaker 6 (46:37):
Well, address is 948, suite C, railroad Street,
conyers, and you can find us onfacebook, at the refinery, and
on instagram, the refineryunderscore.
You know, come check us out.
I guarantee you, it's anexperience like no other.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
We pride ourselves and setting ourselves apart from
any other establishment that isin this particular field just
the look alone from you walkingin, I can tell when I walked in
I was like, yeah, this is dopeas hell we're open from t
Tuesday to Saturdays, from 10o'clock to 7.
Speaker 6 (47:09):
Fridays and Saturdays we open up at 9.
Fantastic.
Speaker 3 (47:12):
So traditionally, towards the end of every podcast
that we do, we do somethingwhere one of the guests slash
co-hosts has to read the outronotes doing an impersonation
I'll take a stab at it.
Speaker 1 (47:30):
I'll take a stab at it.
Speaker 3 (47:31):
I'll take a stab at it yeah, all right, it's gonna
be, uh, quentin.
Yeah, so it's you, bro.
And what are you?
What are you doing?
Who's?
Speaker 1 (47:39):
impression I'm gonna be a straight up ghanian fresh
off the motherland right here,fresh off the motherland, right
here, fresh off the motherland.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
All right, let's go for it, brother.
Speaker 1 (47:47):
Please support us, please, please support us by
following the show.
Please follow the show andleave us a five-star review on
Apple Podcasts.
Speaker 5 (47:59):
We don't want a four-star review.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
We don't want a 4.5-star review.
We don't even want a 4.9-starreview.
Five-star review on the podcast.
If you don't even want A 4.9star review, 5 star review On
the podcast.
If you don't do that, we'llfind you.
Thank you so much For listening.
We'll catch you next week whenwe share Conversations
surrounding Real issues we dealwith Every day Manhood matters,
manhood matters, it matters, itmatters, and we're out.
Speaker 3 (48:25):
Oh man, that was phenomenal.
That was awesome.
I enjoyed that one.
Speaker 5 (48:42):
Hey everyone, I'm Eva Steph's youngest daughter.
Just a quick reminder that thispodcast is intended solely for
entertainment and educationalpurposes.
If you're struggling withanything, please contact a
licensed therapist.
As always, we are sending youour strength and our love.
See you next Monday.
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