San Diego Unseen: An Urban Portrait
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Sometimes boys, the kind who wear their sideburns bushy and their pants a little tight—the kind who make our hearts race just a bit faster—sometimes they're hard to buy gifts for. I have a few suggestions of things available at smaller online purveyors of hip.
How about a whiskey-scented cologne? Lisa Brodar of Etsy store Portland General Store hand-crafts men’s fragrances from recipes that go back to the 1920s. She also makes scents based on tobacco, wood and “Professor.” There's shave jelly, after-shave splash and smelling salts, too. Not sure about that last one, but the other stuff looks really great.
I recently stopped a man in the Apple store to ask him how he got his mustache so pointy. Maybe the whole mustache-as-graphic-icon is over, but look around—actual mustaches are not. The man pointed me to eBarbershop.com and their plethora of mustache-wax brands, but they spell it "moustache," which really is better. (It makes me think of a little French mouse with a thin little ‘stache.) They have jars and tubes with names like Colonel Conk’s and Clubman and English Leather and Lucky Tiger. Pick up one for a stocking stuffer or get The Collection, a big ol’ sampler.
Maybe your man shuns not just the mustache but also tattoos. Then perhaps he’d go for a super-stylee graphic fake tattoo? Tattly is a company dedicated to making truly stunning fake tattoos of things un-tattoo like calculators, '80s watches that read “LATE” (made for your wrist) and Pantone color blocks of your skin tone, plus designs that are inspired by real tattoos like various girl (or boy) names in different script fonts, each crossed out. And a smoking bunny. And funny knuckle sayings. Created by graphic designer and blogger Tina Roth Eisenberg, aka SwissMiss, they're a great stocking stuffer for kids and cute boys alike.
This may sound totally boring but hear me out: socks are a good present for boys. No, not jock socks, not white socks, not black socks. But quality socks. And I know a few places that carry quality socks as well as other manly clothing. Hickoree’s is an online and small brick-and-mortar store in Brooklyn with a lot of American-made rugged menswear and, yes, they have socks, colorful rough-hewn socks. New High Mart is an L.A.-based shop that has menswear (along with women’s) and presents their manly man stuff in a pretty cool giant grid online. And socks, they have them! The Woodlands Shop just screams mountain man manliness, doesn’t it? Socks are on the front page.
If your guy is young, or young at heart, he may be attempting to carry his skateboard on his bike and that can be awkward. Enter the Fairdale Skaterack. It mounts onto most back carrier racks and is coated in cushy rubber to soften any pothole blows. Or maybe your boy isn’t into the whole skate-and-bike thing; maybe he’s a traditionalist and enjoys a good ball game. He might really love Lemon Ball handmade baseballs. Paul Cunningham used to make leather balls for elite major league players and now he makes them and sells them on Etsy. The Lemon is based on a 200-year-old historical ball. A pretty keen gift for the big fan.
I can’t decide if this is genius or just gross, but I lean towards the former. If you’ve ever seen How I Met Your Mother, then you know the Neil Patrick Harris character wears suits all the time. And I mean, all. The. Time. Like, to bed. And so someone created Suitjamas, a silky suit to wear to bed. Yes, at $99 they're a pricey gag gift, but for that certain someone, they will be legendary.
