Again curiosity took the better of me , and I went out to check the prices of Ralon and Brinnell shaving creams (crackstar got me intrigued), and of course i bought both for the combined price of 16 kuna ( under 3$). Ralon is kinda of a remnant of the old socialist system around here, the aftershave was produced as Pitralon under license from the original factory in DDR /East Germany from Dusseldorf. I remember as a kid folks using both aftershave and cream massively everyday (Pino Silvestre was the special occasion stuff ). And after the collapse of the Berlin wall and the socialist regimes in Europe, the venture in to capitalism lead to lawsuits for the "Pitralon" name, so it was shortened in to Ralon, and the looks where a bit changed. Now for the important stuff The cream out of the tube is a bit runny just like Florena and it doesn't have that shiny shave cream look to it, so I used a bit less water...and it turned out dry to my surprise. After adding a bit more water the magic began. It lathered very nice, and peaked up fast. The lather itself if nicely dense, but light and I guess the best word would be fluffy The cushion and the glide are good just as skincare. The smell is interesting, there are people that don't like it, but to me it smells classic, manly I'm not great at this stuff but it kind off reminds me of leather and a bit of camphor , maybe some sweet note in it, it's mild but very specific. Again a cream I like As for the Brinell I'm gonna leave that for another time
Nice review. I've noticed that Eastern European aka "old Soviet bloc" shaving creams are thin and runny coming out of the tube, and European and U.K. creams are thicker and have that glossy, almost iridescent shine to them. They both lather the same, so it's more of a "this is interesting," type ramble I've got going on here.
I think Jeff would be a better judge at that than myself. The only "east block" creams I tried are the above mentioned Ralon, Brinel and Pascale. An Ralone is the only runny one so far, quite similar to the german Florena. But as I said I can't really judge until I try out some more .
Hmm...I just realized that the three Russian types I have tried, including Tet-A-Tet, have all been made by the same company; so I don't have a representative sample to base my opinion off of. Jeff will indeed have to open up his "Eastern European cream room" and let us know.
Gentlemen, I have a confession to make.....I haven't used any of the creams from Serbia, Croatia, or Macedonia. I have on the other hand, used creams from Russia, ( a lot of them) Poland, (a few of them) Czech Republic, (2 of them) and Bulgaria, (quite a few of them) Hungary, (several of them) and I find that the majority of these creams are great latherers and very good performers. About the only 2 which I didn't really like were the DON cream from Czech Republic and the KANION cream from Poland. These 2 creams lather well, but the skincare seemed a problem - there isn't any in those 2 creams.
This cream is not bad, quite good I must say. It comes very runny out of the tube - what I dislike a lot. Though I quite like it's scent - i really miss the camphor in it. The cream is different in scent to the Ralon after shave. So I hardly use the cream, but the after shave - which I really love for the camphor - gets a regular use.
In the Czech Republic there is also a shaving soap and cream called Pitralon, and there are also German, Austrian, and Swiss Pitralon aftershaves. I tried all 3 of them, but never the shaving cream or soap.
