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September 16, 2018

Millennial Moves: Calvin Quallis On Building Men’s Grooming Brand, Scotch Porter

https://www.blackenterprise.com/mens-grooming-brand-scotch-porter/

Scotch Porter is a New Jersey-based men’s grooming brand and part of the #beardgang culture. The company is the brainchild of millennial founder Calvin Quallis who took his idea from the barbershop to the shelves and online after noticing his clientele’s need for products that catered to their hair type.

Named after his favorite liquor (Scotch) and favorite jazz singer (Gregory Porter) Quallis created the brand with the everyday man in mind. What began as a targeted brand has expanded beyond products solely for the beard and face. Last fall, the company launched “Fresh Meat” masculine wipes and now the Mineral Enriched Body Collection comprised of a botanically-enriched body bar, exfoliating body scrub, body wash, and hydro-defense body lotion.

We interviewed Quallis and Aleesha Smalls-Worthington, Scotch Porter’s senior marketing manager, to discuss the business of grooming, building a brand, and tips every millennial needs for success.

Black Enterprise: You have created a grooming trifecta: face, hair, and body. What was the importance of positioning Scotch Porter as a one-stop-shop for men?

Calvin Quallis: With Scotch Porter, I wanted to create a platform that catered to today’s busy man by offering a full selection of quality products conveniently at one destination. Also, we’re more than just a grooming brand, we’re selling more than what’s in a bottle or jar. We’re creating a lifestyle and providing our customers with something that they feel they can aspire to be.

How does your brand manage to stay on narrative in a culture of ever-changing trends?

Quallis: Our brand stays the course by focusing on delivering on the needs of our customers. By keeping a two-way dialogue at the forefront of our product development, we listen to what he wants and needs. Based on how those preferences align with SP’s mission, we release products and messaging that provides a solution. While a trend is key when it comes to certain products and services, our collections will continue to be rooted in pushing our customers to be great.

Marketing and social media have been paramount for most brands on the market. How has this style of branding aided in reaching your target audience?

Smalls-Worthington: When it comes to marketing, our approach is multi-touch. It’s critical to meet “him”— where he consumes content—and deliver on his needs through product and information. No matter the medium, we focus on educating and entertaining men. Whether it’s talking about the benefits of using our products or highlighting interesting lifestyle hacks, our goal is for Scotch Porter to be a touch point in his life that makes him look, feel, and smell his best.

How has the barbershop; the church played a part in helping to build Scotch Porter?

Quallis: The barbershop is why Scotch Porter exists. Before the launch of Scotch Porter, I owned a barbershop called Center Stage Cuts. My mom also owned a barbershop/salon when I was a kid. Scotch Porter was born out of a barbershop that served predominately black and Hispanic men. Two months after opening the shop I noticed this recurring grooming issue that many of our customers had: very dry, damaged frizzy beards and hair. I put my problem solver hat on and from home, I researched natural products, ingredients and their effectiveness to treat my customer’s concerns. With feedback from our customers over the course of one-and-a-half years, I developed Scotch Porter’s first line of products with botanical infusions.

What are 5 core values every entrepreneur should follow to build a business in a millennial society?

Quallis: [1] Every entrepreneur must be a great problem solver. It’s almost impossible to build a great business if you’re not a good problem solver. There are big and small problems that arise daily when building a business

[2] Being resilient is another one. There’s some days where you’ll feel completely defeated, tired, and at the point where you want to give up, but on the other side of all of those dark thoughts is success. When I feel overwhelmed or defeated, I always remind myself that the bigger the goal that I’m trying to accomplish, and the greater the impact I want to have, the more resistance and frustration I’m going to face, but I owe it to myself and my loved ones to keep going. You have to keep going.

[3] You have to be passionate about this thing that you’re building. You might have no idea how to monetize whatever this thing is that you love to do, but passion will drive you to figure it out. When you’re exhausted, broke, and utterly frustrated, passion will make you jump out of the bed and work late into the evening, because no dream can become a reality until it becomes an obsession.

[4] Figure out your true “Why.” There’s so many reasons to quit or not start a business. Business is risky and has so many unknowns. You could destroy your credibility. You could get punished by debt. You could even lose everything. However, your “why” is much more powerful than every reason to quit or not to start, and it’s what you need to go back to when you start feeling lost.

[5] Every entrepreneur must have a vision. Vision helps you with the process of planning, understanding the opportunity, and establishing goals for the business. It also permits you to see past where you are currently and ahead of your limited resources.

What is the future of men’s grooming?

Quallis: Men over the past 3 to 5 years have become much more interested in personal care and grooming. More men are now comfortably exploring products and services that were traditionally seen as more female-oriented. As we, and others in the industry, continue to educate men on the importance of grooming and how it can impact their appearance and how they feel about themselves, I think we’ll see a lot more new product offerings for men and growth in the men’s personal care space.

The post Millennial Moves: Calvin Quallis On Building Men’s Grooming Brand, Scotch Porter appeared first on Black Enterprise.

September 16, 2018

Action Figures Remixing Iconic Movie Scenes Will Blow Your Mind

http://nerdist.com/action-figures-neca-hasbro-horror-jax-navarro-photography/

Although we’ve seen some incredible photography using action figures before, we’ve never seen anything quite like the work of photographer Jax Navarro, who also goes by the name PlasticAction. Using action figures from various different aspects of pop culture, like movies, television and comics, Navarro makes lifelike recreations of different iconic movie moments mashed up together. Think of it all as an action figure remix.

One of the coolest in his series of photos features one of the most intense scenes from Avengers: Infinity War, when Doctor Strange, Iron Man, Spidey, Drax, Mantis and Star-Lord all attempt to rip the Infinity Gauntlet off of Thanos’ hand. Instead of using the Marvel heroes, however, Navarro instead replaces them all with horror icons like Jason, Freddy Krueger, Pennywise, Michael Myers and Chucky. Looking at this image, you can’t help but think that these guys would have probably had better luck than the good guys did.

So how did Navarro first get into toy photography? “My wife bought me an app controlled BB-8 toy from Sphero shortly after we watched The Force Awakens in the theaters and because I love taking photos, I took pictures of it in different environments and posted those photos on Instagram” Navarro told us. “From that point I started browsing relevant hashtags and found that there was a small community that took pictures of toys. And these weren’t boring product photography shots. We’re talking full action, cinematic scenes using toys. My mind was blown and I knew I wanted in!”

Photos as meticulously constructed as these must take a serious amount of time to put together. So just how long does a typical shoot take to set up and get just right? According to Navarro, “it really depends on what’s happening in the scene and how many subjects are involved. It could take anywhere between 1-13 hours to get a scene setup and lit exactly how I want it. For example, the Ninja Turtles playing basketball involved 22 characters with multiple light setups and that took 10 hours just to set up. Add a couple of more hours on top of that for shooting and post processing. On the flip side, the photo with Baby Groot wearing Marty McFly gear and riding a hoverboard was set outdoors with natural lighting only and that took less than an hour to setup and shoot.”

While some of these photos are easy to stage, others…not so much. So which of these has been the most challenging photograph to pull off? “The Ninja Turtles basketball scene takes the cake” said Navarro. “It was such a challenge trying to fit that many characters into one shot, having them all visible and posing them just right so that they are all showing emotion based on their own unique personality. Also getting the light perfect to where the main subjects (Raph and Leo) stand out from the rest of the scene. Not to mention that one wrong move could make them all fall like dominoes!”

With so many toys from so many different films and TV shows already having been used in previous photos, is there a Holy Grail toy that Navarro can’t wait to get his hands on? Turns out, there is. “Absolutely. The Back To The Future 1/6 scale DeLorean made by Hot Toys. That DeLorean is one of the coolest movie props in history so to have that shrunken down at my disposal would be magical.” We can safely say we are all hoping that Jax Navarro gets his hands on that DeLorean too, because that is definitely a photo we want to see someday.

To see more of Jax Navarro’s amazing work, don’t forget to visit our gallery down below, visit his website at plasticactionjax.com, and check him out on social media at instagram.com/plasticaction,twitter.com/plasticaction_and facebook.com/plasticactionjax

What do you make of these amazing photographs? Be sure to chime in with your thoughts down below in the comments.

Images: Jax Navarro

September 16, 2018

Hard NOC Life: Olivia Munn vs. Super Predator

https://thenerdsofcolor.org/2018/09/14/hard-noc-life-olivia-munn-vs-super-predator/

This week on Hard NOC Life, Keith is joined by his DC TV Classics co-host Britney Monae to fill in for Shawn as they break down the week in Nerd Pop. http://traffic.libsyn.com/thenerdsofcolor/HNL123.mp3 They kick it off with a discussion about Henry Cavill’s apparent departure from the role of Superman (1:00), then transition into the personal […]

September 16, 2018

Things We Saw Today: The Arrowverse Finds Its Lois Lane in Grimm‘s Bitsie Tulloch

https://www.themarysue.com/bitsie-tulloch-lois-lane/

bitsie tulloch

The Arrowverse has cast Bitsie Tulloch (Grimm) as Lois Lane in their upcoming three episode crossover event. Tulloch will join Tyler Hoechlin’s Superman in the crossover that includes Arrow, The Flash, and Supergirl. The event will also feature the introduction of Ruby Rose as Batwoman. Tulloch seems like a great choice for the role, and is already a Lois Lane fangirl, according to her Instagram post about the gig.

View this post on Instagram

Excuse me while I fangirl for a moment: I am so excited (thank you Warner Brothers, the CW, DC Comics, @gberlanti, @davidrapaport, Jessica Queller et al) to be playing the iconic Lois Lane on the Arrowverse crossover episodes. And I can’t wait to work with my friend @dpanabaker and of course @tylerhoechlin 😉 When I started acting, one of my teachers asked me to watch the screen tests for the role of Lois Lane for 1978’s Superman. All of the actresses were terrific, but it was always clear to me why Margot Kidder won the role: she seemed lit from within, full of joie de vivre. Now, at a time when the noble profession of journalism feels under siege, it’s a privilege to join the club of actresses who have played the dogged reporter. As far back as 1938 when she first appeared in Action Comics #1, Lois Lane has defied and subverted society’s expectations of how women should behave. She was portrayed as opinionated, inquisitive, and an unapologetically badass career woman at a time when many representations of women leaned more towards meek and demure. One of the reasons the character has remained so compelling for the last 80 years is that she has all these formidable, strong-willed qualities, but she’s also vulnerable, romantic, and feminine. A truly modern woman. ❤️

A post shared by Elizabeth Tulloch (@bitsietulloch) on Sep 14, 2018 at 11:16am PDT

Tulloch wrote in her post, “When I started acting, one of my teachers asked me to watch the screen tests for the role of Lois Lane for 1978’s Superman. All of the actresses were terrific, but it was always clear to me why Margot Kidder won the role: she seemed lit from within, full of joie de vivre. Now, at a time when the noble profession of journalism feels under siege, it’s a privilege to join the club of actresses who have played the dogged reporter.”

Tulloch is clearly a fan of the character, and here’s hoping that she gets to recur in the Arrowverse after the crossover event. After all, Kara is barely working at CatCo anymore and somebody needs to pick up the slack, am I right?

(via Deadline, image: Catrina Maxwell/Getty Images for SCAD)

Supergirl producers are allegedly eyeing The Handmaid’s Tale director Reed Morano for the film. Yes please! (via Geeks Worldwide)
Ray Park is interested in a Boba Fett/Darth Maul team-up movie. Yeah okay, we’d watch that. (via Nerdist)
Maisie Williams, best known as Arya Stark, has signed on to be a voice in Rooster Teeth’s gen:LOCK anime series. (via Deadline)
Peter Donat, who played Fox Mulder’s father on The X Files, has passed away at the age of 90. RIP. (via Page Six)

Happy Baturday, Mary Suevians!

Family dinner on #BatmanDay pic.twitter.com/1NyNR0wFHV

— Eric Alper (@ThatEricAlper) September 15, 2018

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