Van Der Hagen ~ Men's Luxury Shave Set (Pic Heavy)

Well it has arrived, and I have to say that for the $25.00 price tag, I'm impressed.

EDIT:Link to the Van Der Hagen ~ Men's Luxury Shave Set with current price.



First we have the front of the box, and standing next to it are the Shea Moisture and Tweezerman badger brushes to give an idea of the size of the kit.


Upon opening the top of the box, I was surprised to see that the brush is just set inside of the top flap, allowing it to roll around with nothing to secure it.


Here we have the good looking, IMHO, kit pieces.


I put a ubiquitous ball end Tech in the stand for size reference. The razor stand is an open sided slot, with a dimple under it in the base of the stand, that seems like it would work very well for the straight razor user.


I no longer have one of the older VDH pucks to compare it with, but I think the puck sizes are similar, and a snug fit in the bottom of the included apothecary mug.


Here we have a size comparison between one of the latte/soup mugs I used to use for lathering, and the apothecary mug.


The Shea Moisture brush, Van Der Hagen Luxury, and Tweezerman badger brushes for a quick size comparison.


My first out of the box impression on the brush is very good, nice fit and finish, and has a solid kinda hefty feel. Like the other two value brushes, there is a plug that can be felt sticking up inside of the middle of the knot, but it isn't as tall as the one found in the Tweezerman brush. The hairs feel nice and soft in the hand, and I haven't gotten the brush wet yet, but there is no badger funk smell fresh from the box.

The included soap has a pleasant light scent, and I'm guessing from the looks of it that the kit includes the scented version of the soap, as the pictures of the unscented soap show it to be more translucent than the included puck.

Like I said at the top of the post, for $25.00 including shipping from Amazon, first impression is that Van Der Hagen has a put together a real value for the new wetshaver.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go shave.


EDIT:Link to the Van Der Hagen ~ Men's Luxury Shave Set with current price.


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It really is a nice looking Kit. Lather that bad boy up and tell us more.

 

Impressive

 

Looks nice. Thanks for the info. :happy088

 

Looks like a pretty solid kit!

 

How did you get your kit so fast? I preordered and I have prime.

 

uh-oh....I feel a disturbance in the PayPal suddenly....as if 25 dollars cried out for Amazon, and suddenly vanished

 

so who's the winner out of of the three brushes here??? (vdh, shea moisture, tweezerman)

 

Hmm I might have to give this kit a try

 

I'm keepin' an eye out at Wally World and CVS.

 

:happy102LOL

 

I pre-ordered mine two weeks ago and mine still says not yet shipped. How long ago did you pre-order?

 

I have prime also and pre-ordered on February 27th, my order showed a delivery estimate of March 25th, so I have no idea why it arrived early.

So far with only one shave with the it, I am really liking the new VDH brush. I find it less scritchy than the Tweezerman, and it seems to have more backbone than the Shea Moisture brush, and face lathered really well.



I soaked the brush as I showered, and when I removed it from my scuttle, I noticed it had tinged the water a light shade of pink.

A quick sniff of the wet brush instantly revealed that new badger brush funk, that was totally missing when dry and fresh out of the box, but it wasn't as severe as some of the other brushes I have used when new.

I was in a little bit of a hurry, so I decided to face lather with the new brush and VDH soap, and it was a trifle difficult to load the brush as the puck was spinning in the mug as I loaded it. Because of this the brush produced enough lather for 2 passes, but I did a quick reload as the lather left for the third pass would have been too thin, I'm sure after getting wet and drying the puck will grip the mug and make loading easier.

Speaking of the lather, it was very easy to build, very rich, and quite slick with good cushioning. When my youngest son sampled the soaps scent, he remarked that it reminded him of some cream or soap I already had, and we traced it down to The Real Shaving Company Moisturizing Shave Cream. The scent is very similar to what I call a generic cologne scent that the RSC cream has, but not as strong, I had my wife and daughter confirm that the scents were very similar.

Skincare from the soap felt very nice, with good moisturizing properties that were very noticeable during my after shave face rinse.

All told the brush lost 5 hairs during its first outing, and has bloomed out quite nicely after drying.

Those are my initial impressions with the kit, and so far it seems well worth the entry price.

 

Mines not ETA till the 28th

I preordered a few days ago I think...

 

Huh... I didn't even know VDH was still in business. It has been pulled from most of the stores around here. Obviously, I need to spend more time checking up on things here at TSD.

Please keep us up to date on how that brush holds up over time.

 

the website still shows the old line. I wonder if they are going to phase it out or keep both?

 

Available March 31

For those that were interested, I just checked Amazon and it says available on March 31st.

I may order a set just to have an extra mug and soap to try out. I just got my first set this week and wanted to try some of the Proraso soap since I've read some good reviews on it. That gives me an excuse to add a little more to the order!

 

Second shave with the soap and brush, this time was a try at bowl lathering, and the soap performed flawlessly.

The brush has bloomed quite nicely, still carries a slight badger funk smell, and lost no hairs on this outing.