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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April 10, 2024 -- Black Watch Wedgeday
Brush: Brad Sears Scotsman XL 28mm Super Badger
Lather: Spearhead Shaving Company - Seaforth! Black Watch - Soap
Toner: Thayers - Lavender - Toner
Aftershave: Spearhead Shaving Company - Seaforth! Black Watch - Aftershave
Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company - Seaforth! Black Watch - Eau de Toilette
2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.
Great shave today.
Black Wedgeday ++;
Wednesday, April 10, 2024: No pee pee tape
A very good shave – I slowly get the impression that I've got the straight-razoring figured out.
OT, but scent-related: I chased away our cat when I was stropping my straight. An hour later, my computer chair is wet and smells like cat piss. A coincidence? Retaliation? I don't have video surveillance in the flat, so there will never be any proof of feline wrongdoing. The list of non-feline suspects is rather short, on the other hand... In any case, you will be glad to hear that I found out only after I had rested my fat ass on the chair 🥶
Have a good night, and may your cats be peaceful!
😦
April 10, 2024
While not as exciting as a tub kill, sample kill!
Piacenza is a dupe of Acqua di Parma something or another -- maybe Colonia? It's definitely citrus forward in the most elegant kind of way. Very nice. Every time I used this sample I went back and forth about whether I'd like a full tub or not, and I think I'll skip it. There are so many other great non-citrus scents out there that I'd rather have.
The Varencide continues, today with the pointy Abalone Böker. The Ring of Death grows steadily, and I'm wondering what will happen first; the Varen kill or the Tabac kill. Exciting stuff, I know!
Exciting stuff, I know!
It really is!
😊
Two of my hobbies collided today when the newest episode of Geschichten aus der Geschichte (an excellent weekly history podcast in German) about the history of the Eau de Cologne popped up in my podcatcher and Mastodon feed. I grabbed my 4711 "Original Eau De Cologne" splash and frag, my tub of SSL (the closest scent I have in soap form) and started the episode and a shave, confident that I would hear the history of 4711 while using it.
Well, as it turns out, 4711 isn't the original at all. They even had to change their name in the 1700s point because they had a clashing brand with the original Eau de Cologne, "Farina" (not just a copy, the copying perfumer found a random Italian dude called Farina and licensed the rights to his name.) and were forced in a civil suit to change their brand.
Another thing I learned is that the original eau de cologne (the Farina) marks a major turning point in the history of perfumery, because Farina solved the problem of distilling scentless alcohol, i.e., it is the first perfume based on what we now know as perfumer's alcohol. Fascinating.
That is interesting about the alcohol. When I first started this hobby I kept seeing reference to Denatured Alcohol, which has a distinct, strong smell (at least in the US). This is meant to prevent consumption, and therefore there's no related taxes added on. Anyway, I thought "that can't be right", and later found out there's such a thing as perfumers alcohol. I wonder if perfumers alcohol is still tax free (at least alcohol tax). I've heard it's not very easy to buy, but I don't know the details.
There's a similar situation with alcohol in the EU/Switzerland, where alcohol can be tax exempt if it has an added ingredient that makes it unfit for human consumption.
For perfumes, Wikipedia knowledge says this tends to be Diethyl phthalate ((DEP) is a phthalate ester. It occurs as a colourless liquid without significant odour but has a bitter, disagreeable taste)
They also mentioned something similar briefly on the podcasts episode: apparently there was a French law prescribing that anything that can be consumed by humans is required to list all ingredients (I surprised, as I'd have massively thought that these kind of laws have centuries later). This marked the beginning of perfumes no longer being marketed as healing beverages.
