No hair transplants, pills or toupees. These men are embracing baldness. While plenty of guys are flying to Turkey for hair transplants, rubbing minoxidil into their scalps every night, or taking finasteride, this WSJ piece profiles men going the other direction: they’ve quit fighting their receding hairlines, shaved off all their hair, and embraced being bald. It’s understandable why guys want to hold on to their hair: we associate hair with youth and vitality, and a full head of it can enhance your attractiveness. But maintaining a waning mane takes a lot of time and money, and some of the treatments have pretty bad side effects like sexual dysfunction. Also, at a certain point styling thinning hair just doesn’t work anymore and starts to make you look older or oblivious to the fact you’re pretty much already bald. Shaving your head solves all those problems. I always enjoy reading posts in r/Bald from guys who finally decide to just embrace their chrome dome and all the comments telling them how great they look. It’s a surprisingly wholesome and supportive subreddit.

“I Sing the Body Electric” by Walt Whitman. When I interviewed Manoush Zomorodi a couple of months ago about her book Body Electric, I realized I had never read the Whitman poem the book’s title was inspired by. So I sought to rectify that, and am very glad I did. It’s an awesome poem and now one of my favorites. Whitman penned a sensual paean to physicality — to the human body’s wonder, beauty, and power. He celebrates each part of the body and exults in all its capacities, from working to walking to reproducing. Whitman admonishes us not to neglect the care of the body and to develop its full strength and health. He argues that “If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred,” and that in some ways, the body is the soul.

Katadyn Hiker Pro Water Filter. If you’re getting out there this summer by doing some backpacking, you’ll need to think about a water filter. The Katadyn Hiker Pro has been my go-to backcountry filter for over a decade now. Drop the intake hose in the water, pump the handle about 50 times, and you’ve got a liter of clean, good-tasting water (the activated carbon core filters out any funky flavors). It weighs 11 ounces, packs down small, and connects right to Nalgenes and hydration bladders. It’s never let me down. 

“drop dead” by Olivia Rodrigo. I’m not a music snob. I don’t only listen to one genre, nor eschew any music for being too mainstream or pop-y. I’m down for a good banger from whatever source it cometh. So when Scout queued up “drop dead” — the lead single off Olivia Rodrigo’s new album you seem pretty sad for a girl so in love — while we were driving a few weeks ago, I wasn’t expecting much, but gave it a chance. And I’ll be danged, it’s great. It pushes all my pop music buttons: pop synth with a pop rock bridge. The lyrics are fun to boot. All about young love. I had the song on repeat for a week. The rest of Rodrigo’s album is surprisingly good as well. It’s become the McKay’s album of the summer. 

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: The Empty Niche and Why Is It So Hard to Admit You’ve Made a Mistake?

Quote of the Week

How great soever a genius may be, and how much soever he may acquire new light and heat, he will never shine in his full luster, nor shed the full influence he is capable of, unless to his own experience he adds of other men and other ages.

—Henry St. John Bolingbroke

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Many of us grow up believing that midlife is when things start going downhill. Your body’s breaking down, your best work is behind you, and you may fall into a full-blown existential crisis. But a lot of what we think we know about midlife turns out to be based more on pop culture than actual research.

My guest says the reality is much more encouraging. Her name is Margie Lachman. She’s a professor of psychology, the Director of the Lifespan Lab at Brandeis University, and the author of Primetime: A New Vision for Midlife. Today on the show, Margie discusses what age range constitutes midlife — and how it’s not just a matter of chronological age — and whether people really become less happy and experience a midlife crisis during these years. She explains the surprising ways your mind continues to improve even as some abilities slow down, and why this stage of life often represents a peak combination of creativity and judgment. We also talk about the real challenges that come with midlife and how adopting the right mindset and habits can mitigate those downsides while helping you make the most of what Margie argues can truly be a sweet spot in life — a time when you still have much of your physical and mental vitality, and it’s coupled with seasoned experience and wisdom.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• Seasons of a Man’s Life by Daniel Levinson
• AoM series on Levinson’s research
• Transformations: Growth and Change in Adult Life by Roger Gould
• Passages: Predictable Crises of Adult Life by Gail Sheehy
• AoM Podcast #598: Journeying From the First to the Second Half of Life With James Hollis
• AoM Podcast #776: How to Shift Out of the Midlife Malaise

Connect With Margie Lachman

• Margie’s website
• Margie’s faculty page

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Transcript Coming Soon

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

A few weeks ago, I met up with some Strenuous Life guys here in Tulsa for a book club meeting at a local brewery. One of the guys had a gift for me: a 1970s Avon aftershave in a bottle shaped like the bust of Teddy Roosevelt. Screw off Teddy’s head, and you get punched in the face with a pungent but masculine smell that burns the nostrils.

I started cracking up because my dad had similar Avon aftershave bottles in his bathroom when I was growing up in the 1980s.

He had ones in the shape of a pheasant and a duck. After you shaved, you screwed off the bird’s head, dabbed some aftershave on your hands, and slapped your face with it.

Your dad may have had some of these novelty cologne- and aftershave-filled Avon decanters in his bathroom during the 70s and 80s, too. For about twenty-five years, you couldn’t walk into an American home without running into them. They came in the form of cars, eagles, ducks, dueling pistols, spark plugs, and rearing stallions. In addition to the TR bust, they had one in the shape of a stately white bust of George Washington, whose head you unscrewed to get at the aftershave. How dignified for the father of our country.

So what happened to them? Why did this ubiquitous staple of American bathrooms disappear? Why doesn’t a man keep a glass Corvette full of cologne on his counter anymore? Today, we’ll chart the rise and fall of the manly-shaped Avon decanter.

The Rise of the Avon Decanter

To understand the rise of the Avon decanter, you need to understand the rise of Avon. Remember Avon? Maybe your mom was an Avon Lady in the 1980s while simultaneously hosting Tupperware parties so she could make extra cash to buy you back-to-school clothes at Montgomery Ward’s.

Well, Avon got its start in 1886, when a door-to-door book salesman named David McConnell noticed that the housewives on his route cared a lot more about the free rose perfume samples he handed out than the books he was actually trying to sell. So he dropped the books and got into the fragrance business. To increase sales, he built an army of women who sold perfume and soap to their neighbors out of a catalog, right there in their doily-covered parlors and living rooms. It was the birth of the Avon Lady. Hail, Avon Lady!

For the first part of the 20th century, the bottles that held the perfumes and colognes that Avon Ladies slung to friends and neighbors came in plain, standard shapes. Then, in the 1930s, Avon experimented with novelty-shaped decanters, releasing a Mickey Mouse bottle in collaboration with Disney. It was a hit, but a one-off. For the next 30 years, Avon kept using standard bottles for its fragrances.

By the 1960s, competition was getting fierce in the cosmetics industry, so Avon looked for ways to differentiate itself from the pack. I guess an executive remembered that the Mickey Mouse-shaped perfume bottle did well, so why not do that again? So in 1965, Avon released a decanter in the shape of a boot that contained a men’s “leather” cologne. It was a smash hit. They followed it up in 1968 with a decanter shaped like a Sterling Roadster. Also a hit.

Avon found a winning strategy to move their fragrances: put them in fun-shaped bottles.

What was great about this strategy was that Avon didn’t have to come up with new formulations for their fragrances. They would take the same fragrance, offer it as both cologne and aftershave, and simply vary the bottle it came in. Avon would put out the same product in a new crazy-shaped bottle every year, and people would buy it, even though they had a full bottle of the same cologne or aftershave unused at home. The TR aftershave my friend gifted me smelled exactly like the aftershave in my dad’s pheasant-shaped Avon decanter. Basically, Avon was no longer in the fragrance business, but rather in the novelty bottle biz.

Which is probably smart because the aftershave didn’t smell very good. This was Avon, after all, not Creed. Avon was pumping out a mass-market product, and so it smelled like a lot of mass-market fragrances in the 1970s. These fragrances, to quote anchorman and cologne aficionado Ron Burgundy, had “a formidable scent. It stings the nostrils. In a good way.”

Over the next 20 years, Avon partnered with a New Jersey glassmaker, Wheaton Glass, to crank out figural bottles by the hundreds of thousands. The perfume bottles for women came in shapes like shoes, slippers, purses, and handbags. The men’s line got the rugged stuff like cars, trucks, fishing reels, shotgun shells, spark plugs, footballs, dueling pistols — and busts of George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt.

The 1970s were the peak of the Avon decanter. Avon’s catalog filled up with glass owls, deer, kangaroos, station wagons, and just about every car Detroit ever rolled off a line. They even made a 32-piece chess set out of the things.

It was during the 70s that the Avon novelty decanter became a collector’s item, sort of like Beanie Babies or Department 56 Christmas houses in the 1990s. Avon saw this as a money-making opportunity to exploit, so they leaned into this consumer-driven trend. They released bottles in limited runs and started a club for collectors. People started printing price guides telling folks what their bottles were worth. There was even a National Association of Avon Collectors with national conventions and a newsletter called The Avon Times.

Basically, you had people buying a glass Corvette full of aftershave, never opening it, and stashing it in a closet still in the box, certain it’d be worth a fortune someday and would pay for their kids’ college education. The TR bottle my friend gifted me was in a pristine, original box and still full of aftershave. Some guy in Oklahoma probably bought it in the 70s and never used it, thinking it would be worth thousands of dollars in 2026.

The Fall of the Avon Decanter

Eventually, the fun-shaped Avon decanter went away.

Why?

Well, two things killed it: 1) Avon nearly went bankrupt, and 2) consumer preferences changed.

By the late 1980s, Avon was buried under more than a billion dollars of debt and fending off hostile takeovers, having spent its flush years on a strange business shopping spree that included medical-equipment makers and nursing homes. It spent the ’90s digging out, and in 1999, it brought in Andrea Jung as its first female CEO with marching orders to drag the brand into the modern beauty business and compete with the department-store labels. The folksy “Ding Dong, Avon Calling” image had to go, and so did the glass pheasants full of aftershave.

Consumer tastes changed, too. By the 1990s, people wanted less junk in their houses, and a shelf full of glass animals was gauche. Dad’s Avon bottles got hauled off to Goodwill. Avon was hep to this change and started putting their fragrances back in a plain bottle with a plain label. Men today buy fragrances for the smell, not for the bottle it comes in (though a suave-looking bottle is a nice bonus). 21st century man is smellmaxing; not bottlemaxing.

The Avon Decanter Is Dead. Long Live the Avon Decanter!

If you’d like to have one of these manly-shaped Avon decanters sitting on your dresser, well, you’re in luck! Because the market was flooded with them during the 70s and 80s and because people babied them, thinking they’d pay for their retirement, you can usually find mint-condition Avon decanter bottles in antique stores or at estate sales still full of cologne or aftershave. My friend found the TR one in an antique store in Guthrie, OK. eBay has a bunch of them, too. Your dad probably still has a couple sitting on his dresser. Ask him if you can take them off his hands. My dad’s pheasant and duck aftershave bottles are still in his bathroom. Maybe it’s time for him to pass them on to his son. The making of a venerable tradition.  

Buy the decanter bottles for the decoration and for a connection to an interesting part of kitschy American history. But don’t wear the cologne. It smells pretty bad. And burns. In a good way, I guess.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Teasing has almost entirely negative connotations these days. It is the word evoked by sullen-faced parents to describe a misfortune befallen their child: “Jimmy is being teased at school.” It is largely associated with bullying. It is thought of as a form of expression that divides.

Yet teasing has in fact long functioned to bring people together — especially in honor cultures, and especially among men. It is an act full of paradoxes: at its best, it both stings, and strengthens; affirms hierarchy, and levels it; promotes conformity, and autonomy; it makes a man sensitive to shame, but not too sensitive. Indeed, as Carlin Barton writes in Roman Honor: “teasing and mild shaming are among the most important socializing mechanisms of society.”

Below we’ll unpack how teasing produces these benefits, as well as the necessary conditions for teasing to function as a healthy form of “aggressive nurturing” that builds bonds, rather than a destructive force that weakens them.

Teasing as a Prompt for Personal Improvement

Just as we do teasing these days, we tend to think of shame in a wholly negative way, believing that all forms of it are bad, and that no one should ever be shamed.

Yet shame can be an incredibly potent prompt towards positive behavior.

While it is unhealthy to feel shame because of things one cannot help, or are undeserving of a shameful response, it is healthy to feel a prick of abashment in falling short of the honorable standards of society, your family, and yourself.

The trick with shame is the dosage: too much shame becomes toxic, debilitates, while a little shame spurs to action.

Healthy teasing delivers shame in the right, mild dose.

The word teasing comes from older words for pulling apart strands — which is why we still use the phrase “tease out.” Healthy vocalized teasing surfaces truths about someone’s foibles, but does so in a playful, good-natured way. Delivered right, a man is not crushed by it, does not feel the need to become angrily defensive; he laughs in the moment, but still hears the underlying message in the joke. Because he doesn’t feel attacked directly, he has the space to process that message, and decide how to improve the area in which he was ribbed.

Teasing as Training in Self-Control

Against a large part of the frictions and irritations and clashing of temperaments incident to participation in a community life, a certain toughening of the mental hide is a better protection than the law could ever be. —Calvert Magruder, legal scholar

It is often thought the male code of emotional stoicism — of keeping a stiff upper lip — developed for unknown, arbitrary reasons. But it directly arose from men’s universal, timeless role as protectors. In the heat of battle, breaking down, falling apart — giving way to either paralyzing panic or heedless rage — would sabotage the outcome of the fight, and endanger the lives of one’s comrades.

For this reason, young men in every culture, in every time, were given challenges that developed and tested their self-control. Teasing constituted one of these “trials.” For example, much ribbing took place as part of the ancient Spartans’ practice of syssitia — nightly dinners; the older warriors would pointedly kid each other, and call young men over to the table to endure some teasing from the group.

The idea behind this tradition was simple: if you couldn’t endure a little razzing from your friends, how could you maintain your composure in the face of humiliations from your enemies? Teasing from their comrades desensitized and inured young men to the taunts and insults of strangers and foes.

Teasing as a Solidifier of Group Bonds 

Good teasing was like being naked together in the baths or the gym — it expressed a willingness to be bound to one another. —Carlin Barton 

We typically think of teasing as a one-way interaction: the teaser is the actor; the teased is a passive recipient (or even victim). And this is in fact the dynamic that exists in the case of unhealthy teasing.

But healthy teasing operates within a two-way, reciprocal relationship which builds mutual trust.

Teasing acts like a form of mild hazing (yet another word for which we moderns have trouble imagining positive connotations). It often reinforces an explicit or implicit pecking order. Members of a group come to trust someone more when he acknowledges this hierarchy, and demonstrates his commitment to the group and loyalty to their standards, by accepting teasing, and feeling shame for the failures such ribbing indirectly point to.

The teased shows that he trusts other members of the group, by exposing his weaknesses in the first place. He trusts that the others may play with these vulnerabilities, but will not mishandle them in a way that seriously wounds — that they will joke, but not take their jokes too far. The teaser proves himself worthy of this trust by demonstrating this restraint; “I could destroy you with my words — I know which buttons to press — but I won’t.”

As part of this mutual dance, Barton observes, the teased gave a part of himself, while the teaser held that part as a kind of loan; the teaser took part of someone’s humanness as “a trust that they needed to treasure and guard and give back.” In this way, “Allowing someone to tease you was like opening your house to a guest; if the teaser accepted your hospitality as a gift, then you, the person teased, were the richer for it.”

Richer, because healthy teasing always requires a phase of reintegration. That is, teasing temporarily separates the teased from the group, but this slight separation is followed by behaviors on the part of the group which reincorporate him back. The message is: “We’re aware of your flaws, but don’t mind. We recognize your foibles, but like you anyway. You may have fallen short, but you’re still one of us.”

Healthy teasing then, rather than being ostracizing in nature, makes one feel both more known, and more accepted. The teased experience the liberation of having one’s shameful weaknesses seen, yet indulged. What can sound like an insult, really says, “Hey, you’re all right.”

Teasing is not only a two-way street for building mutual trust, but one in which the direction the “traffic” moves isn’t fixed.

To Barton’s observation that “teasing and mild shaming are among the most important socializing mechanisms of society,” is added the important caveat: “provided that trust is there and that the teaser is prepared to exchange roles with the teased.” Sometimes it’s someone else who messes up and gets razzed, and sometimes it’s you; and you can’t be willing to dish it, but not take it. Even in hierarchical groups, it’s a sign of mutual trust, and deference on the part of superiors, when teasing can be given both up and down; the officer can tease his men, and they can tease him back; the teacher can tease his students, and they can tease him in return.

Those who have missed the fundamental reciprocity of teasing — including the giving of seemingly insulting nicknames — have often found its central place in male socialization to be bewildering, if not toxically boorish. Yet amidst the trading of good-natured barbs, real camaraderie is born.

As Barton puts it, “When reassurance and reintegration are part of the process, teasing and mild shaming are not only forms of communication, they are forms of communion.”

Teasing as a Strengthener of Autonomy

Modern Westerners are afraid of the emotions of shame and intolerant of expressing them; as a result, the fear of shame intensifies the experience of shame. Modern Westerners become ashamed of feeling ashamed and thus are swept into a spiral of shame. —Carlin Barton

The ironic thing about learning to take teasing is that while it signals one’s longing to be accepted and willingness to conform to a group, it also strengthens one’s ability to deviate from collective opinion.

As mentioned above, teasing is training in managing shame, so that it isn’t experienced as overwhelming.

Those who cannot handle even mild shaming, who do experience it as overwhelming, are more willing to do whatever it takes to avoid that feeling — including conforming at any cost. They can readily be, as Barton puts it, “shamed into acting shamefully.”

Ironically, those most prone to acute shame, and thus to conformity, are also the least able to recognize this fact, as they cannot handle the shame of being overly sensitive to shame.

This was demonstrated in the famous experiments of Solomon Asch, in which participants in a group were asked to judge the length of certain lines, and were influenced to pick the wrong answer by study confederates who were planted in the group and intentionally gave incorrect answers. Yet, Barton writes, when the study’s actual participants were told they had been swayed by the confederates, they tended to respond with vehement denial:

Asch emphasized . . . that those who had most frequently succumbed to the pressure to blend invisibly into the group were precisely the ones who, when confronted with the purpose of the test, were likely to deny or radically underestimate the extent of their collaboration and exaggerate their independence. In other words, those excessively sensitive to shame were, paradoxically, those most likely to deny that they felt ashamed at all and to insist on their autonomy. . . . Those who could not bear the shame of exclusion also could not bear the shame of inadequacy implied by their collusion. It was clear both from Asch’s experiment and the subsequent interviews with the subjects that those who most feared and rejected the emotion of shame were least capable of acting in accordance with their own will.

Being able to tolerate and feel comfortable with a little shame actually leads to greater autonomy. And this inoculation effect is created well through learning how to take a little teasing.

Why We Flee Teasing

One who cannot trust cannot endure shame. —Carlin Barton

If teasing can have such healthy, pro-social effects, why do we so flee it these days?

Most fundamentally, it is because we lack the mutual trust that healthy teasing requires.

We do not feel able to presume upon the goodwill of others.

The cycle of mistrust begins with the fact that we try to cover up our weaknesses as much as possible. We mediate our lives through social media, in which we only present carefully curated versions of ourselves. We have less of the kind of intimate, face-to-face relationships where we can let our guard down and show all the sides of ourselves. Because we keep our flaws hidden, we feel more psychic stress, more shame around them.

Thus, if someone does tease us, they’re more likely than not to be in our out-group, to not have earned the privilege of joking about our foibles, nor possess the deference to pull back instead of going for the jugular; we thus unsurprisingly experience these barbs as genuine insults, rather than affectionate ribbing. It’s drive-by teasing, that isn’t followed by affectionate “reassurance and reintegration.” Hence, our association of teasing with asocial bullying.

Even if it’s an intimate of ours doing the teasing, our weaknesses are so weighted with shame, so foreign to the light of day, that their surfacing feels excessively painful. We cringe to hear our terrible secrets exposed, even in a light-hearted way. Rather than taking the kidding as a sign of trust, we interpret it as a sign of animosity. We are wounded, defensive, angry.

At the same time, the reciprocity of teasing is thwarted, because if we tease this teaser in return, they react the very same way!

In place of the elastic bonds of mutual trust, we have the brittle ones of mutual suspicion. Rather than swapping playful admonishments, we each set a stony, stoic face to one another: “I don’t care what anyone thinks of me.”

Yet while this distance, these ego protections, guard us against the potential sting of teasing, the refining scorch of shame, they deny us the relief that comes from dropping the pretense of perfection, the release of having one’s frailties spoken out loud — only to be followed by mirthful laughter, and an arm around the shoulder.

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in July 2019.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

Every summer, millions of Americans head to pools, lakes, rivers, and beaches looking to cool off. But the water demands respect. More than 4,000 people die from unintentional drowning in the United States each year — an average of about 11 deaths every day — making drowning one of the nation’s leading causes of accidental death. And that sobering number is ticking up, making the above rescue tips even more necessary.  

The first step to saving someone from drowning is recognizing what drowning actually looks like. The signs are often much quieter and less dramatic than Hollywood would have you believe. A drowning person usually can’t wave, yell, or call for help; they’re focused entirely on trying to keep their mouth above water. Once you’ve recognized the emergency, resist the instinct to immediately jump in after them. A panicked drowning victim may instinctively grab, climb, and push down on their rescuer in a desperate attempt to stay afloat, putting both lives at risk. (Dozens of bystander/civilian rescuers perish annually for this very reason.) 

Water rescue professionals now teach a simple framework: Reach, Throw, Row, Go. In short, do everything you can to rescue someone without entering the water yourself. The illustrated guide above walks you through each step.

Illustrated by Ted Slampyak 

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

George Washington is perhaps the most familiar figure in American history. But most people really only know the image of him they see in marble statues and patriotic paintings. Behind those symbols was a real man: ambitious, self-taught, intensely concerned with honor, and constantly wrestling with the immense responsibilities history placed on his shoulders.

In celebration of America’s 250th birthday, we’re taking an extended look at the life of the man more responsible than anyone else for the nation’s founding. Here to unpack that life for us is H.W. Brands, a historian and the author of a new biography of Washington, American Patriarch. Brands traces Washington’s journey from a young Virginia surveyor to military commander, founding father, and first president. Along the way, we discuss how Washington’s upbringing shaped his character, why he became a surprisingly effective military leader despite losing more battles than he won, how he held together a fragile revolutionary army, how he shaped the presidency through the precedents he set, and whether a leader like Washington could still succeed today.

Resources Related to the Podcast

• H.W.’s previous appearances on the AoM podcast:
  • Episode #696: Theodore Roosevelt, The Last Romantic
  • Episode #908: Would You Have Been a Patriot or a Loyalist?
• AoM Podcast #223: George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Valiant Ambition
• AoM Podcast #366: Teach Yourself Like George Washington
• AoM Podcast #719: The Surprising Pessimism of America’s Founding Fathers
• AoM Article: George Washington’s Rules of Civility and Decent Behavior in Company and Conversation

Connect With H.W. Brands

• H.W. on Substack
• H.W.’s faculty page

Listen to the Podcast! (And don’t forget to leave us a review!)

Listen to the episode on a separate page.

Download this episode.

Subscribe to the podcast in the media player of your choice.

Transcript Coming Soon

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

The hot dog occupies a unique place in American cuisine, playing a central role in our very conception of summer. Hot dogs are found at Little League games and backyard cookouts, county fairs and Fourth of July picnics. They’ve been sold from pushcarts on city streets, grilled in suburban cul-de-sacs, and eaten in the stands at ballparks for more than a century. 

Though often thought of as quintessentially American, the hot dog’s roots stretch back to the sausages brought to the United States by German immigrants in the 19th century. Early frankfurters were typically made from pork or a blend of pork and beef, while all-beef versions became popular through Jewish delicatessens and hot dog stands, particularly in New York. Over time, regional styles emerged, brands rose and fell, and the humble hot dog became a cultural icon. Americans now consume billions of them every year, yet most of us give surprisingly little thought to which hot dogs actually taste the best.

That seemed like a problem worth solving.

Methodology

The number of hot dog options available at the grocery store was almost overwhelming. Even among brands, there were often 5+ varieties to choose from. “Original” vs. all beef, regular length vs. bun length, no extra flavors vs. chili cheese. Surprisingly to me, many of today’s options — especially the budget dogs — actually list chicken and/or turkey as the main ingredients. (Spoiler: none of these were at the top of the rankings.) 

I grabbed an assortment and ended up taste testing eight different nationally available hot dogs over the course of a couple different cookouts with friends. (My family may need a year to recover before we eat hot dogs again.) 

If you’re in the Upper Midwest, Schweigert makes a great dog.

We also tested a few locally made hot dogs to see how they would stack up; two of them weren’t that good, but one would indeed have cracked the top three. That is to say: it’s very possible, but not a guarantee, that your local/regional hot dog brand is your best option. Do some testing of your own to be sure. 

Our groups blind-tested each dog — I knew where each was on the grill, then cut them into quarters for tasting. The scoring rubric was not scientific, but we generally looked for overall taste (saltiness, savoriness, meatiness, etc.) and texture (Did it have some snap? Was it mushy?). Our first tastes of each were without buns or condiments, except a bit of ketchup. 

With testing so many dogs, I wasn’t sure if the differences would be very noticeable. Would I remember the first one after testing ten more? Turns out, outside of a couple bland and unmemorable options, most were distinct enough to be able to tell the difference and form a fairly clear opinion on. 

Without further ado, below are the results. You’ll first find quick reviews of the five dogs that didn’t make it to the winners’ circle, followed by our top three picks.

The Rest of the Field

Hebrew National 

Hebrew National is best known for being a kosher hot dog (though its actual kosher merits, as of late, are debated within Jewish circles). As such, their frankfurters only contain beef and have no fillers or artificial flavors. They also use a unique spice blend that gives the hot dogs a distinct, almost peppery flavor. The flavor stood out from the crowd in our taste testing, but in a way that put it more in the middle of the pack rather than at the top. And the kids didn’t care for them much. They were fine overall, but I doubt I’ll be buying them again. 

Sugardale 

None of the adults in the taste test were impressed with the cheapest hot dog in the mix. Sugardale’s 8-pack of dogs is just $1.99, and it showed. The taste was bland and the texture was no different. Interestingly, though, all the kids enjoyed the Sugardales; the blandness might be a plus for the younger set. 

Sugardale’s offering also had the distinction of being the worst-looking cooked product. It was the only hot dog that plumped too much and split, only to then shrivel and even separate from the casing a bit. Not appetizing. That said, if you’re buying just for kids, it may not be a bad option. 

Nathan’s Famous 

As the company that puts on the world’s foremost hot dog eating contest, you’d think they’d have some of the best dogs around. Plus they were one of the first to tout an all-beef wiener. The taste was indeed good — in the top half, for sure. But they were some of the smallest and skinniest links — better for eating in huge quantities, I guess. It would take 2–3 dogs to fill anyone up, which isn’t ideal. 

Oscar Mayer Classic 

Despite being one of the most recognizable brands in the world of processed meats, my expectations for Oscar Mayer’s classic dogs were rather low. And accurate, as it turns out. The texture was too squishy — you want the hot dog to have some snap and bite to it — and the flavor was basically non-existent. It didn’t taste like anything. Overall, it was just a bland, squishy tube of meat paste. Nobody wants that. If you’re buying Oscar Mayer hot dogs, definitely go with the all-beef variety (see below). 

Bar S 

Like Oscar Mayer, Bar S is another bestselling budget hot dog. The flavor was meh, the texture was mediocre, and this hot dog was totally unmemorable from start to finish. As I write this a week or two after testing, I have no sense of what this hot dog tasted like. With the other dogs on this list, I can pretty well remember the overall experience, but Bar S is just a blank screen. I can’t in good faith recommend this hot dog, especially with so many other better options on the table. 

The Top Three Dogs

Though there were some general differences in opinion between 6 adult testers and 8 kid testers (ages 5–11), the three hot dogs below were universally well-regarded. The adults definitely preferred the all-beef options, while the kids were a little less picky overall. 

Oscar Mayer Jumbo Beef

After the original Oscar Mayer was a disappointment, nobody in our taste test focus groups expected much out of OM’s all-beef version. To our pleasant surprise, it tasted like a completely different product — in the best way. The flavor was very good and the texture was just right, with a little bit of snap and no mushiness. An all-around great hot dog for all ages!  

Kirkland 

If you’re familiar with them, Costco’s hot dogs have a very distinct flavor. And they’re delicious. Even in a blind taste test, I could pick this one out pretty easily. The Kirkland all-beef dogs that you buy in the refrigerated section are the same ones that you get in the food court for $1.50. (If it tastes different at home, it’s because of the cooking method.) It was also one of the larger hot dogs we tested, which can make a big difference, especially when feeding adults. You can’t go wrong with Kirkland. 

Ball Park Angus 

Every adult in our taste test had some kind of long-held expectation of what a hot dog should taste like. Whether it came from childhood or college cookouts on the quad, it was there. Turns out, that Platonic ideal of a hot dog is a Ball Park. Created in the ‘50s for the Detroit Tigers, this plump, juicy, all-beef hot dog is the bestselling frankfurter in America — and for good reason. Before our taste test, it had been a long time since I had tried a Ball Park, but it will be my go-to from now on. It tastes exactly how a hot dog should taste, which is perhaps the highest compliment I can give. 

__________

If the above reviews make it seem like I’m now a hot dog snob, rest assured that I’m indeed not. If there’s a cookout with hot dogs, I can pretty much guarantee I’ll eat one, even if it’s one of the bottom brands on this list. It’s not like anyone is digging through the trash to look at what brand is available or commenting on the particulars of a frankfurter’s flavor profile. Ultimately, hot dogs are more about the setting than anything else. 

Plus, there are plenty of folks who argue that a hot dog is but a meaty vessel for condiments and toppings galore. If you need some ideas, check out our guide to 8 of the most popular regional hot dog styles.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

You’re at a business convention chatting with a colleague, when up walks a man, the head of some major department, a guy you know you’ve met before. “Hey there, Sam!” he says as he shakes your hand. Then he waits for you to introduce him to your colleague. The only problem? You cannot for the life of you remember his name. Awkwardness ensues. And a potential business deal evaporates.

The key to being a charismatic gentleman is making others feel important. And what better way to make someone feel important than by remembering their name? Remembering someone’s name tells them that they were special enough to have made a real impression on you. And everybody wants to feel special. Thus there are few better, and easier, ways to build rapport than to answer, “You probably don’t remember my name,” with, “Of course I do!”

And saying someone’s name is a powerful persuasion tool. It makes people feel at ease and comfortable. Legendary success writer and Mr. Charisma himself, Dale Carnegie, once said that “a person’s name is to him or her the sweetest and most important sound in any language.”

But if you’re like me, remembering names isn’t your strong suit. I can remember faces, but I can’t always put that face together with a name.

It’s a common problem. Research has consistently found that people are much better at recognizing faces than remembering names.

But fear not. With a little bit of savvy and know-how, you can overcome this shortcoming and become a master at remembering names. You can be the man who walks into a party and works the room like a pro.

Today we’ll discuss some of the most effective methods for remembering people’s names, as well as what to do when your best intentions fail and someone’s name slips your mind.

How to Remember a Person’s Name

Commit to listening and remembering. Most of us are lousy listeners. In social situations, we fall prey to conversational narcissism and are always waiting for a moment we can jump in and add our two cents. If you’re concentrating on what you’re about to say when someone introduces themselves, their name will go in one ear and out the other just like that. If you aren’t intently tuned in during that tiny window, the opportunity to learn their name passes in mere seconds and you’re sunk.

Before going into any social situation where you’ll be meeting new people, commit yourself to being as attentive as possible during introductions. There’s often a rush of nerves as you meet someone, and you have to intentionally tell yourself to calm down. Just having that extra mental focus can go a long way in helping you remember names.

Repeat early, repeat often. When you first meet someone, repeat their name as soon as you learn it. That will help sear the person’s name into your memory. Say something like, “Hi Jill, nice to meet you!” or “Pleasure to meet you, Jill.”

After that initial repeat, use the person’s name as much as you can throughout the conversation without coming off as a cheesy used car salesman. “Where are you from, Jill?” “How’s the weather in Toledo this time of year, Jill?” “How do you know the bride and groom, Jill?” You get the idea. Again, be natural and don’t overdo it.

To really burn the name into that noggin of yours, make sure to end your conversation by repeating the person’s name one final time. “Great meeting you, Jill. I hope we can stay in touch.”

Not only does this technique help you remember someone’s name, it also makes you seem charming. As we mentioned, people love the sound of their own name.

Have them spell it out. Hearing a person spell their name can help you remember it, especially if it’s an unusual name. If it’s a common name, but has different spelling variations, ask the person which variation he or she uses. For example, if a person’s name is Bryan, you can ask, “So is that Bryan with a y or Brian with an i?” He answers, “It’s Bryan with a y.” Now whenever you see that person, you can think, “That’s Bryan with a y.”

Visualize the person’s name on their forehead. As soon as you hear the person’s name, visualize their name stamped in big block letters across their forehead. Keep that mental picture on their forehead the entire time that person is in your presence.

Associate the person’s name with an easy-to-remember picture. After hearing a person’s name, make it as tangible as possible to you by associating their name with a picture. Be as creative as you want with this. There’s no right or wrong way to do it. The association just needs to be meaningful to you. For example, if a person’s name is Teddy Thompson, you might imagine a teddy bear holding a Thompson machine gun.

Associate the image that represents the person’s name with an outstanding facial feature on the person. To especially seal a name memory, take that visual representation you made of the person’s name and associate it with an outstanding physical feature the person has.

Let’s use our example of Teddy Thompson. Our picture for his name was a gun-wielding teddy bear. Now we need to associate that image with a feature of Mr. Thompson. Let’s say Teddy has big ears. You can imagine a teddy bear with huge ears holding a machine gun. Your association can be different — just use whatever works for you.

Take notes. If you’re a salesman or in another profession that involves the frequent and vital making of new contacts, be sure to carry a pocket notebook with you. After meeting someone new, write down his or her name in your notebook (or the notes app on your phone), along with some notes about who they are and what they do. Before a meeting where you may see them again, take a moment to review your notes.

Practice, practice, practice. Remembering names is a skill that takes practice to develop, so put yourself in situations where you’ll have to learn new names. Use these techniques as much as you can.

What to Do When You Forget a Name

No matter how hard you try, you’re bound to forget a person’s name every now and then. If you do, just politely and apologetically say, “I’m terribly sorry, but I’ve forgotten your name. What is it again?” Simple. Ask them as soon as you realize you’ve forgotten their name. The more time you spend together, the more offended they’ll be when they realize you don’t know their name.

But having to ask for someone’s name again can make you look bad. I mean, you’re basically telling the person, “You weren’t important enough for me to remember you.” If your memory fails you, and you don’t want to ask for someone’s name again outright, here’s how to recover it as smoothly as possible in several different situations.

When you part ways. If you realize as you part ways with someone that you can’t remember their name, ask if they have a business card you can take home with you. This is great, because not only do you now know their name without having to ask again, you’ll always have something you can take out and review at home.

When you see someone you’ve met before. If you encounter somebody you know you’ve met before, but you can’t put a name with their face, don’t guess their name if you’re not sure. For some reason, having someone say your name wrong always feels more offensive and noticeable than simply being asked for your name again.

So if you can’t remember someone’s name, you have a couple of options. The first is a little trick I’ve used several times with success.

You ask the person, “Excuse me, what was your name again?”

The person will likely respond with their first name.

You then respond with a charming laugh and a smile, and say, “Oh no, I meant your last name.”

People seem to be more forgiving of someone forgetting their last name — less so their first. With this technique, you’ll get the person’s first name without them knowing you had forgotten it. And if you forgot their last name, now you have that, too.

Of course this little trick can backfire if they respond by asking, “My first or last name?”

If you’re not a gambling man, you can simply walk up, stick out your hand, and say your name. “Brett. We met at the Christmas party last year.” They’ll likely respond in kind by saying their name. Chances are, he or she had forgotten your name too! By taking the initiative, you remove their burden of anxiety as well. 

When you’re making introductions. What if you’re standing with a friend, and someone walks up and waits for you to introduce them, but you can’t remember their name? Say to the person, “Have you met my friend, Mike?” The person will then hopefully say to Mike, “No, I haven’t. Nice to meet you. I’m Luke.”

With our archives now 4,000+ articles deep, we’ve decided to republish a classic piece each Sunday to help our newer readers discover some of the best, evergreen gems from the past. This article was originally published in June 2011.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

America’s Founding Fathers have become larger-than-life figures. Their faces stare out from currency, their words are quoted in political speeches, and their accomplishments have been polished into legend. It’s easy to think of them as marble statues instead of flesh-and-blood men.

But the more closely you examine their lives, the more interesting they become. They wrestled with self-doubt, rivalries, failures, and moral shortcomings. They changed their minds, made costly mistakes, and faced problems for which there were no obvious answers. Yet they also possessed an uncommon sense of duty, ambition, curiosity, and conviction that enabled them to accomplish something extraordinary: creating and sustaining a new republic against long odds.

Over the years, we’ve had the privilege of speaking with some of the country’s leading historians and biographers about the Founding generation and the Revolutionary era. Below are the six best of these conversations to enjoy as America turns 250. They explore everything from the Founders’ philosophy of virtue to why they chose to become revolutionaries to the lessons their lives still offer today. Whether you’re just beginning to explore this period of history or are already a devoted student of the founding, these Art of Manliness podcast episodes will deepen your understanding of the remarkable men who shaped the American experiment.

Books, Routines, and Habits — The Founders’ Guide to Self-Improvement

The Founding Fathers believed that happiness wasn’t about feeling good but about becoming good. Jeffrey Rosen explains how they came to equate happiness with virtue and self-mastery, and why they believed personal self-government — a.k.a. self-improvement — was the foundation of political self-government. He explores the books that shaped the Founders’ thinking, along with the routines, self-examination practices, and habits they used to cultivate character. It’s a fascinating look at the moral philosophy that guided some of America’s most influential statesmen.

The Surprising Pessimism of America’s Founding Fathers

We often imagine the Founding Fathers as unwaveringly confident in the republic they created. But Dennis C. Rasmussen argues that many of them grew deeply anxious about whether the American experiment would survive. He explores why George Washington, Alexander Hamilton, John Adams, and Thomas Jefferson feared the nation’s future (while James Madison remained hopeful). Their concerns ranged from growing partisanship to a decline in civic virtue among the American people. The conversation offers a surprisingly timely perspective on the challenges of preserving a free republic.

Would You Have Been a Patriot or a Loyalist?

Looking back, the American Revolution can seem inevitable. But for many colonists — including several of the Founding Fathers — the decision to side with the Patriots or remain loyal to Britain was anything but clear-cut. H. W. Brands explores the personal ambitions, relationships, and principles that shaped these choices. He explains why George Washington and Benjamin Franklin were unlikely revolutionaries, why Franklin’s son remained a Loyalist, and what led Benedict Arnold to switch sides. The episode offers a nuanced look at the complicated human decisions behind America’s founding.

The Fascinating Life of America’s Forgotten Founding Father

Benjamin Rush signed the Declaration of Independence, helped shape American medicine, and counted nearly every major Founder among his closest friends — yet today he’s largely forgotten. Stephen Fried explains why Rush’s remarkable legacy faded and traces his extraordinary life, from his role in the Revolution to his efforts to reconcile Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. Along the way, he reveals how Rush’s journals and correspondence preserved an intimate portrait of the nation’s founders that remained hidden for generations. It’s a fascinating introduction to one of the most influential and overlooked figures of the American founding.

American Honor — Creating the Nation’s Ideals During the Revolution

We often think the American Revolution was driven primarily by taxes (“No taxation without representation!”) and political philosophy. But Craig Bruce Smith argues that honor was the deeper force motivating the Founding generation. He explains how changing ideas about personal and collective honor shaped the push for independence, influenced the choices of the Founding Fathers, and even played a role in Benedict Arnold‘s treason. The conversation also explores how America’s understanding of honor continued to evolve after the Revolution. It’s a fresh perspective on the ideals that helped forge a nation.

George Washington, Benedict Arnold, and Valiant Ambition

Today, George Washington is remembered as the hero of the American Revolution, while Benedict Arnold is synonymous with treason. But early in the war, their reputations were almost the opposite. Nathaniel Philbrick explains how Washington grew into an exceptional military and political leader while Arnold’s extraordinary talent was undone by pride, resentment, and ambition. Their intertwined stories reveal that character — not just ability — ultimately determines a person’s legacy. It’s one of the most compelling studies of leadership to emerge from the Revolutionary era.

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.

How Y’all, Youse and You Guys Talk. The NYT put this U.S. dialect quiz out years ago, but I only stumbled onto it recently. It asks twenty-five questions about the words you use and how you pronounce them. Do you say y’all or you guys? Crawfish or crawdad? Is it a garage sale, tag sale, or yard sale? Then it draws a heat map of where people talk the most like you do. It pegged me as being from Oklahoma City and Tulsa, which is exactly right. The only two places I’ve ever lived. When I shared the quiz on Substack Notes, a bunch of folks said it nailed them, too. But it wasn’t accurate for all; it may be less so for people who’ve lived for substantial parts of their lives in different parts of the country. See if it pegs you right: the quiz takes just a few minutes and it’s a lot of fun.

Woolaroc. This week our family drove an hour north from Tulsa to Woolaroc. It’s a ranch built by oilman Frank Phillips (of Phillips 66 fame) in the Osage Hills back in 1925. It’s a real hidden gem. Will Rogers once called it “the most unique place in this country.” We try to get up there at least once a year. You drive in through a 3,700-acre wildlife preserve with buffalo, deer, elk, and longhorn cattle. There’s a museum with one of the best Western art collections anywhere, the most complete collection of Colt firearms in the world, and, a few shrunken heads to boot. During the summer, they have a mountain man camp staffed by re-enactors who give you history lessons on 19th-century hunting and trapping. Gus got to fire a replica of an 1820s flintlock rifle. If you’re ever in OK, definitely pay a visit to Woolaroc — I dare say it’s our state’s most Oklahoma-y destination.

Daylight Computer Tablet. I’ve owned this for over a year now, and it’s become one of my favorite work tools. It’s an e-ink tablet, and I use it for reading Kindle books and PDFs. When I make notes on it, it feels like writing on paper. With no blue light, it’s easy on the eyes, and you can use it outdoors.

The Art of Thinking by Ernest Dimnet. I’m not sure how I stumbled onto this old book, but I’m glad I did. Dimnet, a French priest, wrote it in 1928, and it was a big hit back in the day. It sat on the bestseller lists right next to Dale Carnegie before sliding into obscurity. It’s jammed full of practical advice on thinking better. He’s got chapters on how to read and write for better thinking, how to deal with distractions, and how becoming who you are requires a “stiffening of attention.” Highly recommend. Kindle version is only $.99!

On our Dying Breed newsletter, we published Sunday Firesides: You Are Not the Exception and The Paradox of Skill.

Quote of the Week

This article was originally published on The Art of Manliness.