This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
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Bad Santa
Happy Saint Nicholas Day!
Rating: 4.5/5
Dec. 6, 2023
Good shave. Quite the blast of menthol and lime this morning.
Sea Ice Lime ++;
I'm celebrating Black Watchday with an all-black hardware setup. This fragrance just can't but put me in a good mood, and the ship BΓΆker is a great razor. Good start into the day.
After yesterday's double trickhole shave, this starts to look like a bit of a Dickhole December.
December 6, 2023
Brush: AP Shave Co Black 26mm G5A
Razor: Ralf Aust 5/8 Stainless Full Hollow Spanish Point
Lather: Barrister and Mann - Vespers - Soap
Toner: None
Aftershave: Barrister and Mann - Vespers - Aftershave
2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.
This is my travel setup through Friday. All the accoutrements for luxury shaves while away from home.
Safe travels. Anywhere fun or interesting?
Iβm in Cleveland visiting my daughter. Doing some hiking and photography.
A R. Austfrei travel straight + synth is the way to go: peace of mind without π―% dry gear++;
This time around, the pièce de résistance is my travel strop. After seeing yours, I got Tony Miller to make one with a piece of premium steerhide and flax linen. He also sent me a 280mm x 75mm piece of steerhide so I could make a bench strop from it.
oooh, are there pictures ?
Bandwidth is poor where Iβm staying. I might have to wait until I return home for pics.
Intriguing! Ok, ok, I'll be patient π
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
Not sure what happened the other day but today's shave was infinitely better. Same blade and razor, but today was pure bliss by comparsion.
SOTD 06.12.2023
1-pass head and face shave. Head with the Headblade, face with the mild Stando Perun.
Vor V is one of my favourite scents in wetshaving due to being a TF Tuscan Leather dupe. Fruity leather is something I'll never grow tired of. The OAM fragrance by their "wellness oils" line goes oddly nice with it.
The only blood loss was due to a bump on my jawline. Other than that, a totally comfortable and relaxing Wednesday night shave. Tomorrow I want to take "Farewell selfies" with my favourite colleagues, not only for myself but also as a parting gift for them. I really cherish the connections I made with them; even though we won't share the same place of work by next year, we'll stay friends π
December 6, 2023
After yesterday's meh experience with Ishtar, I tried a synthetic brush, and didn't use any preshave. I loaded abundantly, and got loads of dense lather. It's not as slick as Southern Witchcraft's base though, even with lots of water. Yeah, it doesn't spark as much joy as before.
Have a good night!
You used to love Ishtar, no?
Is it just the lather, or do you also dislike the scent now?
The scent is great, but it's gotten very weak since I had to change the tub (there was some reaction of the tin tub with the soap). I don't know whether the lather quality declined with the scent, but I don't get the wow effect anymore π
#sad
Did the soap react with the original tin from AYLM?
Yes, in both Ishtar and Marduk - and that's why they changed most of their soaps to hard soap, with the rest going into glass containers (which are outrageously priced)
#sadindeed
Oh damn, you weren't kidding about outrageous prices!
RIP AYLM Thrill
RIP AYLM Thrill
To be fair, they increased also the tub size (from 150 to 200ml) - but they matched the 33% increase in size with a 50% increase in price.
As much as I want to like their Babylonian gate themed soaps (they released a new one, Urash, recently), between issues of evaporated scent, latherability and β¬β¬β¬, it's become hard to be a AYLM fanboy
To be fair, they increased also the tub size (from 150 to 200ml) - but they matched the 33% increase in size with a 50% increase in price.
Isn't it more like a 100% increase? I have some memory of passing less than β¬30 for a tin a year or so so.
it's become hard to be a AYLM fanboy
π―
Isn't it more like a 100% increase? I have some memory of passing less than β¬30 for a tin a year or so so.
That depends on the soap - Marduk & Ishtar were always more expensive, but not on that level (I believe I paid 35 for Ishtar and 38 for Marduk in the glorious days before inflation)
Ah, gotcha
Thanks, I had no idea and this is good to know. I'm lucky then that my Don Josè is still fine. Maybe I should play it safe and switch to bowl lathering it to avoid feeding the reaction with moisture.
The hard soap is actually quite nice, I enjoy the Verbena Toscana one a lot.
I only bowl lathered, and still got the reaction (I thought it was stronger with Marduk, but maybe only because it is white, and it is more visible.
It's probably the clay reacting with the aluminium. The older soaps don't have clay iirc, so they wouldn't have that issue.
For Ishtar,. maybe, but there doesn't seem to be clay in Marduk. And if it was an issue with clay, O don't know why they would have changed most of their soaps to a hard soap recipe.
there doesn't seem to be clay in Marduk.
Oh, you're right, my bad.
why they would have changed most of their soaps to a hard soap recipe.
I'm out of the loop and missed this info.
December 6, 2023
A couple of under-the-nose weepers. They were actually a bit more intense than a standard weeper, but at the same time didn't quite warrant a styptic.
