LG23-19: CREAM

• Brush: Don’t need one my dude! I got this sock. Fancy gear is for suckers.
• Razor: Chiseled Face Titanium Legacy Razor
• Blade: Personna Lab Blue Super (52)
• Lather: Catie's Bubbles - Blugère - Luxury Cream Soap
• Post Shave: Southern Witchcrafts - Fougère Nemeta - Aftershave
• Fragrance: Motif Olfactif - Mon Oasis
• Passes: WTG, WTG Again Because Socks Should Stay on Your Feet
• Coffee: Peru, Cajamara - v: Geisha - p: Washed.
• Music: Disclosure - Alchemy
• LG Tags: #FOF

Lessons Learned From Lathering With a Sock:

1. Don’t lather with a sock. Ignore what tyrants on the internet tell you to do and let a WetTuber debase themselves for those ginormous sponsorship bucks. Something something something about jumping off a bridge. Don’t do it for the fame. Don’t do it for the glory. Don’t. Lather. With. A. Sock.
2. If you ignore the first lesson, reconsider.
3. If you ignore the second lesson, set aside lots of time for this shave. It’s going to be a while until your lather is ready.
4. Lather with a white sock. Colored fibers in your lather look gross.
5. Lather with a cotton sock, presumably. I got cute and tried an old merino wool ski sock with a hole in the toe. I think it was extra absorbent and sucked up soap and water like an open drain.
6. Squeeze the right amount of water out of your sock before you begin. I can’t tell you what the right amount is, but I can tell you to find that amount. Good luck.
7. Load heavy. Lathering with a sock uses much more soap than a brush. I scooped a big mound of soap and went back to the tub twice more; that yielded enough “lather”—and I'm putting that word in massive air quotes—for one pass and one application of runny, sudsy slop.
8. Use your hands. Use a bowl. Use an old soap tub you have laying around. Set the sock down when you start questioning how your life went wrong. Pick up the sock and keep at it. Rubbing the sock against itself didn’t do much, but rubbing the sock back and forth on my hands did, and I can’t explain this phenomenon. Friction is friction baby.
9. Squeeze the lather out of the sock, because rubbing it on your face does nothing except bury the lather in your sock.
10. Use that brush you got out to apply the lather. I forgot to use mine, but I suspect it would have given the lather structure. A boy can dream.
11. Use a gentle razor. You’re gonna need it.

Judges...please don’t make us do this again. Please. PLEASE. I know I won't be. I'll use the time I save to start recovering my dignity.

Now back to the shave.

Fougère Friday is right around the corner, but I'm using Blugère for 'dat CREAM, so I paired it with other fruity fougères in advance of a second glorious all-fougère shave later this week. One cannot have too many fougères.

I tried Blugère for the first time last year and this blueberry fougère immediately became one of my all-time favorites. Catie's Bubbles describes the blueberry note as fresh, "over a woody and green fougère construct," but that description doesn't capture it. The blueberry works because it's rich and sticky, like inky-violet compote just taken off the burner to cool. More importantly, the blueberry doesn't read like a novelty; the stout lavender, oakmoss and coumarin core is there, but an aromatic edge of basil and galbanum connects seamlessly with fruity tang. Genius.

My aftershave and fragrance are both lighter in tone (now we can say "fresh"), but like Blugère, they're defined by their unusual mashup of distinct fruit and fougère accords. Shawn’s seasonal for Southern Witchcrafts, Fougère Nemeta, is all about the strawberry. Petitgrain and cassis give the ruby-red berry a thorny zip (like fresh ripe strawberries do); galbanum, fig leaf, and vetiver make the foundation startlingly green. Shawn knows his way around a fougère.

I followed that up with one of my first bottle purchases—Motif Olfactif’s expectedly-relaxing Mon Oasis. More complex than either Blugère or Fougère Nemeta, this creamy delight is light, sweet, and yellow in tone, balancing a bright lavender, musky fruits, and pastoral aromatics. Mon Oasis revolves around the melon-like combination of yuzu and pear; barrel strength in the opening, then lush and honeyed through the rest of the progression. A bouquet of hay, tobacco, vetiver, and oakmoss defines the hazy drydown. Pear is a challenging note to work with, yet perfumer Oswald Paré uses it masterfully here and in Voile D'encens, where he combines it with potent, resinous incense. Neither sound like an easy fit, yet the musky-ripe fruit softens the fougère and sweetens the incense without becoming syrupy. He’s another perfumer to watch if this is how you like fruit in your fragrances.

July 19, 2023

• Brush: awesomesocks.club June 2023 Crew
• Razor: Gem MMOC
• Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
• Lather: Derby – Lemon
• Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. – Glacial, Lemon Chill
• Fragrance: American Perfumer – Lockdown

Yesterday, the judges asked us to torture them with our gross photos. Today, the tables have turned. Whoever came up with this idea should be banned from not just the sub, but from the act of wet shaving forever.

If I have to use a sock to lather and write about it/take photos, it seems like an apt opportunity to let people know about awesomesocks.club (shoutout to r/nerdfighters). It’s a monthly sock subscription where you get a pair of socks every month, designed by an independent artist, where all profits go to charity, specifically to help build healthcare systems in impoverished communities.

This is a great sock. However. A sock, no matter how great a sock, is not a great lathering tool. I knew I would need more cream than usual, so I dumped a bunch in my Timeless shaving bowl. This stuff is cheap, and I rarely ever use it, so I should have used more. This was the first mistake. Second mistake was to try to use the sock as a sock puppet, which created a terrible lather. Honestly, I don’t know if I can even legally call this a lather. I took the sock off my hand, wrung it out, and folded/bunched it up to try to create the shape of a brush. This was the best choice I could have made. Don’t get me wrong – the lather still sucked. But it was better than before, and it gave me just enough for one pass. So I grabbed the MMOC, because there was no way I was making another batch of lather. As u/RedMosquitoMM pointed out, putting it on your face (or for me, my head) with a brush is the way to go. The sock just soaks it up. I squeezed everything out of the sock, grabbed my Stirling Lil Brudder, and got a lackluster layer of soap on my head. The rest of the shave was…fine.

Lemon all the way down. Well, all the way until the parfum. Derby is straight lemon. Splash is straight lemon plus too much menthol (I can still feel it between my fingers). Lockdown, created by Mark Sage, was a wonderful surprise gift (sample) that was included in my last u/AmericanPerfumer order. It’s exactly the type of frag I love. The notes are listed as: lime, fig leaves, pink pepper, cardamom, cascarilla, elemi, ginger, myrrh, smoky incense, weeping cypress, jasmine, ylang ylang, labdanum, sandalwood, civet, musk. This all comes together perfectly. I feel like it pairs with the citrusy shave well, and gives me some balance and complexity after the lemon bomb. The incense and musky, amber notes aren’t what I would initially think to pair with lemon, but it really does work quite wonderfully. #FOF

P.S. Please don’t bring this challenge back next year. Please.

[edited due to typo]

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.

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.

• 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

July 19, 2023 – please kill me
Sock: Tommy Hilfiger - white sneaker socks * Razor: Custom designed Böker with bog oak scale and french head
Lather: Proraso – Sandalwood cream
Post Shave: Chiseled Face – Midnight Stag balm
Fragrance: Dior – Sauvage
Music:* [Arctic monkeys - Knee socks] (https://youtu.be/lyO-Sveg6a8)
#FOF

When I read todays challenge, I got excited at first. Juhu, Marquis can be silly again. Also, as my sub theme for today is “questionable scents”, what fits better than using a sock for lathering?

Dub di dub di du, I enter the bathroom. Did not want to wake up my girlfriend by looking through my sock collection so I picked a nice (dirty) sock I wore on the weekend or god nows when.
I do a nice SOTD picture and soak my sock. I soak all brushes, so why not soak my sock?

Daily Challenge and soap:
The first questionable scent is Proraso Red. I got it from u/djundjila last lather games and put that thing in quarantine. My girlfriend usually refers to stinky soaps as “Stag number 5”. I believe she erased all memory of Proraso red, as she never talked about it again. I still believe djundjila tricked me and mixed djunior snot with used wet tissue extract and vaseline, labeled it with Proraso red and send it to me. Back then there was no reason to do so, because I started the mocking when the games started. So maybe it was just djundilas shenanigans. But he agrees that Red is smelling bad. HE! That man has an extra fridge with stinky cheese!
So when DJ and me agree that Red is so bad, why is it questionable? Becase I often read on W_E that people love it. WTF?! Is W_E completely lost? Is it a regional thing like with american chocolate smelling like puke to europeans, because of the butter acid?
Let’s lather that baby snot poo soap.
Put a great amount of the sample on my wet sock and started rubbing. Barely anything. After a while I felt a little lather inside the sock. Maybe thats enough?
Let’s squeeze it…
Dear djudges: I am not here to kink shame. Yesterday was odd, but okay. Now this?
You want to watch me put lather jizz on my face? (I cant remember what I did with it. probably put it on my face and forgott about it)
Whats your idea for next week? ”Draw us a picture of dwarfs dressed in nothing but gladiator helmets and capes jumping into wedding cakes”
I got my brush out and with the last halve gram of the soap sample, I made some lather (if you can proraso call that). For a second, I thought that I might exagerate Prorasos scent. Then it hit me. The used baby wipe smell. To go with the challenge as far as possible, I used my dirty sock to apply the lather to my face.
Decide for yourself what your favorite is.
I felt the lather wandering inside the sock and barely going on y face. After the second pass there was barely any lather left for a third pass. I quit. I dont want to continue this shitty shave. There is so much stublle left, I dont want to touch my face today. Had to leave the bathroom to park my motorcycle so my gf could take her car. Thats why I did not use the aftershave imediately after the shave. I felt my skin go dry and stretching. #bestcreamever.
My morning was ruined. I just want to go to bed, sleep till tomorrow and hope to have a good shave again.

Aftershave:
Everyone here knows the Stag cult and everyone knows that a lot of people do not like the scent. Perfect for my questionable scent theme. Stag grew on me and the aftershave performance is awesome. That motoroil dirty car workshop scent. Reminds me of the time I worked in a car rental and drove to another workshop who was specialized on changing tires.

Fragrance:
Diors bestseller questionable? It got its reputation here. See, you cant take public transport without 3 people wearing Sauvage. It’s success is also its curse.
I have to admit, that it has the freshest bergamot I ever smelled. Patchoulli and vetiver, with lavender and a bit of pepper make this wearable and so approachable. In other words: it smells like biceps curls in the sqaut rack. Like that consultant with bleached teeth, who only talks about soccer or work. It’s the fragrance for the male basic bitch.

Day 19 - Cream

• Brush: Dirty Sock
• Razor: Baili - BR179
• Blade: Astra - Green
• Lather: Proraso - Green
• Post Shave: Catie's Bubbles - A Midnight Dreamy
• Fragrance: Montale - Intense Cafe

I am traveling and only packed enough socks. So today, I used a dirty sock. I kinda washed in the sink before. I guess you could call it a lather.

For the fragrance, I picked Intense Cafe. This was my first time using it. Definitely, more rose and powdery than I prefer, but it worked. Proraso added some green notes, but they will fade away soon.

ROTY #FOF

July 19, 2023 – Cream, cream, why are you still a theme?

• Brush: Red House Farm Wool Sock
• Razor: Schick Injector Type N1
• Blade: Schick Injector (11)
• Lather: Geo. F. Trumper – Extract of Limes
• Post Shave: Declaration Grooming – Peaches + Scream
• Fragrance: Imaginary Authors – A Whiff of Wafflecone

Challenge: What a terrible idea! I won a PIF from /u/grindermonk a while back for one of his soaps, and he threw in a pair of wool socks! I don’t wear wool often, but I know it’s very absorbent. Sounds perfect for making lather right? I lathered it buy rubbing both halves of the sock together, like I would a washcloth. It took a lot of soap. I rubbed the lather onto my face with the sock. It was hard to get enough soap on my face. It was a bad shave.

I didn’t have anything planned for today beyond using one of my Geo. F. Trumper cream samples. Are there really enough Geo Trumpers in the world to warrant the middle initial? This theme doesn’t really lend to scent pairings. So, rather than match the fragrance of the soap, I’ve organized the shave around the idea of cream.

Geo. F. Trumper Extract of Limes is a simple fragrance. It’s sweet. There’s not any sharpness to the citrus. It’s one-dimensional in the way a lot of these old timey shave like your grandpa branded products are.

Peaches and Scream is a set that I bought and never really used. I kind of regret not using it, because it smells really good. It’s very peachy. There’s a creaminess to it. There’s just a hint of something boozy, almost as if this was a liqueur.

I’m not a fan of A Whiff of Waffle Cone. It’s artificial and saccharine. But, there’s a fragrance note of ice cream, which fits today’s theme. This smells like caramelized sugar. There’s lots of vanilla. There’s a warm amber-like note that provides the waffle image. There’s a bit of cinnamon. It definitely makes me think of ice cream.

#FOF

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.

DAY 18 LATHER GAMES! SO CREAMY, MMM I LOVE IT!

• Prep: Water
• Brush: socks
• Razor: Blackland Vector
• Blade: Chinese(8)
• Lather: Nivea - Sensitive Shaving Cream
• Post Shave: Brut - Brut Oceans
• Fragrance: Jean Paul Gaultier - Le Male

​

PIC OR IT DIDN'T HAPPEN

​

THEME+DAILY CHALLENGE

Honestly I don't know where to start, cream itself for a start is bad enough, but then you add THIS daily challenge!?!?! I still can't figure out if the guy in the original video is a genius or an idiot! But someone should message him and tell him he inspired A WHOLE day of the LG, and that's quite the achievement!

Well I'm not sure if I ever used this Nivea since last year, but it definitely has gotten a lot more thicker than then, maybe in about 2-3 years it might calcify itself inside the tube(cause all them good ingredients). In general I'm not a fan of creams, this day, budget day and drug store day are my least favourite cause of the fact of what I have to use... I know I know, I just wanna moan and vent!

Now for the challenges I tried two ways to lather with socks:

- In my opinion, this video is THE BEST way to make a lather with a sock!!! No second opinion needed!!!

- The video of the second method shows that it is more practical and boring, but it does the job.....

​

#FOF

The whole combination of scents is very chemical, Brut Oceans is a better variant of the green Brut, still it has that cheap-o smell to it. No offence to Le Male, but it fits great with all the scents! Just an average smelling shave...

• Daily Lather Themes: 19/30
• Daily Challenges: 19/30
• Hardware Scavenger Hunt: 14/20
• Hardware Vendor Points: 1/2
• Software Vendor Points: 8/13
• Software Vendor Bonus Point: 0/1
• 30 Different Soap Brands Point: 19/30
• 30 Different Soaps On Theme Bonus Point: 19/30
• 30 Different Post-Shaves Bonus Point: 19/30
• 30 Different Fragrances Bonus Point: 19/30

July 19, 2023 - Cream

• Pre Shave: Proraso - Crema Pre Barba - Pelli Sensibili
• Brush: Sock with a Golfer on it
• Razor: Karve CB Solid Bar
• Blade: Gillette Minora Stainless
• Lather: Proraso - Sapone De Barba - Pelli Sensibili
• Post Shave: Proraso - Balsamo Dopobarba - Pelli Sensibili
• Fragrance: Chatillon Lux - Agua Fresca

FOF

Today’s Cream, umm Theme:

I have a limited number of shaving creams. I got a gift set of Proraso Sensitive (White) over a year ago. I don’t use it enough, but for today, I doubt anything else would have worked as well as this did.

Today’s Challenge:

Lather with a sock is up there with shaving in the kitchen as a thing I wouldn’t do unless it was part of a contest. Well here we are. I chose my sock with a golfer on it since The Open Championship starts tomorrow. I though to make it easier, start with a huge dollop of the cream. I don’t think that helped. I started with wetting the sock and trying to make lather in my bowl. It was pretty pasty (perfect for tomorrow), so more water. I got what seemed like it may work, but everytime I added more water, the sock just soaked up more of the water and soap. First pass was pretty thick. The razor clogged a few times, but it felt like it was slick at least. More water, but more disappeared into the sock. I thought since the sock was a cotton/poly/spandex blend, it wouldn’t soak up as much as a mostly cotton one would. For the remaining shave, I had to squeeze out a bit of lather to get enough on the face. I was left with a very soapy sock. I don’t see this becoming much of a fad after today. To add a bit more sock to the shave, I rinsed and wrung out the sock, then used it to wipe the excess lather off my face.

Today’s Fragrance:

The set of Proraso I used has a very mild and pleasant scent. Proraso says it is a light lime and apple scent. The oatmeal and green tea are there to sooth irritated skin. I didn’t pick up a tea or oatmeal scent anyway. All three products smelled about the same. I thought of a few of my scents that could work here. Dr. Jons - Hydra would definitely work, but I already used it. If I had the EdP of Noble Otter - Thè Noir et Vanille or even Rawr could work, but I don’t have them. I have another EdP that I’m planning for tomorrow. I reached yet again into that versatile box of sample from Chatillon Lux. Agua Fresca is mostly a blend of fruit scents plus vetiver and cream. I can get the melon, pineapple, and maybe some cucumber and the yuzu. The rest is just fruity to me. I’m really not positive I’m getting the yuzu since pineapple I think has a fairly citrus note to it even though not a citrus fruit. The melon is probably covering up the cucumber, or the melon I am picking up blends very well with the cucumber. There are really a lot of scents that could work with this Proraso scent since it is very mild, and would not likely clash with much of anything, but I’m trying to pick things that can tie to the soap scent. There are a couple days coming up that will probably have fitting the theme dictate what choices I have more than matching things up, plus I have now used close to half of the EdP/EdT fragrances in my den.

Todays Haiku Effort:

Socks are not good brushes.

Really they are terrible.

Awful for lather.

July 19, 2023 – Running Sock Cream Day

• Brush: Darn Tough Running Sock
• Razor: Merkur 34C
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• Lather: Cremo – Original
• Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. – Mountain Man

First, just why? Second, I went for a 4 mile run (ok yes it was two 2 milers back to back, but I had to pee and the house we’re staying at in Michigan was the perfect stop). Gravel roads are some of the best to run on – so much easier on these knees. It’d also help if I lost another 20 pounds, but what’s the fun in that.

Anyway, I tell you this not because I’m flexing the run (just look at the time, it’s not worth flexing) – but to give you the back story of the sock I used to lather. 4 miles in some stinky running shoes before soaking, creaming, rubbing, soaking again, and finally settling for a not so bad first lathering. First pass went A-OK.

Then, the sock just ate my lather and I didn’t bring that much with so I couldn’t just keep loading the sock up. So pass two looked like this and by the end this was what I had for pass 3 which, needless to say, did not go well. I spared the photos because this is not r/wicked_edge, after all. We’re dignified over here, remember?

How am I supposed to explain one cream filled soaking wet sock to my wife when she does laundry tomorrow? I can’t tell her I rubbed that thing on my face, how humiliating.

Overall, the shave sucked. Big shock. I don’t generally enjoy shaving post workout because it leads to razor burn and now you Neanderthals thought it would be fun to make me lather with a sock. Just listen.

The scent on Cremo is fine. Cremo describes it as a citrusy smell and I guess I get that – it really just smells like the Cremo base with a little bit of citrusy lemon mixed in. I did sniff the Silver Water & Birch variety today and that was nice. Not $10 nice, but, nice. Mountain main will pair with about anything and it worked well here to cover up any sweaty sock stench, plus my wife likes it.

Anyway – the Merkur 34c performed well, I tried to learn from some earlier participants and use a nice, mild razor. I don’t know that it really helped such a dry shave experience, but, using a feather in a Blackbird would have been worse, I guess.

Anyway. Screw you, creator of this challenge, I hope you get awful sleep tonight (and nothing more because really it’s not that bad and I’m not a monster like you)!

FOF Haiku of the day

Sweaty Running sock
Citrusy cream spread thinly
Thankful no sweat stank

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

July 19, 2023

• Brush: Adidas Ankle sock
• Razor: Gillette Executive Fatboy
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
• Lather: Geo F. Trumper – Coconut Oil Shaving Cream
• Post Shave: Clubman – Citrus Musk Splash
• Fragrance: Azzaro - Chrome Sport

You know, here I was thinking now that I got my open blade hashtags out of the way, I’d be on easy street. Then I saw the challenge for today and I thought it was weird as hell. Then I tried the challenge for today and I didn’t enjoy it. For the life of me, I can’t understand why anyone ever decided to do this. In every post I’ve done so far, I think I always lead with the shave, then end with the challenge, but this one was so intertwined, that the challenge has to come first.

It was a bad day to be a guy with a tiny sample of Geo F. Trumper, that’s for sure. Used this whole MFer on the challenge and honesty could’ve used more. I didn’t get a good lather, didn’t enjoy it, and I can’t see the point. But, since this is my first Lather Games, I’m assuming there’s some story here and legend behind it, so I’m just rolling with it. After I built my “lather”, I switched the gold Fatboy to its most mild setting and gave it a go. I haven’t had a shave or lather this bad since I first started wetshaving. I really hope this fraction of a point ends up pushing me into the next spot or something, because this one was not enjoyable.

For the scents of the shave, since the Coconut Oil Shaving Cream smells sweet and tropical, I used a citrus aftershave splash thinking it may smell like a tropical drink or something. Wrong. I bought a few samples of Clubman aftershave because they were cheap. And now I know why they are cheap. The scent of this one didn’t quite meet my expectations. There’s a tiny bit of citrus hiding in this aftershave, but I wouldn’t say it smells good. For the cologne, I used Azzaro – Chrome Sport, which is also a citrus scent. Fortunately, the fragrance smells a lot better than the aftershave did. My plan of doing like a complete tropical, citrus drink didn’t quite go to plan, but at least I tried. #FOF