Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Bringing Together Local Businesses and Neighbors of Delaware County, PA (Delco"") and the surrounding Philadelphia Metro Region.
Good Neighbor Podcast: Delco
Wierd Beard Co.'s Nick Giangiulio Is Making Beards Great Again
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Wierd Beard Co.'s Nick Giangiulio Is Making Beards Great Again
Ever wondered what makes the difference between a scraggly beard and one that looks intentionally awesome? The answer might surprise you – and it's what led Nick Giangiulio to create Weird Beard Co during the pandemic.
When Nick's girlfriend Holly complained that his beard made her face feel uncomfortable and caused breakouts, it sparked a conversation that would change everything. With academic backgrounds in international business and psychology, the couple identified a gap in the market for quality beard care products that address real concerns. What began as a personal solution evolved into a Delaware County-based business committed to helping men maintain facial hair that looks good, feels great and doesn't irritate their significant others.
During this enlightening conversation with Good Neighbor Podcast Host Bob Blaisse, Nick breaks down the essential beard care trinity: oils for the skin underneath (preventing the dreaded "beard druff"), butters for softness and styling and specialty soaps that double as shave products. He explains the difference between various formulations, including their innovative "High Voltage" soap containing coffee grounds for exfoliation and caffeine to stimulate growth. Throughout the discussion, Nick emphasizes that while genetics determines growth potential, proper care dramatically improves what you already have.
What truly distinguishes Weird Beard Co from competitors isn't just their high-quality formulations with creative names like "Bark at the Moon" and "Lost in the Woods." It's their commitment to personalized service and the authentic "Delco vibe" that infuses everything they do. As Nick says, a man's face is his branding to the world, making proper beard care not just about personal comfort but about presenting yourself professionally and attractively.
Curious about taking your facial hair game to the next level? Listen to this episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast and learn about Weird Beard Co's products online or how to reach the Weird Beard Crew Chief, Nick Giangiulio directly for his personalized recommendations. Your face (and your partner) will thank you.
Weird Beard Co
https://weird-beard-co.myshopify.com
https://www.facebook.com/weirdbeardcompany
Tel. 215-906-2436.
--- About The Show--- Good Neighbor Podcast is a spotlight on local businesses in and around Delaware County, PA (“Delco” ) and Beyond... The executive producer and host, Bob Blaisse, is a community sponsorship advocate, business branding specialist, and publisher of several hometown magazines, including: Newtown Square Friends & Neighbors, Marple Friends & Neighbors and Newtown Edgmont Friends & Neighbors, mailed monthly to more than 12,000 homes in Western Delaware County, PA, and also available for reading online.
Welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast
Speaker 1Hello, delco. This is Michael Barkan, welcoming you to the Good Neighbor Podcast, where fans of local businesses and their neighbors come together. It's my pleasure once again to introduce my friend and neighbor, our host Bob Lacey.
Speaker 2Well, thank you, michael Barkan, for that introduction and everybody welcome again to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. That introduction and everybody welcome again to another episode of the Good Neighbor Podcast. We're coming to you today from southeastern Pennsylvania, in fact the most southeastern part of Pennsylvania, delaware County, pennsylvania, which is just north of the state of Delaware and east of New Jersey, just south of the city of Philadelphia. We're a smaller county by geography but we are the third largest county in all of the 67 counties in Pennsylvania. We lovingly refer to Delaware County as Delco. You've probably heard it because it's like a nationally known brand. Now the Delco vibe Hard to explain, I won't get into that, but the people in Delco know it and this podcast is meant to bring a little bit of it to you.
Meet Nick from Weird Beard Co
Speaker 2We call it the Good Neighbor Podcast. It's about the neighbors in Delco, but it's really more so about the businesses in Delaware County Delco that are good neighbor businesses, and so we try to bring a big, varied category all the time to you. But today it's a Saturday. We like to have fun on Saturdays. We're going to record an episode here of the Good Neighbor Podcast with a company called Weird Beard and it's going to be fun and I love the company's products and I think about this lovely, wonderful slogan they have join the Weird Beard crew. So we're going to bring the crew master to the stage here. Let me introduce to you Nick Gingiulio. Nick, welcome to the Good Neighbor Podcast.
Speaker 3Good morning Bob. Thank you for having me on this Saturday morning. I'm so happy to be here.
Speaker 2Thanks for coming and thanks for bringing your weird beard with you. But it's not a weird beard, I have to say for our listeners that are only listening, not seeing you. It's a great looking beard and it's probably great looking because it's cared for, and because it's cared for particularly by its owner, but also Weird Beard products. So, nick, I have to ask you, how did you ever think of the idea to come out with Beard products and why Weird Beard? Is it just the rhyme that makes it work, or is it a vibe that you have for the company?
Speaker 3So funny thing about that, bob, is fortunately it started back in COVID. Everyone they didn't know what they want to do. Their hands are in their pockets and you couldn't really do anything around that time in the world. So I went to school. I have degrees in international business and business and my girlfriend Holly, she's going for a doctoral in clinical psychology. So two people in a relationship going to school, very well educated, and everything Electrical is my full-time passion that I do so.
Speaker 3One day I came home just greeting her as usual, give her a little kiss on the cheek and she goes I don't like the way your beard makes my face feel. I always break out. So we have a full conversation that night and she goes really she looking to like making something. So she bought me a little cheap little Amazon thing. She goes really she looking to like making something, so she bought me a little cheap little Amazon thing. She goes.
Speaker 3A couple of days later she goes see, that's what I like to feel, that's how I like the beard to feel. It's nice and soft, it doesn't break my face out, everything else I love it. So we're sitting there and I've always wanted to own my own business. She goes. Well, I know electrical is hard, so like, don't we try to figure out what to do? Because I'm very ADHD so I got to keep doing something. So we kept looking around, looking into the field of beard care and we were like just one thing after another and we started looking at different things of what you need for your beard, how to take care of it, what's needed to keep it soft and not itchy and dry.
Speaker 2Interesting kind of starting point here. I mean I heard a lot there. Listeners are like perking up. They have this vision right now of a guy with a handlebar mustache, big, long beard down to his knees. No, no, it's a. It's a wonderfully looking, tamed, cared for beard. But you got me, when you talked about that, that girlfriend Holly mentioning that you know it's not feeling exactly like I would want it. That's key, guys, I mean really. I mean, if you want the ladies to like the beard, you don't want it to be unlikable in some manner, the way it looks or the way it feels. And and you know I have to believe that what a difference some grooming makes to a beard in the way that it shapes out and the way that it feels. I like the idea now of the name of your business Weird Beard. Yeah, weird Beard rhymes. It's great, great name for a business. But you know what, if you have a weird beard, it doesn't have to be quite as weird. You know what I mean.
Speaker 2Let's get it tamed with some products, and we're going to talk about the products in here a bit, because it's an education to me. I never really had a beard. I know folks who have. I have four sons and some of them have beards, but I'm going to get educated along here with our listeners. We're talking to Nicholas Giangiulio, who is the owner of Weird Beard Co.
Essential Beard Products Explained
Speaker 2Weird Beard Co. You can find them on the internet. In just a bit I'll give you the URL that you can look their company up and their products. Let's talk about the products, nick, and I think the best way to do it for starting from a perspective of people who have no idea like I'm not even sure there should be a product for a beard. I know we wash our hair, but it sounds like we're going to be washing a beard differently or doing something with beards. Let's start with how many products and then categorize them a bit and start really getting the detail with several of them to let us know what weird beard co sells so, since we are so small, we like to focus on just the essentials.
Speaker 3So we do have three key products. Uh, we have beard oil, we have beard butter and then we have beard soap, which doubles as a shave soap as well, which we'll get into that in a little bit. So, starting from the very first product are oils. The oil that is more so needed for the skin underneath of the beard, so as the hair is coming in, it keeps the skin soft. So that way you're not getting what we like to call beard drop. It's essentially dandruff that you get in your hair, but more so in your beard, just the dry, flaky skin, because the skin's not moisturized. So as the hair comes through, it doesn't hurt, it's not red and blotchy. Now, moving on to the butter itself, the butter itself is more so needed for the beard hair. It will keep the hair soft. It has a slight hold to it to keep any small flyaways tamed. So everything looks more shaped and more pulled together rather than all over the place like you just woke up.
Speaker 3And as far as our beard soaps, they're great. We use them in the shower. They last a very long time and, like I spoke earlier, they do double as a shave soap so you can wash and for any tight cleanups that you want to clean up on your cheeks or if it goes underneath your neck. If you have a beard that goes onto your neck, we call it neck beard. Essentially, you can use that to shave rather than going out and getting a separate shaving cream product and spending more. Try to consolidate everything to make it as easy as possible to maintain already everything to make it as easy as possible to maintain.
Speaker 2Let me ask for, for those people who don't know, you know they don't have a beard and and nobody in their family has a beard um, is this kind of a self-taught thing? Do people who have beards end up saying, I gotta do something about this beard, it's just not looking right? And then do they do they find themselves eventually buying products? Does everybody who has a beard that's not just, uh, you know, like a rus, russell Crowe kind of a rough unshavenness, but you know it's, maybe it's like it's got a, let's call it an inch, an inch long at least. Are they having to service that beard differently than we think, those of us who don't know anything about beards, is everybody putting something on their beard?
Speaker 3That's a trick question, bob. To be honest, some people want to do something about it but they don't know where to get started. Other people know about it but they just don't want to do anything. I've run into people that are more old-timer gentlemen and try to talk to them about it. I'm stuck in my ways. Absolutely, beard looks great, but then you have people more modern day. It could be anything from an inch to a full-grown biker beard. They just want to know what to do, depending on their line of work, to keep it tamed and itch-free. And it more so comes back to the significant others in their lives, because it's the ones that want them to look good, to feel good and everything else having their beard and making them look contained and professional and clean.
Speaker 2Wow, that makes a lot of sense, especially when you, you know, think about the fact that the beard is front facing. I mean it's, it's our branding that we're taking out there, and it doesn't just mean people seeing us on the street and thinking that we're not, you know, an unkept kind of a homeless person, but more so like working on the job you know, guy's got flakes coming out of his beard or, you know, trying to meet a significant other and you know, like wanting to have that attractive self front facing in the most attractive way to be more successful in getting a chance to meet people and to attract people. So we really are learning a lot here, aren't we? We're talking with the leader of the Weird Beard crew Weird Beard Company, short is Weird Beard Co. They're based in Delaware County, pennsylvania, and Nicholas and his girlfriend Holly are kind of behind the brains, behind developing products which we're going to hear more about.
Speaker 2But if you would like to get a chance to really talk to a professional about your beard and some ideas for products that might help your particular situation, you can talk to Nick Jangulio from Weird Beard Co. From Weird Beard Co by calling 215-906-2436. And if you'd like to just look up Weird Beard and see them. They operate on a website that's on the MyShopify chain. It's a great looking website and the URL, if you want to write this down, is weird-beardcomyshopifyify dot com and I'll give that to you again at the end of the episode, nick, if you could, uh get. Let's get back to the product line and what you were going to tell us about some of the more important things, about caring for the beard essentials and and maybe even throw out a specialty. That is like you're not seeing anybody else do this except Weird Beard. What's your specialty?
Speaker 3So I mean we like to stay humble and we don't like to boast, but we feel like our specialty is maintaining towards their smaller crew and being more personable. You see a lot of small companies out there. We've made a lot of friends with other small company beard owners from all 50 states across the world and a few across the pond as well, but we we like to specialize in being more personable and when orders come in we send them out immediately. If we have questions, we try to respond back immediately. We encourage anybody uh, that if you have questions, messages, text me, call me email, and I mean that's what we like to really call our specialty.
Speaker 2Well, let's talk to the people who don't have beards, and I think the biggest chunk of that is going to be the feminine ladies that have men who might have beards. I mean, think about this that have men who might have beards. I mean, think about this for those of us who really don't know. I'm looking at your webpage and on the on the my Shopify commerce sites and you know it's I love the branding weird, it's kind of like a artsy thing, but it's also kind of a vibe and we love that stuff in Delco, right. But you know, think about these oils, like you know, bark at the moon oil, or lost in the Woods, oil for the beard, and I'm imagining, nick, that they all have a kind of fragrance to them. Or do they? Do they create different textures for the beard when it comes to beard oils?
Specialty Products and Branding
Speaker 3So, as far as the oils go, they all have the same texture. I mean there's different viscosities but we try to stay right in the middle, where it's not too thin but it's not too thick, because over time we've had had issues with different viscosities and along with the seasons that come around the hot weather, cold weather they do act differently. But, as far as that goes, each oil that you're seeing with the different names, they all do have different scents and fragrance oils and essential oils put in them to give you a different scent, yeah, to put a little oil feel to it, soften the beard a bit and fragrance.
Speaker 2But so tell us then, well, what's the major purpose difference between, you know, beard oils and your lines of beard butter? So I mean, there's the killer, sharp, weird butter and then there's the seductive weird butter and others, a dozen more other butters. Tell us what the butters do for beards.
Speaker 3So the butters um, the butters themselves, when we make them, there's different ways to make them. I like to keep it as like a whipped cream consistency, because it makes it easier to apply and it just makes it easier to go in the beard, so you're not getting clumps or really having to rub it in. It just melts away in your hands. So when you rub it into your beard and brush it, it keeps the beard a lot softer and spreads out the butter and the oils that are in the butter itself thoroughly throughout the beard, coating the beard properly.
Speaker 2Interesting. And then I guess, lastly, from kind of a product category you had mentioned earlier, that there's beard soaps and of course yours are branded as weird soap and they're going to have a little bit of weird names, but I love the names that we see on these, not just the bark at the moon type thing we saw before about how about like lost in the woods soap or white witch soap, are some of these that are named certain ways because the soaps to have fragrances or the soaps doing different things for your beard, the soaps to have fragrances, or the soaps doing different things for your beard.
Speaker 3So when it comes to the soaps, they all do the same thing, except for two of our soaps. We have our high voltage soap and we have our the ghost soap. Across all three products, each scent has a product. So, like high voltage, it has an oil, a butter and a soap. But going back, the soap for high voltage actually has fresh ground coffee in it to help exfoliate underneath of the beard, and it has caffeine, so it does help stimulate some growth in the beard when using it.
Speaker 2And then, and then a wide range of products between the soaps, the butters and the fragrances. I think we can safely say that, nick, would you say that almost anybody that we see with a good looking beard, well groomed but also just really nice. It's not just the shaping of it, like they're not just worrying about it from a shaving and a clipping, you know, keeping it groomed it's, it's really about how you're caring for the hairs that are your beard and and it's a big part of it, isn't it.
Speaker 3Yes, exactly, I feel like that's your foundation, because without your foundation of taking care of the skin and the hair itself, it really affects on how your beard can be grown. I mean, beards are all based off of genetics too. It's not like you can do some witchcraft and you get a beard within a month or so. It does come from genetics, but there are some ways out there that do help. Uh, gentlemen, grow beards. Um, I haven't really looked into them. I just focus on the care aspect.
Speaker 2But yes, well, if anything, if you've got it, if you've got a beard and it's not looking that great, then start with trying to get it to look better. And this is the way to do it. We're talking to the crew master of the weird beard crew from weird beard co, nick giannullio, and, uh, together with the help of his of his girlfriend, holly, they are on to something here in the way that they have developed their weird beard products. There's got to be 50 of them between the oils and the soaps and the butters and different flavors. But, more importantly, you've got somebody you can talk to. So I'm going to give the phone number out one more time and also the URL.
Speaker 2If you want to visit their website, you can actually speak to Nick at 215-906-2436.
Closing and Contact Information
Speaker 2And if you'd like to just look over these products before you even talk to Nick, you can visit their website, which is their commerce site that is kind of connected to the MyShopify site and you'll learn about their free shipping options for products, that certain products and levels of product by visit weird beard it's weird, dash beard, dash co dot, my Shopify dot com and the sound effects there to kind of get you to remember to make that call and get a chance to talk to Nick, jan Julio and you'll find that Nick is a Delco guy. He's got that Delco vibe but he's got really a great company here. That is a wonderful good neighbor business in the Delaware County community. And, nick, we want to thank you for being a guest on the Good Neighbor podcast today. Since half our population are men and half of them have beards, what a great service that you and Holly are providing to the community at large, even nationally here through your Weird Beard Co company. Thanks for being a guest today, nick, on the Good Neighbor podcast.
Speaker 3It's been a pleasure. Bob, Thank you for having me on. It means a lot.
Speaker 1Thank you for listening to the Good Neighbor podcast hosted by Bob Lacey. This is Michael Barkan inviting everyone to get on the Good Neighbor team. Nominate your favorite local business to be featured on an upcoming episode by going to gnpdelcocom or by calling Bob at 610-557-3745.