Same ingredients as in yesterday’s shave, but a different fragrance. Declaration Grooming notes on their website:
Unconditional Surrender is a fragrance inspired by Ulysses S. Grant. After a heroic performance in the Mexican-American War, Grant slipped into a depression and drank his way out of the army. He returned to Saint Louis, struggling to find his place in life. After a few failed attempts to make a living, including selling firewood on a corner, Grant spent time working in his family’s tannery until he joined the Union army in the American Civil War.
Finding himself in a familiar role, Grant threw himself vigorously into his duty. One noteworthy performance that caught President Lincoln’s eye was the capture of Fort Donelson from the Confederacy. When asked for his terms when negotiating the surrender, Grant demanded unconditional surrender. This helped win him the top spot in the armed forces, as well as a level of fame that caused admirers to send him thousands of cigars.
The scent of Unconditional Surrender is an homage to Grant’s tenacity and will to fight back when he was at his lowest point. The scent notes are amber, tonka bean, amyris, cedarwood, agarwood, vetiver, cigar tobacco, black tea, jasmine, and geranium.
For some reason the fragrance this morning was particularly appealing. The Simpson Persian Jar 2 Super easily created a good lather. Perhaps clay in soap is no longer an issue in loading for me because I have unconsciously adapted my loading technique to avoid problems. I recall when I was learning Forth, a programming language with few if any guard rails, how I would get weird errors difficult to track down. As I used the language more, the errors became less and less frequent — I noticed that, but I did not notice how it happened, since it was unconscious.
The same with my current effort in learning Duolingo: 3 months ago I had great difficulty in understanding what was said when the item required me to transcribe a dictated sentence. I notice now that I don’t have nearly that level of difficulty, though I cannot locate consciously what is different. (I will note the process of learning, like the process of growth, is slow, but with steady effort steady improvement will occur over time.)
At any rate, a very nice (and fragrant lather) came forth, and this particular Edwin Jagger, with the fluted black-rubber handle, I like a lot. A very smooth result, and Chatillon Lux’s aftershave is remarkably good.