When I posted yesterday about not being sure of my Straight Shaves, I hadn't had my straight shave for the day. I should have waited...because I got a GREAT shave.
Here's the story. I had my Kropp straight sitting for a while, so I thought the edge might benefit from some light touching up, so I gave it about 10 light strokes on a coticule with water only, and went to shave. The edge was not what I would call great...And so I got out my John Primble Barber hone. This was a bit chancy, because the last time I'd used it, it developed some pits in the top, and released grit into the lather I was using as lube; the grit scratched up my blade something fierce, and made me very very sad ( you can read the whole sorry story here on SRP).
I sanded the hone down to eliminate all the pits, and polished up, but I was worried about it happening again. It didn't, and the edge it gave my razor was the sharpest I've had so far. I actually got that "velvet squeegee" effect, and just WIPED the whiskers away. A FANTASTIC shave, I tell you. So yeah, straight shaving can be quite good.
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Now, you may have noticed mention in my last post of D.R. Harris soap. I recently picked this up and I was using it for all of the last week. I just kept using it and using it--I didn't even realize that I had stopped rotation to other soaps, it was that good.
The lather was thick and protective, and the razor (that was the SE) slid through it like butter. I got enough lather for three passes using my boar brush and the Zach method of Soap Lathering, and it was really great lather, too. After the shave, it offered great skin care, and there is really nothing at all I can say about it that isn't good. This soap is close to great--CLOSE, I say, it was a bit tricky to lather at first, and it might have been a TOUCH too thick for my tastes--and I am super duper glad I got it.
The scent of this particular puck is Marlborough, a warm, mellow scent. A hint of spice, some Sandalwood notes and overall, a good, subdued masculine scent. Thumbs up; I have another puck, in the Arlington scent, on the way. I can't wait!
Now, the only problem is, I got the OLD formulation. the one with LOTS of tallow, as opposed to just some. So...yeah, I love Old Formulation Harris soaps, but I have no idea about the new ones. Dammit.
Now, at this point I'd like to mention my new soap bowls. Why such a mundane thing, you ask? Because I am immensely tickled with myself for finding them. I was tired of the cheesy glass bowls I was using. Effective, but not so nice to look at I thought. However, the real bowls for the soaps are SO EXPENSIVE, and sometimes not even that great for lathering purposes. So I wandered around, looking for a good solution, and found it at the Daiso, the Japanese dollar store.
Take a look at this:
They're stackable, and have a nice classy red finish. But what are they? Why are they special?
They're bonsai pots! I was inspired by the Provence Sante' bowl (have you seen it? It's a rough stoneware bowl, like a flowerpot. Really cool, really rustic.) The thing I like about them is, they're rough inside so there's no need to worry about grating and pressing or anything, the soap naturally sticks! No sliding or spinning when you7re trying to lather. The size isn't quite perfect, but when I turned the puck over (the picture shows a puck of D.R. Harris Marlborough--top is 8 cm across) it fit perfectly.
The tops are actually bottoms--the plates that fit under the bowl to catch water dripping ALSO fit right into the top. This has the added benefit of making the bowls eminently stackable. I like that a lot.
Now, my wife thought the hole in the bottom might be a problem. I didn't, because the soap will cover that well, but in the almost unimaginably far future, when the soap gets down to the bottom it might be a problem; a little rubber cement, a small sheet of plastic and some duct tape for Real Ultimate Power, and that problem is solved. Totally sweet, huh?
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