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Another day, another slant: Lo Storto
Mike’s Natural shaving soap again today, Wild Honeysuckle its fragrance. My brush, sold for a time under the name Mr Pomp, did a very nice job, as did the excellent Fatip slant, Lo Storto. A splash of...
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Tallow + Steel Cognac and the Game Changer
Tallow + Steel’s Cognac has a satisfying fragrance: “Cognac (38%) | Oakwood (21%) | Vanilla (18%) | Orange (8%) | Tobacco (7%) | Cocoa (6%) | Jasmine (2%).” The Rooney Victorian brush made quite a...
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The glorious Monday shave with Fine’s superb slant
Monday is always a good shave day, and the gloriosity today is helped by a splendid sun and clear sky. Today’s shave began with my Plisson Gray Badger, a wonderful brush, here with a heavy...
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Cedarwood and the Chieftain
The pleasure of my morning shave has not paled, and today’s shave — excellent and enjoyable — was an example of how every day begins with a pleasurable ritual. That Plisson HMW 12 brush with the horn...
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Black is the shave theme
My New England Shaving Company brush has a resilient synthetic knot, and it worked up quite good lather from Phoenix Artisan’s Black Shroud shaving soap. I’m not sure I am all that fond of the...
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Bee-Witched by an iKon open comb
Today I’m using my goat- and horse-hair shaving brush. It’s basically a novelty brush, and I don’t particularly recommend it. After the knot has been wet for a while, it loses resilience — this is...
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A full Grooming Dept shaving is amazing
My skin feels amazing. Of course, the shave has the benefit of being a Monday-morning shave (hence a two-day stubble) and I did use a superb slant razor, the iKon Shavecraft #102. But I’m sure that...
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Ousia with Ascension
Grooming Dept Ousia is a particularly pleasing soap in a variation of their Kairos formula — namely, including lamb tallow and emu oil. The fragrance is quite pleasing: “Fennel, Crystallized Mandarin,...
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Vertu and V2OC
Grooming Dept Vertu is quite a shaving soap. The label shows a work from Picasso’s Guitar series. The soap’s fragrance is “Chocolate, Osmanthus, Cognac, Castoreum, Patchouli, Tonka, and Vanilla” and...
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A great all-RazoRock shave with the amazing new Superslant
Italian Barber (aka RazoRock) has quite a bit of experience in making slant razors. It began with his discovering a large stash of vintage white Bakelite Merkur slants, probably made in the 1930s,...
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Three cheers for the Drunken Goat
Today is the day of The Drunken Goat and a moment of mourning the closing of Mickey Lee Soapworks (which may someday yet return). I like this soap for both fragrance and performance, and this morning...
View ArticleGrooming Dept new offerings
In a little over an hour, at 11:00am PST, Grooming Dept was roll out some new products. (They are now marked “Sold Out,” but at the appointed hour they will become available until they are actually...
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Rose of Phrygia and too much menthol
Dr. Jon’s Rose of Phrygia has a pleasant fragrance (“Dark, sweet spices over vetiver and tobacco with top notes of two different rose accords”)and a good lather, this being his Vol. 3 formulation:...
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My motto: “Start the week with a slant”
By me, the week starts on Monday, since Sunday is the last day of the weekend. The end of the end of the week cannot be the start of the week, or so it seems to me (based on my understanding of...
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Luxury is a shaving soap — and having the time to enjoy it
Grooming Dept Luxury is his Kairos formula, a tallow-based soup, and this has an oud + leather fragrance. My tub lacked the top label (shown at the right), but I certainly have no complaints on that...
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Dr. Selby has a wonderful manner
I am pleased to say that Dr. Selby has returned to the US from his home in Uruguay and soon can be found in various shaving stores. (More information on that as I learn it.) In celebration I brought...
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Reprising Dr. Selby, and where to get it
I’m immediately reprising Dr. Selby’s 3X Concentrated Shaving Cream for two reasons. First, I greatly enjoyed using it. The quality of the lather is remarkably good, and the lather is in fact more...
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Tertius meets Stetson
As always, I began my shave with a tiny smidgin of Grooming Dept Moisturizing Pre-Shave, and at the current rate of usage this tub will easily last two years and perhaps three — and even though the...
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Black Shroud and the Fine Marvel
I was pondering what shaving soap to use when I received an email linking to a review in Sharpologist of Phoenix Artisan’s Black Shroud shaving soap in the CK-6 formula. I’m as quick as anyone to...
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Rustler’s Ridge and a remarkable slant
Rustler’s Ridge is a fine soap from Phoenix Artisan with a wonderful fragrance: Top Notes MadagascarVanilla Bean, Ozone, Prickly PearHeart Notes Sage, Animalic MuskBase Notes Spruce, Cedar I have the...
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