After a few e-mails and cold calls with no response, I realized this was gonna be a bit tougher than I thought. Finally, with a little help from a friend (thanks Dave), I was standing face to face with the man who has been keeping a large percentage of the surfing population stuck firmly to their surfboards for almost 40 years.

Frederick Charles Herzog III, or Zog as he is commonly known as, faced the same problem as most surfers after college graduation. The year was 1965 and Zog had just received a degree in Economics from UCSB. All he had to do now was figure out how he could pay the bills without having to succumb to the 8-5 lifestyle. After running his own surf shop out on Airport Rd. in Isla Vista for a couple years, Zog saw an opportunity in the surf wax business, a way to make some spare change. Mike Doyle's company, Wax Research, had just been bought by an investor with no plans to keep the business running. This meant that if Zog could get his own wax business up and running, he could possibly make a living out of it. After close to six months of research on all of the components that make up surf wax and construction of all custom machines to facilitate the amount of wax that was going to be made, SEXWAX was born in a rented garage in Goleta. The first year was modest, selling around 8,000 bars of wax at 10 cents a bar to surf shops up and down the coast of California. Every year after however, the sales doubled and eventually Zog moved the operation to the industrial park off of Bailard Ave. in Carpinteria.

As I pulled up to the address I had so anxiously scribbled on a piece of notebook paper, I was a little shocked. I faced an entry-way that bore very little resemblance to the buildings in the area commonly referred to these days as the “O.C.” that house some of surf industry’s greatest names. As I walked in, I was met by Zog's son, Eric, who has been running the family business right along side Dad for quite a few years now. Zog was in his office multitasking between phone calls and e-mails which take up a huge part of his, you guessed it, 8-5 workday. This gave me a chance to take a look at a couple of the hundred or so framed pictures taking up a majority of the wall space. Photographs of surfers such as Blake Howard, the Ellison brothers, and Cory Arrambide made me realize that Zog takes a great deal of pride in sponsoring kids at the grass roots level.

When I asked him what he thought about the amount of money that is spent for certain athletes to represent different brands of surf products these days, he shared a quick story with me. He had been giving wax to Andy Irons, pre-world champ AI that is, until Andy was offered a nice sum of money by Zog's only real competitor, Sticky Bumps. Not too long after that, Andy was interviewed by a magazine and was quoted saying that SEXWAX was "far superior to anything else and was his bar of choice." Case in point, Zog's business strategy has been the same from the start. Make the highest quality product available and business will come to you, not the other way around.

Finally, it was time. The moment I had been waiting for since I was five years old. I was finally going to see how this stuff was made, from raw materials to the final product. As I followed Zog through the doors, visions of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory–like assembly lines with hundreds of workers danced in my head. Once again, I was baffled as I walked in to see only three guys in the whole warehouse surrounded by stacks and stacks of wax. Maybe everyone was at lunch or taking a surf break? But to my surprise, Zog assured me that the entire wax-making process was run by a single man, a long-time employee by the name of JJ. JJ has worked for SEXWAX since he was in high school, and over a career that spans almost three decades he has poured millions of bars of wax. With two other guys packing and shipping all of the boxes, you could say that there is always plenty to do.

First, Zog showed me the mixer where the raw materials including parafin wax, the amazing array of flavors, and a few other components are heated up and mixed. I asked Zog what else his wax was made of and all I received in response was a quick laugh and these three words, "it's a secret." Just one batch from the mixer makes over 5,400 bars of wax which leaves no surprise as to how over 2.5 million bars of wax are packed and shipped internationally every year. Then, while the wax is still warm it is poured into a cookie-cutter like machine that pops out each bar in the trademark hockey puck form. Once they are cut, the bars of wax are placed on a cooling tray that helps them keep their shape as they dry. These trays are lined up by the hundreds along the back wall next to the wrapping machine. After each individual bar of wax is wrapped and labeled, it is placed into one of many bins where it awaits instructions as to what corner of the globe it will be traveling to.

After discussing the different types of wax and figuring out which flavor I liked most, JJ showed me what is known as the Guinness Book of World Record’s largest bar of wax that weighed in at over 50 pounds. I also got to see JJ's surf wax collection which included classics like original Wax Research bars still in their packaging and other not so classic labels such as Ganja wax, Hooter's Wax, Viagra wax, and Big Pecker's wax. Overall, it was a real treat to be one of the few who has had the chance to see something made that I feel is one of the only necessities in surfing next to the actual surfboard itself. So, the next time you're in a surf shop debating on which type of wax to buy, remember why SEXWAX is the obvious choice, "IT'S THE BEST FOR YOUR STICK.”