I simply forgot to blog yesterday’s shave, so I’m including it with today’s.
When I ordered my new formulation Stirling Soap in Rose, Rod included a Rose in the old formulation so I could compare, marking one with a red dot to distinguish them. Unfortunately, he does not now recall whether the red dot indicates the new or the old formulation, so for this experiment I used a small sample puck he kindly included as well.
I’m not sure what my problem is, since I know some really like Stirling soap, but even with this sample, which I assume must be the new formulation, the lather died quite quickly. I loaded the brush at length, working up a good lather, but on the second pass: nada. I reloaded the brush on the nearest soap at hand—Penhaligon’s Blenheim Bouquet—and got a marvelous lather that last easily for three passes with enough left for more. (I lathered with the Blenheim Bouquet for pass 2 and 3, and then following the third pass lathered again, just to verify that the lather persisted. It feels odd to rinse with a full layer lather, I must say.)
The Maggard razor gave me a wonderful shave, and the splash of Irisch Moos was a pleasant ending.
Today I decided not to experiment with the two Stirling soaps—I’ll do that next week—and picked Mitchell’s Wool Fat shaving soap as a reputedly touchy soap, though I’ve found it always to be quite obliging. The wet brush, vigorous loading, and I had a great lather that lasted easily for three passes with loads left.
My Weber ARC razor did a fine job, leaving my face BBS except for a couple of places where I can just detect some slight roughness. A good splash of Hâttric, and things are looking good.
Tomorrow I’ll return to the Hallows, since the Omega R&B seems now to be well broken in.
Filed under: Shaving
