Recently, I replaced a tub of Chasing the Dragon (funnily enough, this was a SOTD I copied from the interweb (sic)) Excellent scent and a decent soap base. Found this replacement at a reasonable price. Kaizen 2 Marshmallow Root Whatever they did, me likey This soap took a LOT of H2O. The scent is very close to Nasomatto Black Afgano Here's a breakdown of the notes: Lots of similarities. The "incense" accord is front and center in both the soap and the juice. Ariana & Evans has mostly flown under my radar, but this is a quality soap base. Scents are too subjective to recommend. I always say...try before you buy. $24.95 + shipping on A&E website. Anyone else wear the Nasomatto? Tried this soap base? What are your thoughts?
i have and use a few of a & e soap bases including an old jar of "the shaving shop" hedonisme.grecian horse,asian pear and kaizen.my latest set is The Club "Signature" in k2.fabulous stuff.i just read on the website that k-2e is their next offering to replace the previous bases. https://shavingshopclub.com/products?keywords=Hédonisme
yes, used a K2e soap the other day (Khalifa).. very slick, wetter the better, as it loves the water... a wonderful shave was had as protection, and post shave were top notch. yes, TOP NOTCH
That sounds like a good mix for scent. And A&E os good stuff. If I wasnt trying to cut back on soaps I think Id be all over this one.
For me the first base was not my cup of tea. It was ok, but nothing special. Maybe i will try the K2e someday. Are there remarkable differences between the two bases?
There is a considerable difference between Kaizen and K2. There is a smaller difference between K2 and K2e. I personally don't use A&E/The Club or PAA because I don't respect some of their businesses practices... not when there are other bases that are completely their equal...but they're no denying k2e is an amazing base.
I thought just like you…PAA?! Never!!! But man have i been wrong. One of the best soaps out there but this another topic…i had a sample of the Plum soap from A&E. Scentwise it was very good, the lather was ok, but not 100% my desired lather. So i never went back to have a look at their soaps and stuff. Maybe i will try the K2e base someday, but i think i have more than enough other stuff which will be equal if not better (Soap Commander, PAA, Mike ´s etc.)
Oh PAA soaps are excellent... no question about it. I recognize that they have many fine products. It's strictly for ethical reasons that I refuse to support them.
You say this as though it was a single mistake in the distant past, as opposed to the 5 or 6 I can immediately think of just off the top of my head spanning years and years. Regardless, I would argue that second, third, fourth fifth....chances are deserved if some degree of regret or remorse is present, which does not appear to be the case. Back when PAA was still HTGAM, their 1.0 formulation was claimed in ad copy by Smythe to be a “funky, hot-process soap,” when in reality it was a cheap melt-and-pour. Their soaps featured a blatantly falsified ingredient list. By law, products that make a health claim (HTGAM chose a moisturizing benefit) must provide ingredient labels must contain the ingredients used in order of weight. Smythe intentionally re-arranged the ingredient list so that his soaps appeared to contain more "expensive" ingredients. There was further shady behavior concerning Petal Pusher Fancies (PPF), a company founded by Fran, involving leaving glowing reviews on HTGAM products, and vice versa, without disclosing they were a couple or that HTGAM and PPF were virtually the same company shipping from the same location. Multiple false glowing reviews were left. When all of this was brought to light, instead of them apologizing, showing remorse or trying to earn back trust, they simply changed the name of the company and moved across the country to get away from their unsavory reputation. This is how PAA was born and this behavior continued right on with the new branding, for example: Doug, searching for a group to target with marketing, co-founded a shaving group for military-only Veterans. Originally posturing himself as a veteran, he was eventually questioned about his service-record. He claimed that he had formerly worked in the CIA, which is a non-military, civilian organization. In a screenshot now lost to the internet, Doug claimed: that he served in the CIA, that he has a father who was an Admiral in the Navy, and finally, that he lost his older brother in “Dessert Storm.” There is no proof or indication that the “Hodges” killed in Desert Storm was related to Erik Hodges (Douglas Smythe's real name). After making these statements and then deleting them, Smythe claims that he never made them. What really sealed the deal for me was when they screwed over Rod and Mandy from Stirling (who are actual veterans) by pretending to be an enthusiastic customer making many requests for special scents to be formulated and sent to them... Which is time and resources intensive. Upon receiving them, Doug then used those scent accords for his own soaps and had the nerve to accuse Stirling of having stolen it from them. They never apologized for this and later did something very similar to Will at B&M and his Reserve line. PAA then made a wetshaving subreddit called r/against_the_grain. He set himself up as a moderator, which is explicitly against Reddit Terms of Service, seeing as he is a vendor. Upon being called out on this, u/cookie_duster, flaired as HTGAM, passes moderator duties on to a 3hr-old account, which is clearly a sockpuppet. u/cookie_duster, u/tuputne and ucrumb_catcher are just 3 of the many fake shill accounts traced to them used to propagate further dishonesty. The list goes on and on... there's even a Reddit thread dedicated to assembling and preserving evidence and information about their actions...much of which Doug has tried very hard to get rid of. Yet to this day, no apologies and no recognition of wrongdoing. How many more chances they do, or do not, deserve, will be the personal decision of the individual members of the wetshaving community. Personally, I will not support those support those people and I do not apologize for them accountable for their behavior.
Your money, spend it where you want. For those of us who have been around the shaving fora longer than you, this is like beating a dead horse.
Please do not presume I'm new or inexperienced just because I disagreed with your statement. I've been wetshaving since I was 22 and have been active on B&B since 2008. Few aspects of this hobby are new to me including PAA and their history. Somebody was confused about about why I (and many others) don't use PAA, so I clarified.
you seem to know some pretty inside details about who this artisan is.very good.we here at this forum care about shaves,products and such.if you knew about gillette board insider meetings you probably wouldn't use gillette de razors either.or most other products.i can think of many products out there who screwed folks over..Ford,GM,Chysler,P&G, very long list..your choices are yours.no issue,don't question ours..
I feel I was defending my reasoning, rather than questioning others, and it's hardly insider information. That said, while I stand by the fundamental content, re-reading my post now the next day i definitely don't like how combatively it reads. Prim hasn't done anything wrong.
