March 3 SOTA.

Hi everyone. Pleasant good afternoon.

Shavette Shave #532
Dovo
Personna Hairshaper SE Blade (15)
MrEE Tuxedo Brush
VdH SS and bits of other soaps
Pinaud-Clubman Classic AS
Stirling Alum Block
Modessa Witch Hazel
Beard Growth: 23.5 hrs



Loaded my brush from my apothecary mug and face lathered for my shave. I really didn't need to shave, but I did a quick WTG and ATG passes. Didn't need to go for the BBS, but I will say it was a near BBS result without any blood loss.
The alum was mostly silent. Splashed on the watch hazel and the old man scent aftershave. Take care.

talking to ones self is a symptom of much bigger issues..

awesome sunday shave Joe.

Thanks Gary.

Terrific Trumper and awesome aristocrat shave Gary.

SRS # 1049 - Sample Soap Sunday - Blackship Grooming Davy Jones

Rating: 5 / 5

Razor: ERN 1820 5/8”
Brush: Jack Skully
Pre-Shave: Pears Transparent Soap
Lather: Blackship Grooming Company Davy Jones
Aftershave: B & M Sandalwood
Additional Care:
Omega Alum
Dickenson’s Original Witch Hazel
Stirling Unscented Glacial Balm

Outstanding sample soap shave this morning with a very simple scent of sandalwood and bourbon.

Hope you all had a great day.

Excellent sandalwood shave Gary.

Excellent looking shave Asil.

Very nice Barry.

Perfect Joe.

PT’s theme of the weekend: Crickets!

Numerous posts offer suggestions, concerns and various ideas related to shaving and the consistent blood letting yet “Crickets”.

Not even a courtesy of a reply.

Speaks VOLUMES.

Wonderful shave Joe. The scales on the Ern definitely rock.

Thanks Joe. As you know, it's great to have a satisfying shave like this one.

I don't want to rag on the guy, but he needs to move on to the SOS thread because he doesn't want to improve his shaves. It's over 5 years since I have been posting on this thread and he hasn't made any appreciable progress. It's time for him to move on from here. If he leaves, then I wish him the best.

Nice intro as usual, Joe!

No clue what I will do myself for March. Probably just a Mix and Match of whatever happens to be handy.

Actually, one thing I will do is focus on using and properly breaking in my Mixte brush -- one of those ones with a knot that combines boar and badger. I just need to remember which one it is and where I put it.

I have been using synthetics exclusively for a few months, so the change may take a few shaves to get used to. The mixte knot is soft but with good backbone. But it doesn't quite react like either straight boar or straight badger. I recall it was quite thirsty and tended to hold in the lather.

This may be a good time to break out the lather bowl and work up the soaps that way for awhile.

Thank you Joe

Thank you Joe.

Thank you Gary.

Monday March 4 - Menthol Monday, Mixte and "M" Products for March

Prep: Hot shower with Aleppo olive oil soap with 20% bay laurel oil

Razor: Supply matte black stainless 2.0 injector with SE comb plate / vintage US-made Schick Plus Platinum (11)

Soap: Mike's Natural Soaps Hungarian Lavender

Brush: APShaveCo Elegant Emerald handle w/ APShaveCo 24mm APLuxury bulb knot (badger-boar mixture)

Lather Bowl: Jason's (@jtspartan) maple bowl with walnut rim and maple "lather buttons" in bottom

Post: rinse, alum, rinse, Jeeves of Hudson Street Mountain Rain splash

Last shave: Tuesday February 27 -- 6 days

No photo today. Very heavy snowfall here (12+ inches) is causing internet connectivity and speed problems. I will probably use the same setup for my next shave and will post a photo then -- the lather bowl in particular is a nice piece of workmanship.

I managed to work up a decent lather from the very hard soap by swirling the damp brush for quite a few swirls on the puck, then dribbling water into the lather bowl and working it there for a minute or two. I then added water to the brush, went back to the puck for further loading, and repeated the process. I found the brush did want to retain lather.

Despite that, I got a decent coating on my face and found that the tallow/lanolin/kokum butter soap provided good glide and protection. One pass gave me an error-free cleanshaven appearance.

I only did one pass because the "luxury" aspect of the shave could best be described as "Meh" -- today's overwhelming scent profile was "Barnyard":

When I first received the Mike's Natural Soaps tub in Hungarian Lavender scent, it had a lovely strong lavender scent. That was over five years ago, and sitting totally unused in my soap cache has done absolutely nothing for it. Today, the soap is Unscented with a very strong overlay of Tallow.

As for the brush, when I swirled it past my nose, I found it had the backbone of boar combined with the softness of badger -- and a powerful animal musk scent of both.

The only part of the shave that did provide a pleasant odour was the aftershave. The "Mountain Rain" scent is precisely that. It provided excellent skin care with a nice light menthol kick. Pity Jeeves of Hudson Street is no longer in business...

Any useful tips for de-scenting strong smelling animal hair brushes?

Very nice shave John. Stay safe out there in your winter wonderland.