Wow. Just Wow.

Glad to hear that your health is improving John.

Wonderful photo Jim.

Great travel setup Brian. You have been a real road warrior. I know you'll be happy to get home.

A bit of a weeper near my jaw area this morning, but otherwise things went well. I guess I was singing the praises of Rod Stewart-"The first cut is the deepest, baby I know".

Thank you, Andrew! Might move on to Stirling Grapefruit sample next and finish it off. Too much soap in my den!

July Focus

Back on the horse with this month's focus.
Williams, bloomed, produced a lovely "buttercream" lather. I could've iced a cake with it.
(@wchnu )
As long as my soaps rinse off of the razor/blade without having to run under water, the lather is not too thick.

The 24mm Rooney Emillion is a lovely brush. The butterscotch is attractive and the handle fits nicely in my hand.
Good splay, good flow-through, very soft---without being floppy. Keeper (for now).​

The 2011 R41 is like a new pet, just brought home from the rescue shelter; at first it's skittish, aggressive, pees on the carpet, attacks other dogs, pulls on the leash, etc. But now, it is passive, walks obediently next to its owner, house trained.
Today: no irritation, no nicks, no weepers. Yawn.
Finished with the Floïd again. Wife is standing next to me in our bathroom and made no comment.
Maybe the scent is growing on her...​

In your intro you say you've been enjoying your shaves since February, 2014. What was happening before then?

Shaving only when necessary; carts, goo, electric, in other words: "Hating my shaves".

SOTD July 18th


Stirling Mentholated Pre-Shave Soap
Superior Lather Catcher
CVS CS (009 RD) SE blade (2)
Yaqi Ruby Red (24mm, Frigate class)
Stirling Glacial Black Cherry
Stirling Glacial Lemon Chill PSB

Gentlemen, I need an intervention. In the past three months I've acquired 12 soaps, 7 aftershaves, and 4 new razors with one more razor, soap, and aftershave on the way . The only thing I haven't bought more brushes. This morning I used two of those purchase, the Superior Lather Catcher and the Stirling Glacial Black Cherry. Off the puck the Black Cherry smells like a Halls cough drop with a strong menthol presence, once lathered the menthol scent fades a bit and your left with the strong black Cherry scent. These Glacials really pack a punch, but once you cant feel your face it pretty nice. The Superior LC was a lot lighter then I thought it would be, I loaded it up with a once used CS blade and was off to the races. WOW this razor is really loud! I was also able to maintain a nice shallow blade angle by riding the tab. Three passes, no need for touch up, BBS with no irritation. This was one of the best SE shaves I've ever had! Have a great day my friends!

Awesome shave and beautiful razor, Andrew! I haven't tried a Lather Catcher yet.

I hope you recall my post where I said I was ready to accept GEL(Edge, for instance)as goo, but creams and foams are just that.

Oh Yeah, forgot about the Cella AS. I put a generous splash on last night to see if it would get a reaction from SWMBO, but she didn't take notice. The AS has that typical modern cologne, bergamot type scent to it, similar to Gillette cool wave and Adidas Dynamic Pulse. It might have just been my imagination but I swear that I was catching some faint whiffs of the marzipan soap scent in the base. Scent strength is not too strong and it does have a little menthol in it. After about an hour most of the scent was gone.

Are you going to give your wife another chance on it?

Interesting. I always assumed the AS smelled like the soap. The tricky part now is determining if your wife’s lack of reaction was because she didn’t notice it or because she wanted to keep the peace and avoid saying anything nasty about it.

Sure, I'll give it another chance. Upon application it smells a lot like Tommy, which my wife is a fan of.

She is not shy about telling me what she thinks about the fragrances I wear. So I'm guessing she just didn't notice, and since the scent faded so quickly it probably didn't project well either.

I don't own any but I've smelled it a few times. It smells a lot like almond/marzipan to me.

Another stunningly beautiful brush, Joseph!

The soap or the AS ? The bottle I have has very little of the Marzipan scent, if any.