Today the theme is wood. My Vie-Long horsehair brush with an olive-wood handle worked up a very nice lather from the Celelestial Woods shaving cream sample from QueenCharlotteSoaps.com. It was not easy—not due to any unresponsiveness on the part of the cream, but simply because the container is so small and the shaving cream was so firm—more like a soft soap in consistency. I used my finger to dig out a little and smear on my beard, and from that got a very nice lather indeed.
My Joris razor, which The Wife brought as a gift from Paris, did a fine job. It’s olive-wood as well, I believe, and the metal parts are coated with palladium. The new Voskhod blade worked well, and after three passes, I achieved a BBS finish. This razor requires a really shallow angle, but it does the job, if not so comfortably as some of my other razors.
A good splash of Woods aftershave from Saint Charles Shave and I’m ready for a new week.
I did try Nivea Face Scrub for Men as a pre-shave, which someone recommended. Again, I did not like it. Here’s my take: an exfoliating scrub is fine for a shaver to use on his forehead and nose. The shave area is efficiently exfoliated simply by shaving, provided one shave frequently. The graininess of the exfoliating scrubs I find unpleasant in shave prep (YMMV), and I prefer the smoothness of a high-glycerin soap: for me, generally MR GLO. The Nivea is a good face scrub, but I prefer something else as a pre-shave.
Filed under: Shaving
