July 14, 2023 – Frigid Friday
- Brush: APShaveCo w/ 24mm Cashmere Fan
- Razor: Muhle R41 Grande
- Blade: Wizamet (9)
- Lather: Gillette – Pure
- Post Shave: Declaration Grooming – Chaipre
Challenge: I shaved against the grain on the my sideburns, cheeks, and around my chin which was the most difficult part.
This is the APShaveCo brush available at the razor company.
Gillette Pure is marketed as a “soothing shave cream with aloe” on the label. Menthol is among the listed ingredients. I’m not sure if Gillette still sells this. It’s not on their website. This was their premium shave cream that could be found in Walgreens. The instructions say to rub the cream on your face and lather with your hands or a brush. It doesn’t say anything about adding water, but I decided it needed some. It didn’t begin to lather until i had worked some water into it. Like canned goo, this dried out quickly on my face, despite my efforts to hydrate it. Slickness is better than Barbasol, but there’s not really any secondary slickness; not ideal for today’s challenge.
There’s nothing special with the fragrance of Pure. It’s a generic powdery barbershop that smells like baby powder. It smells clean.
This is an older Declaration Grooming splash that includes menthol in the ingredients list. It's a pleasant level of cooling for someone like me who isn't a Cryogen masochistic. Chaipre is an awesome fragrance, probably my favorite original fragrance from Scott. I get a mixture of cardamom, citrus oil, fresh green notes similar to eucalyptus, moss, sweet citrus, and tea. This bottle goes with a tub of soap in the Icarus base. I think that makes it the OG Chaipre. I’m curious how V2 compares.
I don’t know if there’s such a thing as cooling cologne. If there is, I certainly don’t have any. Instead, I’ve chosen something thematically chilly, Snowy Owl. There’s a note in this that’s meant to smell like snow. I kind of get that, but there’s a honeydew melon quality to it. The fragrance right now is soft and clean, with slight vanilla sweetness. I detect a bit of a musk, and a hint of an animalic note.
After drydown, the musk and animalic notes are easier to smell. Some amber and incense come out. It’s a nice fragrance. It’s somewhat feminine. It feels elegant.
#FOF