Arcadian Grooming Classic Pomade - Original Hold Review

Hello Gents... Today we will be looking at Arcadian Grooming Original Hold Pomade from Knoxville, TN. Another small scale home brewed pomade that is all handcrafted from the ground up.

Packaging: Arcadian Grooming Pomade come in amber glass jar with a net weight of 100 gram (3.5 oz). A very straight forward labeling AG logo on the top and very minimalist labeling on the side with ingredients on the right hand side. It looks simple and yet elegant.

Scent: This pomade have a very refreshing and yet earthy notes in it. I can smell there is a nice blend of bergamot, rosemary and lemon. In my humble opinion, the scent reminded me a lot of O'douds Light Hold. The longevity of the scent lasted around 6 hours or so and turned soft during end of day.

Texture: The texture of this pomade reminded me a lot of The Iron Society Original Hold. It is very tender and yet very easy to scoop out. Once you smear it in the hand, it breaks down like nothing but yet you can feel that this pomade have a great amount of wax and stickiness.

Day 1

Application: Like many other days, I started my day at 6 in the morning. I applied 4 scoops of this pomade on clean semi damp hair. AG Original Hold pomade is very easy to apply and as I run through my finger, i notice the stickiness and waxiness at the same time. Again, this pomade reminded me a lot of the iron society and the stickiness comes from O'douds. Styling is a breeze and does not take much time as the right balance of control is given by this pomade. There is no tug and pull and everything is smooth. Great!


Performance: I started my morning with indoor activities till around 11:30 to grab lunch. Through out that 4 and a half hour, my hair does not move at all and the shine is keep on coming out. Amazing! I ate my lunch in outdoor area, where the climate is really hot. I noticed that this pomade is soften and the hold decrease (expected) however the stickiness does help, as my hair won't move too much. As I reach office, I do a re-comb and the process is easy and smooth sailing. The picture below is taken after lunch re-comb.

I resume my activities in indoor office area until the time to knock off from work. The re-comb results still in the right place and didn't move much. It was around 9 PM when I reach home. The picture below is taken after I reach home. So I hit the shower and yes i did not wash it out because I wanna see how the build up perform the following day.

Day 2

Build Up: This is one of the best part of this pomade. The Build up is waxy but with right amount of greasiness. I feels clean and weightless even If I opted to go out, I can just do hand combing and I'm ready to go.

Application: Today I only use two small scoops to re-touch my hair as I feel it is more than enough to continue the rest of my day. I feel so confident and it is proven later on today. I applied it on top of damp build-up (Soaked my hair a little). The application as I mentioned before, is very easy. The styling itself does not take much time as the right balance of waxiness and greasiness give out the full control over the hair. Slick!

Performance: As usual I started my day at 6 AM, however this time I have straight outdoor activities. The weather was hot and super humid even in that early morning, however this pomade survives the heat even-though I only use 2 scoops to re-touched. That is amazing! The hold started to give away but my hair is still in tact due to the stickiness of this AG Original Hold Pomade. I reach office around 2 PM and I did a re-comb, and again this pomade is easy and fun to play with, you can feel the control and grip each time you comb it. Nice! I finished off my day around 7 PM with hair still in tact.

Overall: Arcadian Grooming Original Hold is a very good performing pomade and somehow I can feel that this pomade is like the love child of O'douds and The Iron Society. Just imagine the refreshing earthy scent with the stickiness from O'douds plus the good build up and waxiness of The Iron Society. Enough said!