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I mentioned earlier that Dr. Bronner’s shaving cream is a viscous brown liquid — the same formula as his Organic Sugar Soap (ingredients listed at the link). In that earlier post I had some thoughts on how to improve the lather:
The lather was not quite so dense as from some of my shaving soaps, but this is the first shave, so I expect there will be a learning curve — perhaps a bit more soap, and/or a bit less water in the brush, will result in a thicker lather.
Today, I squirted a small amount of the soap/shaving cream into my cupped palm and then brushed it vigorously with the dry brush — totally dry, off-the-shelf dry. I got no lather, but I did transfer almost all the soap to the brush.
I had prepped my face — wet my stubble well with hot water and then rubbed a tiny amount of Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave over all my beard, massaging it in well, and then partially rinsed with a couple of splashes of hot water — so my face was somewhat wet. I brushed the stubble briskly and this did transfer soap to my face but did not really raise a lather. I did, however, brush well all my stubble, and there was some mixing of soap and water.
Then I wet just the end of the brush — not much — and brushed my beard briskly again, and now the lather emerged, and it was a good lather. It is not so rich and thick as the premium soaps, but it was a decent lather.
Lesson learned: This requires even less water than does The Dead Sea, the previous record holder for minimal water use. And in this case, “requires little water” does not mean “you can use just a little water,” it means “you must use just a little water.”
Henson Shaving’s AL-13 is a terrific razor, and with this prep I got an exceptionally smooth result. A splash of Royall Spyce mixed with a couple of squirts of Grooming Dept’s Aion Hydrating Gel worked fine as an aftershave. Back in the day, the Royall line was quite the thing. Royall Lyme was the first and the flagship product, and I was very proud of that green bottle on my shaving shelf.
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The tea this morning, Smoky Sakura, is another gift from The Wife’s visit to Paris and another Mariage Frères tea. This is exceptionally good. The Bangkok Love tea is a novelty tea, but this one is a solid and traditional tea, and the cherrywood used in smoking it does give a smoke of a particular flavor.
The Groundhog Day shaving test
Because the subjective time a shave requires doesn’t change much — you’re paying attention to what you’re doing, and if you follow the guidance I’ve offered in my Guide, you are in a state of flow, in which awareness of time is lost. But if you use a timer to get the objective time your shave takes, you’ll find that the time the shave requires dwindles — quickly in the first weeks, but continuing more gradually for quite a while.
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y-axis: amount of time shave requires
Graphing time required for a shave against a calendar thus gives a curve something like the one shown on the right: rapid decline initially, slow (but continuing) decline later, approaching a limit. For me, the limit seems to be 5 minutes.
My suggestion is to time your shave annually, and Groundhog Day seemed a good choice. In your first year of DE shaving, you might want to time your shave monthly.
A few ground rules: While it’s reasonable to set up the shave to standardize the starting position and minimize total time (for example, have the cap already removed from the tub of soap and bottle of aftershave, have a boar brush already soaked and ready), it is not reasonable to rush the shave. Hasty shaving is a mug’s game.
Shave at your normal pace, paying attention and doing a good workaday shave. What you’re looking for is the duration of your normal current shave.
Here’s a template I’ve used:
A. Prep: describe pre-shave preparation (e.g., pre-shave oil/cream/gel/soap, whether use lathering bowl, shaving soap or cream, hot towel, whatever)
B. Shave: razor and (if DE) blade used
C Post shave: whether alum block used, whether styptic needed, aftershave.
Time: from when prep begins until aftershave applied.
Result: Quality of shave experience and shave result, graded separately
AGAIN,
DO NOT RUSH: try to take the same amount of time that you typically do. You’re not going for a personal record, you’re trying to find how long your usual morning shave takes. No haste, no hurry. Enjoy the process.
The payoff is seeing what a difference a year makes. IT IS NOT A COMPETITION.
Here’s an example from Reddit a decade ago. If you post your findings as a comment to this post, I’ll link to it a year hence.