Out of all the brush manufacturers I have ever purchased a brush from, Paladin, have the most shitty customer service ever, I have sent them three messages and PM's no reply, must be making a mint if they can pick and choose whom they reply to.
Contacted him via his site, also on his Facebook page no reply.
Hi Jamie,
I'm sorry I missed replying to your messages. FWIW, PMs on Facebook and the boards aren't the best way to connect with me. I have too many different accounts, don't always follow them closely, struggle with keeping track of conversations I've had via various PMs and text messaging systems, and can't easily share messages with my wife and son in order to facilitate logging and follow-up. Email works far better. There's a contact form on our website.
I woke up at 3:00 AM, compulsively checked my email, and caught one mentioning your post with reference to us here. I cannot find any email from you sent via our website. When did you send it and what email address did you use? Feel free to provide that info via PM here or on Facebook.
I do recall we had an exchange on Facebook last year between 7/29 and 12/6. You wanted a 26 mm Honey Noire Beehive with a fan knot set at a highly specific loft.
I responded as follows:
We don't have anything close to that description on hand right now. We're in the middle of a big move, production has been highly disrupted (none at all over the past couple weeks), and I don't know when I'll get around to turning Beehives again. There might be a Barely Second handle around, but, if so, it's packed. If something turns up, I'll let you know. Sorry I can't do better. FWIW, we still don't do one-off custom orders.
It looks like I missed replying to a follow-up message you sent on 7/30. We sold the home in Overland Park, KS we'd lived in for over 15 years early last August, moved all of our household belongings into storage, and the part of our shop that was still in our basement went into leased space.
On 12/6 you wrote again (via Facebook):
Will you by any chance be making any Beehive brushes in Honey Noir, in the near future? I'm very interested in purchasing one in a 26mm fan and a 48mm loft.
I replied on the same date:
I'm sorry, I really don't know when we'll turn 26 mm Beehives again. I'll for sure try to give you a heads-up. We've just trialed a pre-order process for brushes, which we expect to carry forward. But we'll only accept orders for style/size combinations that we're set to produce.
At that time we were living in an abandoned farmhouse on the property where I'd leased shop space. The only furniture we had there was an inflatable mattress, a table, and two chairs. Our plan since early last year was to move to Fort Collins, Colorado, but we hadn't found a suitable house there yet. At the end of February, we moved our shop from Stilwell, Kansas to temporary space in Loveland, Colorado. We found and made an offer on a house in Fort Collins, CO the same day we unloaded the truck. At that time corona virus was in the news but it hadn't brought about much disruption of day-to-day life where we were. That changed quickly. We closed on the purchase of our new home on March 22 with everyone wearing latex gloves. And we moved into an empty house that still remains empty with the exception of a mattress (purchased on the day before Colorado imposed a stay-at-home order) and two bar stools given to us by the seller. We haven't been able to return to Kansas to load and move any of what we put into storage there last July.
I had to move the shop again last week. I'm now in the process of getting it set back up and running.
When you say "out of all the brush manufactures I have ever purchased a brush from, Paladin have the most shitty customer service ever," some might take that to imply that we provided shitty customer service in connection with a brush you purchased from us, but that isn't the case, right?
I did just find the email you sent this past Sunday (April 26) via the contact form on our website. It says:
It's been a few months since I contacted you, well I'm back and still looking for a Beehive Noir 26mm select Badger fan shape knot, is there a way to place an order or commission this brush, or is it something you no longer make or produce?
Again, I'm sorry I missed catching it and replying before now. I was moving the shop again on Sunday and my focus since then has been to get everything set up and running.
I have not turned any Beehive handles since early 2019, possibly 2018. I hope to get back to them soon; however, we still don't accept custom orders (e.g., requests to set knots at specific lofts). We generally don't order many fans, and when set any knot, the loft we settle on is largely dictated by the knot's construction (length of hair, density, shape, etc.).
We're not making a mint. And we do not pick and chose whom we reply to. Sometimes I miss messages and/or drop balls.
