Yardley is another extinct shaving soap, though I believe this one dates from the 1950s. Neither the lather nor the fragrance has quite the quality of the Lenthéric I used yesterday, perhaps because the soap has been stored in a wooden tub with a loose-fitting lid. Still, the lather was reasonably good and the fragrance still carried some of the original lavender.
The razor is another Yaqi stainless steel model, this one with a comb guard on one side and a bar guard on the other. Like the other Yaqi stainless razors I have, the alignment tabs on the cap fit into cavities in the base — not holes, since they do not go all the way through the base. Thus in the photo you see the (plain) bottom of the base.
Having the slots be merely cavities (rather than holes) result in a baseplate that looks neater than the more common perforated baseplate. It also has the advantage that the user cannot assemble the razor with the baseplate upside down: the tabs would have no receiving slot. (Assembling the razor with the baseplate upside down is not unusual for novices using, say, an Edwin Jagger razor. They then complain that the razor is horribly inefficient.)
This is another excellent Yaqi razor: comfortable and efficient with a 0.70mm blade gap. Three passes completely smoothed my face.
I dressed it up with a RazoRock polished stainless steel handle, the Haloed UFO. That handle works well with the razor, and I like the matching finishes. Head and handle are both 316 stainless steel.
Of the Yaqi razors I’ve used recently, the Slope and the Tile were best, with this one not far behind.
The tea this morning is Murchie’s Queen Victoria: “rich Darjeeling and Ceylon, smoky Lapsang Souchong, and sweet Jasmine.”