Agharta is a wonderful country — er, shaving soap
Agharta is not only a fabled land (see the link) but also a wonderful shaving soap, in part because I like the fragrance so much: “Talc, Ambergris, Amyris, French Vanilla Bean, Japanese Sandalwood,...
View ArticleGroundhog Day = timed shave
Before my shower, I opened the tub of soap, as is my habit, and I wet the knot of the Omega Pro boar brush thoroughly so it could soak while I showered. Because these products are newly arrived, I...
View ArticleD.R. Harris Rose and the Adjust
This Edwin Jagger brush has a good synthetic knot which easily generated a rich lather from D.R. Harris Rose shaving cream. The RazoRock Adjust is a much better razor (in terms of feel and...
View ArticleA Luxury shave
Today’s shave was straightforward, but a pleasure nonetheless. Luxury is a Grooming Dept Kairos (tallow) soap, and its fragrance is Oud+Leather. I got a good lather with the horsehair brush, but I’m...
View ArticleLove Bombs on a dark-ish day
The label on this shaving soap seems very weird to me, but I do like the soap: CK-6 and “Dark Chocolate, Rose, Rosewood, Bergamot, Tea, Orange, Lemon, Black Pepper, Ginger, Palo Santo, Vetiver, Cedar,...
View ArticleThe Dead Sea and a fine slant = a wonderful shave
The Dead Sea is an excellent shaving soap — a soap that lathers readily (and requires a brush barely damp) and has a clean refreshing fragrance. With Lo Storto, Fatip’s fine slant, removing stubble...
View ArticlePomp and a discovery
I’m a big fan of Grooming Dept soaps, of which this is one, but I have tended to look for them on the Grooming Dept site and not so much focus on the stockists. It did not occur to me that one might...
View ArticlePomp done right
This is the shave I was thinking of yesterday: Pomp and Mr Pomp, together at last. And I have to say that Mr Pomp performed beautifully — with this soap, a bit better than my Rooney Finest. And I...
View ArticleGrooming Dept Amber Rose and the marvelous RazoRock Old Type
Today I use another Grooming Dept shaving soap that I found, not on his site, but at a stockist. And West Coast Shaving had not only the soap but also the matching aftershave. Today’s soap uses (as...
View ArticleSandalwood Nobile and Game Changer .84-P
The Grooming Dept shaving soap in the photo is Sandalwood Nobile, another soap from West Coast Shaving. The base, they say, is Janus-Tallow. From the link: Beef & lamb tallow supplies the base...
View ArticleA wonderful shave with the Superslant L2++
I always look forward to Monday morning because I shave a two-day stubble using a slant. This morning I picked a pleasurable soap, Phoenix Artisan’s Planet Java Hive, here in CK-6. This soap has a...
View ArticleDark Chocolate and the L1++ for me
An a happy Valentine’s Day to all. The shaving soap and aftershave this morning were a Valentine’s Day special from Phoenix Artisan some years ago — quite a few years judging by the soap’s missing...
View ArticleAscension with Tombstone — a great shave
The Vie-Long mystery brush — boar? horsehair? both? — made an excellent lather from Phoenix Artisan’s Tombstone CK-6 shaving soap: “Gunpowder, Leather, Tobacco, Geranium, Bergamot, Lady Banksia...
View ArticleSandalwood Nobile and the Game Changer .68-P
I really like this shaving soap’s fragrance. The soap is Grooming Dept’s Sandalwood Nobile, which uses his Kairos formula that includes beef and lamb tallow, goat milk, and things like oatmeal milk,...
View ArticleBoar-brush comparison: Omega Pro 48 & Antica Barbiera Mondial
I like my Omega Pro 48 boar brush a lot, so I was immediately intrigued when I read Mantic59’s Sharpologist article on Antica Barbieria’s new boar brush. From that article: I admit to being a bit of a...
View ArticleThe special shave soap for today
Long ago QED had a wonderful soapmaker who specialized in excellent high-glycerine soaps with wonderful fragrances. This one, appropriate to the day, is a black soap with a pine-tar fragrance, and...
View ArticleLo Haiku and the 102
The Plisson European Grey badger brush shown has a pleasantly coarse, grainy feel on the face, and the lather this morning was particularly thick because I extended loading a big. Lo Haiku from...
View Articlel’Occitane Cade and the Edwin Jagger
The 22mm synthetic is a Maggard Razors brush, and I like it a lot. I don’t know the name of the handle design, but I associated it strongly with G.B. Kent shaving brushes. l’Occitane Cade has a very...
View ArticleAntica Barbieria Boar and Declaration Grooming Cuir et Épices
This Antica Barbieria boar brush is quite a good brush, and the handle is first-rate. It was easy to load it with Declaration Grooming’s Cuir et Épices, a Milksteak-formula soap. The iKon...
View ArticleBBS with an Edwin Jagger clone — thanks in part to good prep
I have to say that, as a shaving brush, considering only feel on the face and performance, the Omega Pro 48 is superior to the Antica Barbieria Mondial boar brush. I concluded this in the side-by-side...
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