Adam Berkebile is a well known mustache man. He's been involved in the bearding and competitive community for quite some time, and the man behind Mustachioed Mayhem. When it comes to styling his mustache, Adam knows a thing or two. Naturally, when we saw him losing faith in a rosin based Mustache Wax recipe, we had to step forward to set the record straight! Now, we've been crafting our stache wax since 2010 and know it's no joke! Granted, although we are extremely biased, we know this stuff can hold a handlebar moustache through a cross-country motorcycle ride while wearing an open-faced helmet! Of course, we also love a good challenge. What better way to take a challenge, than to send a product containing an ingredient, to an individual who has lost all faith in said ingredient?! Challenge accepted, time to change the heart and mind of a faithless hirsute hero!

Below is Adam's take. After seven days of daily use with our products, he left us with this brief Beard Oil review, Beard Balm review, and Mustache Wax review:

"Cure what ails your beard you say? Sonny I got your medicine! Why step right up!! Do you have split ends, dander, itchy dry skin, a dull non expressive face full of dead lifeless follicles? Just rub a few drops of this on your face fur and watch as the maidens flock to you beer in hand!!

When someone says Elixir, that’s what I imagine… Thankfully Aaron was no snake oil salesman. AJ’s Elixirs, you are on my plate!

So a year or two ago I met a rad dude in Sacramento. Pretty normal as everyone I have met there is pretty rad, but this dude got to talking to me about oils and waxes. I was extremely drunk (as per competition regulations in Sacramento) and though extremely interested, failed to remember to follow up!

Cue two weeks ago. Talking about Resin waxes for your stache, I spit out my typical “resin is bullshit and makes shit wax spiel” when Aaron pops up and says that I need to do his wax, and his oils and that we are long overdue for a review… Three days later a box of goodies arrives! Oils, balm, lip salve, and two waxes arrive. Now I will not be reviewing the second wax today as my focus was on the resin base. The second wax should go through its paces next week (once I relocate it, children and wives move shit…) so for today you will have to settle for the oil, balm, and resin wax.

So let’s start with the oil!

Here are the scents and descriptions from the website:

Forest Mint – The name says it all! A beneficial blend of 5 essential oils. Clean and fresh peppermint dries down to a complex warm and masculine woodsy finish.
Mother Lode – This is one you’re glad you discovered. An inviting and warm sweet citrus scent. This beneficial blend of 6 essential oils has a very slight earthy undertone.
Tahoe Gold – The sought-after nugget! This massive blend of 9 skin and hair benefiting essential oils is a clean and uplifting scent - a slight floral citrus, yet masculine spice.

Now as with all beard oils, start with a clean damp beard. It really is important to wash the buildup of life off your whiskers daily. Now all beard oils say like six drops… I can’t do it. If I put six drops in, my beard is dry and crunchy an hour later. I used a dropper full because fuck you I am the reviewer that’s why. After thoroughly fingering my beard with slick oily hands, I break out the boar bristle brush and make sure everything is even and pretty.

This is not high sheen oil. Don’t expect to look like you are freshly oiled all day long. This is penetrating oil meant to heal and keep your beard healthy. I found in my week of testing that, though it dries off quickly and the scent goes away, my beard was velvety soft. Not soft like pillows or some of the other balms that are high lanolin content, but realistically soft (if that makes sense). I found that I had a decrease in the dreaded beard acne and black heads with these oils. I can’t prove they had a direct correlation, but I had been having reactions to the previous oils I was playing with. Now personally I gravitate towards thick oils that leave you shining like a diamond…but these have really grown on me. I love the scent of Mother Lode… my buddy Anthony The Stash Fontes says it’s like fruity pebbles on your face! I can see where he is coming from, but there’s an undeniable hippy smell in there too. Just my type. All the oils smell amazing and are light enough scents that even if you are sensitive to smelling scents all day, this should still fit in your wheel house.

Beard Balm - Mother Lode scent

Balms are the business man… I love the ease of use. Using dry or wet. The subtle hold. Just yeah man. This balm is much like many other high end reputable balms. Easy to use, hard to over or under do. The scent is just a touch more fruity pebbles than hippy to me. The biggest difference I found with this balm is that it works best on a damp beard too. Most balms are really just for lazy, forgetful or time strapped people like me. The balm feels firm at first, but then scoops out easily. Rubbing your hands together it turns to a melted butter texture. Super easy to spread through your beard and it never turns goopy or sticky. It also never makes your beard feel dirty. Some of the balms I have played with seem to be dust and dirt magnets leaving me wanting to wash my face 35 minutes later. Not this. Clean simple and just a touch more shine than the oil. Most definitely recommend.

So the lip salve is cool, it works. I am not a lip salve reviewer, but I can tell you it feels like you have coated your lips in something that won't rub or lick right off. I use it daily and prefer it to my usual Burts Bees that is my normal go to. So that being said, why not give it a run?

Now for the heavy hitter… AJ’s Elixirs OG Moustache Wax Forest Mint scent.
Ingredients: Beeswax, pine rosin, jojoba oil, argan oil, sweet almond oil, avocado oil, vitamin E oil, and an essential oil blend.
Fuck did you just read that list? I didn’t until just now. That’s a shit ton of oil. No wonder my stache felt just fine after washing a week of build-up off. No joke.

First Run:

OK, enough amazement at how much oil is in a wax. This wax is a golden slab of heaven. Now it’s not perfect, we will get to that, but holy shit has it won me over. This wax is firm; you will need a hair dryer. You will need patience, but it will pay off. I tried this wax on every one of my daily styles and never had a failure. It was able to stay crisp and fresh looking all day with minimal tweaking. If you want to change your style, you can with heat, but really you will be left with a simple fix here and there. This stuff holds strong. Very strong. Don’t try to comb without a heat source, you will lose hairs. With all that strength and hardening, it amazes me how much oil is in there lmfao! Anyway, the wax held up to all tests I threw its way… except the kitchen. Harley? No problem. Water? Bitch please. Children? No worries. Kitchen? Well that’s where I had break ups and need to restyle. This leads me to believe that the heat tolerance may not be acceptable in Phoenix during the summer. That’s ok, 99% of waxes can't, and I haven’t called this one yet so more testing will be done once it is warm. For now though, I am just absolutely impressed with this wax. Every rosin wax in the past promised me the world and left me angrily washing my stache out vowing to never trust rosin again. Either they are like hunks of rock, which you can’t scrape wax off, or they are so uselessly soft that you can’t actually style. Well now I know better, and you should too.

English Attempt: 

So Thank you AJ’s Elixirs, and Aaron Leff!

Now go out there and show them some love!

As always keep your whisky neat, and your stache stiff."

Thank you for that amazing write-up Adam! We're happy to have changed your mind!