Art of Shaving Sandalwood shaving soap is really excellent—at least this puck is. (Mainline shaving soap makers will unpredictably change their formulae.) The fragrance is excellent, and the lather made by my Maggard 22mm synthetic was really superb. Three passes with my RazoRock Game Changer stainless razor left all in order for a splash of Saint Charles Shave’s Sandalwood EDT. I find that an EDT can work well as an aftershave, so that’s what occasionally I’ll use. Actual aftershaves tend to pay a bit more attention to skincare ingredients, but this is fine for a change of pace.
In comments recently the subject of memetic evolution came up wrt DE razors. The Gillette DE razors were the pinnacle of good razors (along with others: the Eclipse Red Ring, for example, and the Wilkinson “Sticky”), but then a new species of razor arose, the cartridge razor, and evolution of the DE species stagnated. Memetic evolution was still active, and in cartridge razors the result was an increasing number of blades.
With the resurgence of interest in traditional shaving, new DE razors began to appear and evolution resumed, exploiting new design tools (CAD), new materials readily available (aircraft-grade aluminum alloy, stainless steel more common), new manufacturing options (CNC machining). And of course new razors were built using knowledge from razors that came before.
The result is that, on the whole, modern DE razors are noticeably better than DE razors from back in the day: a razor that is extremely comfortable and extremely efficient was not that common back then, but as my list of recommended razors in Sharpologist shows, such razors are not uncommon today.
There were some fine cars made prior to 1970, but modern cars (having progressed further in their evolution) are on the whole better: better made, safer, more efficient, and so on. The same sort of thing holds true with DE razors.
For more on the topic of memes and their evolution, I highly (and repeatedly) recommend The Meme Machine, by Susan Blackmore.