Post 'Wednesday Lather Games SOTD Thread - Jul 19, 2023' of challenge 'SOTD photo scavenger hunt'

LGSOTD 19-July

• Brush: Salomon Walking Sock
• Razor: Shield - Predator #CNC
• Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
• Lather: Proraso - Wood & Spice Cream
• Post Shave: Proraso - Wood & Spice Balm
• Fragrance: Proraso - Wood & Spice Cologne

This was one of my first software purchases and though it sees little use, though I thoroughly enjoy the scent. For the price the performance is decent enough as well.

For the Daily Challenge, I had to give the Mrs a heads up on this one. If she wanders in without a clue she's going to have me committed. So I told her yesterday after she got over the residual hair snap. First response being to shake her head and laugh, the second response was to ask you lot who's going to wash the sock afterwards? Strange response but there you have it, remarkable that my wife is so understanding of these shenanigans, I'll count myself lucky.

So the first hurdle (beyond the better half), sock selection. Do I go for the standard black thin efforts, nah not likely to hold much lather. What about 5 finger socks, certainly be dextrous enough. Nope, what I'm after is volume. So instead I opt for Salomon walking socks, yeah they've seen a fair bit of use in the mountains but they've still got some life in them and surely a thicker sock would do the trick.

Brief soak and what I thought was enough of a squeeze of proraso, work together to form a (hopefully) decent lather. Now, do I transfer to a brush, nope because I forgot to soak the one I took the pic of yesterday and now I'm running out of time. Oh well, let's see how it goes using the sock, so on like a glove, couldn't take snaps at this point I was covered in the stuff. I'm already seeing one fatal flaw, this thing has fluff all over it and it's catching on my face and there's an odd hue to it, ah well carry on.

Sock off and hand cleaned up to take a pic, not horrendous but not brilliant, could have been better. Sock on for the second pass, nah it's already running out of steam, squeeze the sock and I get bugger all out of it but I do notice an odd colour in the sink. This thing is leaking dye, which at least explains the odd hue. One saving grace the bloody stuff washed down the sink without leaving stains. Add more soap and repeat.

So the overall conclusion being, if you have to use a sock, do not use a walking sock, it eats soap (should have known), it leaves fluff on your face and leaks colour.

Still smooth and smelling good though, so aim achieved.

Hope everyone has a grand one.

Cheers

Marc

Congratulations 🎉 you've been selected for the best photo contest 😊

Reason: 💛

2023-07-18 Creamy Goodness

• Brush: Yaqi Metal Timberwolf
• Razor: Gillette Tech
• Lather: Taylor of Old Bond Street - Tobacco Leaf (Cream)
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Tobacconist
• Fragrance: House of Mammoth - Tobacconist
• Blade: Astra - Platinum (3)

Relevant Post-shave and Fragrance: Tobacco

Challenge Accepted: Well, this sounds like an awful series of thoughts led to this idea.

You may use a brush to apply the lather to your face, as long as the lather was made with a sock.

I can use a brush as long as I make the lather with a sock. Cool.
Look at that ugly-ass sock! I'm never gonna wear that. I mean, definitely not after I make my lather with it! Now how much sock do I need? Apparently, one blade can't handle very much sock. That's probably enough sock. Sock. Lather.

It did not work well. Creams are enough of a pain on their own, but add several pinches of sock? I was trying to keep sock from going into the drain the whole time, and I expect I'll be finding sock in my brush long for a long time. On the other hand, I didn't have any sock getting in the way of the razor, which I expected.

#FOF TOBS Tobacco Leaf is a vague tobacco smell. There's a lot of different tobacco smells, ranging from ashy to flowery (no one has smelled a tobacco flower) to pipey to cigary. I guess this is accurately leafy, but it's unremarkable.

When I sought out to find a tobacco scent, I sought one that recreates what it's like to walk into a humidor, its walls lined with cigars. Tobbaconist gets as close as anything, for which reason I can't seem to be able to shut up about it.

I want to preface this by saying Tobacconist is beautiful. I definitely can't stay mad at it.

With all my praise, I'm going to be critical of one teensy, minor thing. It's been recurrent over the past few weeks and perhaps my concentrated nose-efforts during that time have made me more sensitive to it: the fruit. Kill the fruit. No one even likes to eat fruit, much less smell it. When was the last time you voluntarily selected and consumed a piece of fruit, and enjoyed it? It was never, wasn't it?
I'm kidding; I know there are weirdos in this world.

#photocontest
Photo: Insects/Invertebrates
Gross.

Momento Mori

July 19, 2023 – I Creamed a sock

• Razor: Gillette Tech
• Blade: Parker (2)
• Lather: Barbasol – Classic Shaving Cream, Brushless Cream
• Post Shave: Zingari – The Watchman
• Fragrance: Jo Malone – Wood Sage and Sea Salt

Since today is cream day and I’m traveling, I used the barbosol brushless I originally bought for this vacation before lather games moved to July. Which posed and interesting problem for lather in a sock day, as you don’t really lather this. Also my kids were sleeping, so I couldn’t get to my clean socks. Nevertheless I loaded some cream on yesterday’s dirty sock and went to town on my face. It… Didn’t work at all. The cream simply absorbed into the sock. Now I have a soapy (well creamy) sock and no slickness on my face. I realized I need to just get the job done up so I finished with my bare hands. While shaving I realized I may have misunderstood the directions for the barbosol, it was way too thick and clogged the razor. I had to unscrew it a ton to clean it. Pass two I I realized it was supposed to be so thin it was transparent. And that’s when I sliced my mole open. Oh well. Listen judges I rubbed a dirty sock on my face. I think that at least gets some credit for trying.

So #fof. I dunno why but barbosol makes me think of boats? It’s a generic barbershop scent but.. I get boats. So I completed it with The Watchman and this wood sage and Sea salt tester. It worked surprisingly.

Today’s #photocontest is for cell phones. This is our spare phone that runs our telescope. (One of those celestron models that uses a phone to locate itself.)

Still tagging #ROTY too.

I can't tell if this is the most boomer picture I've seen this month or if it was just that well thought out...

• Brush: Champion Ankle-High Sock

• Razor: Muhle Rocca R94

• Blade: Bic Chrome Platinum

• Lather: D.R. Harris - Marlborough

• Post Shave: Southern Witchcrafts - Autumn Ash

• Fragrance: Maher Olfactive - Red Skies

Today's Theme: CREAM - D.R. Harris' Marlborough is specifically a cream on the label even though it's harder than milksteak.

Today's Challenge: Lather with a sock - so just because the challenge is to lather with a sock doesn't mean we have to hurt ourselves doing it. I picked a clean sock that had longer fuzzies on the inside, turned that sucker inside out, got a big ol dollop of Marlborough cream on the toe section of the sock, and started to work on face lathering. It worked pretty well, though I definitely under-hydrated my lather out of impatience.

My theme for today's shave: Marlboro Red 100's

So when planning today's shaving software, I thought I could do sort of an homage to the cigarettes I used to smoke in my younger days - Marlboro Red 100's. Awful cigarettes that were terribly silly even for cigarettes because of the extra long and skinny shape, but they were kind of my crutch for a period in my life where I really needed something to lean on. The Marlborough scent was kind of just a generally pleasant scent, while Autumn Ash is exactly maple creosote. But what surprised me the most was when I applied Red Skies, it kind of mingled with the Autumn Ash's creosote smell to resemble Southern Witchcrafts' Valley of Ashes.

For music I picked Children of Bodom's Are You Dead Yet. Great metal album that was derided by some CoB fans at the time for being "too slow" but in retrospect was unfairly maligned.

I'm also starting to realize that I'm doing the photo contest totally wrong, but I'm going to keep doing the tag anyway. #photocontest #FOF #ROTY

Jul. 19, 2023 - No Sock for Dobby

• Prep: CeraVe - Hydrating Facial Cleanser

• Brush: Chisel & Hound Mighty Duck v19 Fanchurian

• Razor: Blackland Era SB LVL 3

• Blade: Astra Green

• Lather: St. James of London - Sandalwood and Bergamot Cream

• Post Shave: House Of Mammoth - Z (uncool) Balm

• Fragrance: Lesli Wood - Ossuary

Daily Challenge

Yeah so I had a sock out on my dresser for todays challenge but this morning realized that I have a little pride in myself and 0.2 points isn’t going to make or break anything for me. So instead I’m here laughing at the posts of people regretting their decision without any guilt.

St James of London cream is one of the better ones I’ve tried, it holds a good bit of water and gets pretty darn slick! It’s just boring…Sandalwood & Bergamot smells pleasant but there’s nothing to it! No layers, nothing to discover as you lather and shave. The cream does a good job but you don’t have to work to make the lather, it’s just there. Half of what I really like about this hobby is the process and attention to detail needed to make a good lather and hold the right angle when shaving. I have kept this tub for those random 5 AM shaves when I really need to just be on autopilot and not spend any extra time on the process.

Todays pairing to the cream is all based on my #photocontest theme of #Extinct Animals. My picture is self explanatory but the rest could use explaining. My brush is a v19 Fanchurian which is no longer sold (Extinct) My razor is out of production (extinct) My balm has a Mammoth on it (Extinct) Finally my fragrances name “Ossuary” literally is a place for holding the bones of the dead (Extinct)

July 19, 2023

• Brush: My fucking sock?!??
• Razor: Rockwell 6s
• Blade: Wilkinson Sword
• Lather: Taconic Shave – Tequila Lime Shave Cream
• Post Shave: Henri et Victoria – Lime Splash
• Fragrance: Noble Otter - Lone Star EDP
• Music: The Champs - Tequila

Man, I need a shot of Tequila after that shave. Using a sock to lather is a bad idea. Like an awful idea. This is coming from the guy that shaved in a bathtub full of ice. Now, it’s entirely possible (and maybe even likely) that my sock-lathering technique is bad. However, lathering with my sock isn’t something I want to perfect.

Today, I went to the beach for this shave for two reasons (1) I like to feel the sand between my toes in the summer and (2) because u/MrTangerinesky thought he could intimidate me by shaving next to a little river. A little babbling brook in the background is supposed to impress me? Bitch, please. You bring a river and I’ll bring the ocean! As my arch nemesis, u/MrTangerinesky, would say: VIDEO OR IT DIDN’T HAPPEN!

Despite the piss-poor sock lather, the shave was slick. However, it took way too long to build any sort of lather with a sock and sand was all up in my lather, so I only did 1 pass today.

I really enjoy this cream from Taconic – it smells like a margarita and performs great under normal conditions. I chose Lime aftershave because, well, lime is one of the two scents in the soap. Then for my frag, I picked Long Star, since it opens with a nice lemon scent, and lemons & limes are like best friends. The Lone Star then gets really nice with complex blend of floral and woody notes on an earthy base of oakmoss, leather, and hay. It’s nice to have a shave that starts with a relatively simple scent (margarita) then then the frag builds that into a complex #FOF summer experience.

As with a lot of my shaves this month, I have a few lessons learned:

1. Soaking my sock was a good idea, but I should have done a better job at keeping sand off the sock.
2. Sand is a good exfoliator, buuuuuuttttt…. Shaving with a mix of sand and sub-par lather is not ideal.
3. You need a LOT more cream for a sock shave than you expect. I started with this and had to go back to the tub two more times. These socks EAT lather.
4. Socks don’t make good brush replacements.
5. If you are going to use your socks to build a lather, bring an extra pair, so you don’t have to go sock-less for the rest of the day.

For the #photocontest: Sports with the baseball, since I asked Taconic who their favorite baseball team is.

For my interview today, I chatted with Nancy from Taconic Shave. Nancy, and her husband Howie have been slinging wetshaving products for 20 years - long before it was cool. Nancy was such a nice, nice person for this series that I feel absolutely awful publicly desecrating her product by using it with my dirty sock…. BUT… If I can get a serviceable lather using one of my socks, imagine the dreamy lather you’ll get using a brush!

10 Questions with… Taconic Shave

1) How did you get started making shaving creams, soaps, aftershaves, etc?

When we started our wet shaving business about 20 years ago, there weren’t very many good shave soaps available. The retail stores that were selling our Parker Safety Razor products were asking for an American made line of shave soaps and creams. The best ideas come from our customers and we were able to offer the right products at the right time. The wet shaving community was expanding rapidly at that time.

2) What was the first product you ever sold?

Our first Taconic product was a mandarin orange shave soap in a cold poured formulation which is much different than we’re offering today. Our products today have been formulated differently over time.

3) I’ve only tried your shave cream, and I will say it performs wonderfully. How do you compare your cream to your shave soaps?

Our shave soaps have very different formulas than the creams. You’ll have to try one! The shave soaps require a mug and a little more work to create a lather, but they deliver unbelievable glide and cushion thanks to some key ingredients like hemp seed oil and bentonite clay. They are also formulated with all naturally derived ingredients like the rest of our line. We are committed to making our products chemical free.

4) You're from New York. Dare I ask: Yankees or Mets?

Yes we’re from New York, and we’re Mets fans (with a high pain tolerance) :)

5) My sister-in-law has a tshirt that says “I love cooking with wine... Sometimes I even add it to food!” Is the recipe for tequila lime soap similar?

In some ways yes - it was always a fun drink and lime is one of our favorite natural scents.

6) Do you have a go-to drink you order at a bar?

Howie loves a good local craft beer. His favorite is Bear Naked Ale from the Adirondack brewery in NY. I always love a good glass of Sauvignon Blanc.

7) You offer 5 different scents of shave creams and 6 options for shave soaps. How did you decide which scents you want to offer in which form?

We asked our customers and our retailers which scents they would prefer. We have a close rapport with our customers and gathered preference feedback. For example, one of our later scents Excalibur started as a solid cologne and our retailers loved it so much they wanted us to grow the use of this scent with our other shaving and beard care products.

8) Of the scents you offer, which one is your favorite?

Mine is Lavender Lime (I just love the citrus balanced with a bit of earthy lavender) and Howie’s is Eucalyptus Mint for its cooling effect.

9) I noticed one of the ingredients of your Creams is honey. I've never made my own soaps or creams, but I have to imagine that's a somewhat unique ingredient. What does the addition of honey do for someone's lather/skin?

Honey is an excellent moisturizer for the skin and has really great antioxidant, antibacterial and anti-inflammatory properties. It can also be helpful with razor bumps and adds additional glide.

10) How do you differentiate Taconic Shave from all the other shaving companies currently out there?

We have consistently stuck by our values to offer a broad line of wet shaving and grooming products, using the healthiest choice of ingredients that we would want to use ourselves (avoiding many common allergens such as nuts). We always choose to go with small batches, using only all natural and many organic ingredients that are locally sourced whenever possible.

FUCKING SOCK otherwise its a great outdoors shot

July 19, 2023

• Prep: Truefitt & Hill - Ultimate Comfort - Pre-shave Oil
• Brush: Truefitt & Hill Wellington 24mm Silvertip
• Razor: Rolls Razor #SELFSHARPENING
• Lather: Truefitt & Hill - Grafton - Cream
• Post Shave: Unilever - Brut - Aftershave
• Post Shave: Thayers - Lemon - Toner
• Fragrance: Floris Elite - Eau de Toilette  

2 passes. Bowl lather. Excellent shave.

---

A very English shave today. The Truefitt & Hill products were part of a gift set that I received. Everything I've tried from them is top notch. With 218 years of being in business they've had time to get it right. Rolls Razor Ltd was headquartered in London, as is Floris and Truefitt & Hill. So, English.

The T&H pre-shave is has a very light citrus scent. The pre-shave is a mix of a variety of oils including avocado, coconut, bergamot, mandarin orange, and grapefruit. I'm assuming it is the last three oils that give it its scent. The oil is, well, oily, but it does seem to protect the skin and allow the razor to glide. I normally make my own pre-shave from lather paste (aka protolather). I prefer my method, but it's nice to change it up occasionally.

The Grafton cream is a spicy fougère. Scent strength is on the strong side and takes me back to the smells of '50s and '60s. It pairs very well with Brut, but really, what doesn't?

Finally, I went with a sample of Floris Elite. You can read all of the notes of this scent. I just get the blend of notes when I use it. Seems very nice and masculine to me; especially after it dries down.

And then there's the Rolls. Not this one, this one. I have shaved with a Rolls before. u/Tetriside sent me his blade to sharpen and I asked for the handle to be sent as well so I could test shave with it. But thanks to u/djundjila I was able to get the full Rolls system experience!

He sent me a spare blade to sharpen as well. Because I identified today (English day) to use the razor, I've had time to study the packaging and to sharpen the spare blade. To me, the system is a set of compromises except for the box aesthetics which look like "quality"; especially for the early to mid 20th century time period.

I had issues sharpening the spare blade. I think oxidation has weakened the steel at the edge. Nonetheless, I tried finishing it on the Rolls hone, and stropping it on the Rolls strop. I don't have microscope images, but it was a disaster. The edge was chipped when I was done.

The shave was done with the "good" blade. I sharpened this one too, but that was more to do with worry about similarities with the spare one than the good blade's shave-ready condition.

The actual shave went just fine. The Rolls is basically a straight razor with a blade size and handle like an Ockmock (yes DJ I read your posts). I don't care for the balance of this affair, but was able to get a very close, comfortable shave from it.

Photo contest theme: Royals. Not the stretch of imagination you might think. I try to relate all themes to shaving. In this context, Truefitt & Hill are barbers and Royal Warrant holders to H.R.H. The Duke of Edinburgh. And, Floris claims Royal Warrants from King George IV and Queen Elizabeth II.

#photocontest

July 19, 2023 – Lather games day 19 – AKA What me worry?

• Brush: Sawdust Creations Studio Synthetic
• Razor: Chiseled Face Legacy
• Blade: Gillette Nacet (12)
• Lather: Cremo – Original
• Post Shave: Pinaud – Clubman

I don’t wear socks when on the clock. I could not, should not lather by sock. Yesterday I was jumping in the water off a dock. But today I’m supposed to lather with a sock. What a shock. This challenge I must balk. I don’t want to hear it, Just don’t talk.

CREMO is meh to me. So is Clubman. Perfect all around meh shave. Time for a new blade. Party on!

#Photocontest

July 19, 2023 – LG 19: CREAM

• Brush: Umbro Red Soccer Sock
• Razor: Gillette Ball End Tech
• Blade: Rapira Platinum Lux (5)
• Lather: St. James of London – Cedarwood & Clarysage
• Post Shave: St. James of London – Cedarwood & Clarysage
• Fragrance: Taylor of Old Bond Street – Jermyn Street

Spelling out the connection, London Products. With an English tech to boot.

For #FOF cedar wood and clary sage was just that, it’s in the name. Touch of floral rose too, but mostly a spicy, earthy sage complemented by wood. The AS gel was almost scentless compared to the cream, and had some more artificial hoopla going on. Jermyn street is one of those colognes that blends a bunch together making it so not much stands out. Heavy lemon and lime citrus, some herbaceous lavender rooted on top of a touch of musty musky patchouli.

Our #PHOTOCONTEST was sport. We all know the Brits put “u’s” in random places in words, but I always found it more interested how they add or drop and “s.” For examples, the photo category today was “sport” instead of sports. Or instead of math they say maths (pronounced maffs). Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to brew some Yorkshire gold, but seriously, if there’s one thing I got from me mum it’s a love for a proper cuppa.

challenge and video here. Sometimes we have to be creative for shenanigans, sometimes it’s forced upon us. I think the only way this could be worse is if you have a teenage son and you went to find a sock from their room…

soap brands 19/30, post shave 19/30, frag 18/30, post/frag linked 19/30, software sponsors 9/13, hardware sponsors 2/2, razor hashtags 9/15, brush hashtags 8/15, photo contest 19/30, daily challenges 17/25, special challenges 2/5

So nearly entered into the best photo contest but there's some weird tape worm on your socks.