u/kind_simian's SOTDs for challenge 'Lather Games 2024'

LG SOTD 01Jun2024

• Brush: Stirling G&W - 24mm two band (tuxedo) synthetic
• Razor: Karve - CB SB-C (Copper) #RUSTYBUTTRUSTY
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (4)
• Lather: Tabac - New Formulation
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Hello, beautiful people! Welcome to the first shave of the 2024 Lather Games, an exhibition competition where the love of shaving meets excessive consumption. Today's theme is "Bonjour Lather Games" and involves shaving with a brand of lather never tried before. There are hundreds of soap brands out there I haven't tried and I'm choosing to pop my Tabac cherry - not sure what that says about me.

Today's razor is one of my "three horsemen", the Karve Christopher Bradley made of solid copper. There is some minor "new to you" going on here - using a new SB-C baseplate that arrived just two days ago. I bought it with a D-plate and it's amazing to shave with, but it's also at the aggressiveness limit for my face. It was a once a week only razor so hoping the C-plate will tame it down enough that I have the option of using it multiple days.

This razor is also my #RUSTYBUTTRUSTY entry. This is what it looked like shortly after I got it, and here it is today.

The brush is Stirling's Synthetic Two Band knot in their Green & White handle. It's the most basic looking brush in my chosen seven. It remains in the daily rotation because the knot is both very good but also unique among the many synthetic knots I've used. Stirling can call it a two band synth if they want, but it's a tuxedo knot. The fibers don't feel like Yaqui's tuxedo fibers that are used widely - Not sure where they sourced the fibers, but I really enjoy the uniqueness of the knot.

Alright, onto the Tabac. I've seen many "Tabac Tuesdays" come and go and didn't know what I was missing out on until today... I cut a small piece off the puck and pressed into the CaYuen logo and got to working. Worked up easily, about what I expected from a hard soap like this. Took more water than I thought it would. Makes a decent lather, not as creamy as I would like but good enough for me. It's not that slick, but sufficient and had no issues shaving. Where it was a dud was zero residual slickness - reapplied lather far more than usual. Post shave feel is surprisingly good for how the shave was - expected my skin to feel dry but it's alright - not so great I'm going to skip shave balm today, but not bad. The fragrance was a bit herbal/medicinal off the puck but not unpleasant. It kept that same smell throughout the shave. Not very strong and soon faded. I was expecting something much more from descriptions, but it's a basic mass produced old-timey men's cosmetic scent, have had much worse from Stirling and BaM.

Conclusion: You all can keep your Tabac Tuesdays. Maybe the tallow version was different, but I can't imagine why I would choose this over so many other soaps - it's mid for fragrance and proctectiveness/slickness, ok on post-shave, and bottom of the barrel for residual slickness. Other than being cheap and old, it's not doing anything particularly well.

As for the C-plate, I'll have to wait for tomorrow to tell for sure, but this was as good a shave and face isn't quite so "fresh" looking as when using the D-plate. Fingers crossed.

Enjoy your weekend, enjoy your shaves, and good luck in the Lather Games

LG SOTD 02Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Caramel - 26mm cat whiskers synthetic
• Razor: Karve - Overlander (Brass) #CNC
• Blade: Personna - “Lab Blue” (4)
• Lather: Zingari Man - The Watchman
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Zingari Man - Shave Balm, The Watchman

Happy Sunday, beautiful people! Welcome to the second shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is "Ahoy, Lather Games!" where the goal is to shave with something like Bay Rum, an Old Spice dupe, or another nautically themed product. I don’t like bay rum or old spice so I was relieved that the lighthouse theme of The Watchman qualified for today.

While I don’t have much experience of being in lighthouses, I did live two blocks from the beach for about a year back in the 90s, and this soap captures that seaweed and brine smell of walking along the beach at night beautifully. This is my favorite from Zingari Man (c.f. matching balm).

Today's razor is another of my "three horsemen", the Karve Overlander made of solid brass. I love this razor almost as much as I love my Ti22. While it lacks the customization options of Karve’s CB, it’s a better designed razor and shows the learning that took place between the two models. The aggression-efficiency are spot on for me so no other options isn’t an issue.

This razor is also my #CNC. Of course, any of the ten different razors in my collection at the moment would qualify but let’s pick this one. I’ve never seen a modern razor that wasn’t CNC made I would consider. I’m actually waiting on first non-CNC razor, a vintage TTO Gillette. Zamak can suck a bag of…

The brush is Yaqi’s Caramel with a 26mm “cat’s whiskers” synthetic knot, their newest fiber. Seems to be their answer to the G7 and A2S fibers from DSCosmetics. The DSCosmetic G7 was superior to the G5 knots but still very stiff. The newer A2S is much softer but floppier. Yaqi’s cat’s whiskers still has nice backbone but is less stiff and more soft than the G7 - hits a sweet spot between the G7 and A2S. It may replace the synbad as my favorite synthetic knot but still need time for full assessment.

As to the daily challenge, I salute the inanity it takes to win something like this. Clearly u/Priusaurus is a cut above me for dedication. I know I have no chance of winning with someone who has proven they will pander in the extreme to judges and arbitrary categories equally 🫡

Enjoy what is left of your weekend!

LG SOTD 03Jun2024

• Brush: AP Shave Ocean Waves - 26mm synbad fan synthetic
• Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium
• Blade: Clifton - Classic (1)
• Blade: Muster - Shaver (1)
• Lather: Chicago Grooming - Armonia
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Shave Balm, Embrace

Happy Monday, beautiful people! Welcome to the third shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is "Where’s the Beef?" where the goal is to shave with something using an animal fat other than the usual beef tallow. I am shaving with Chicago Grooming’s Armonia, a collaboration between them and House of Mammoth in CG’s Darkwing base that uses duck fat as its source of animal fats.

This is my first time with either the base or the scent. I am shaving today courtesy of u/schontzm, who generously provided me with four smushes of soaps last month to round out some categories.

The razor is none other than my numero uno, the head horsemen, the Henson Medium Ti22. Other than the Overlander, nothing is in the same tier for me. Reliable AF. From the first time I held a Henson in my hand my perspective on DE razors was altered permanently.

The brush is the premier brush in my collection, a handcrafted brush from Andrew’s periodic drops, I had it set with a 26mm synbad set low to give some backbone and it is fantastic. I love this thing, it’s why it’s the Monday brush - distracts a bit from, well, Monday.

Onto the shave. I got these smooshes last month and have been waiting to dig in. This was the most promising smelling off the smoosh and happy can work it in on day 3 (and score another software sponsor while at it).

The base was very good, reminded me of tusk (no surprise there) and I would definitely try Chicago Grooming soaps again. Fragrance off the puck smelled more pure tobacco leaning but lathered there’s a spice-wood undertone that comes out as strong as the tobacco. I’m not convinced it’s tub worthy based on this shave but I enjoyed the first impression. Post-shave was good, suspect I could have skipped the balm.

——

This is not the part where I write about my Osma block for the daily challenge. Alum (aka aluminum sulfate) is a metallic salt and chemical irritant that is used to treat sewage, purify water, make paper, and tan leather. On a smaller scale, it can be used to pickle food and can be used to control localized bleeding with pinpoint application via a styptic pencil. It stops the bleeding the same way it makes your skin feel tighter (or aids in tanning leather for that matter): by denaturing proteins in the contractile fibers of the tissues so they contract tightly and don't release.

As a kid, my dad had a box of powdered alum from the kitchen section in the medicine cabinet to deal with small cuts - this is the single legit use of alum with shaving. I don't know why alum bars exist.

Start at the top since already mentioned it:

• It makes your skin feel better and tighter... yes at the expense of a damaging, irritating, chemical pulling of moisture out of your skin and denaturing of structural proteins in the skin. Saying alum is good for skin is approaching saying pirahna solution is good for weight loss. There are a gazillion products out there that are actually designed to improve your skin condition and any of them are better than alum. The "it's been used since ancient times and is considered safe" is an "appeal to antiquity" and is only evidence it isn’t acutely dangerous. I don't care how long people have been mildly poisoning themselves, this is straight from the safety data sheet for aluminum sulfate: In case of skin contact: Take off immediately all contaminated clothing. Rinse skin with water/ shower. It's particularly called out for danger to the eyes with this, Immediately call in ophthalmologist". But lets rub it all over our faces and wait a minute for it to soak in before rinsing, ugh

• It has antimicrobial properties... yes, technically true, and still a terrible argument. If you washed your face before shaving that was anti-microbial. Shaving with shave soap? Yep, anti-microbial too. Alcohol splash? You know it, anti-microbial. And if you left the alum on your face, it might even be good at it (why it can be used as "natural" deodorant), but even the snake-oil businesses pushing this stuff know that would be too irritating for most people, so they tell you to rinse it off and therefore it's doing next to nothing to kill microbes. Of course, the notion that much of anything in our shave routine should be anti-microbial is itself a stretch. Our skin should have a healthy biota of skin commensals living on the surface (source - am senior microbiologist at large biopharma).

• It aids the newer shaver by providing feedback... sure, so wouldn't gasoline. I have this amazing evolutionary adaptation called nerve endings and when my face is genuinely irritated those nerve endings do their job and let me know I went too ham. There is something sublimely stupid about encouraging people to slather their skin with a chemical irritant to find the irritation (hint - it's coming from inside the house!). If you have to use any irritant, including alcohol, to detect the sort of micro cuts and abrasions that shaving can cause, they weren't serious enough to worry about detecting in the first place.

• It stops/prevents razor burn... by dehydrating to death the nerve endings that would have complained at your poor shaving technique. Someone saying alum prevented razor burn means they used a very crude anaesthetic to stop them from feeling the effects of irritation which in turn prevented the inflammation that would have otherwise resulted. A witch hazel including splash would give a similar temporary anaesthetic effect without the degree of persistent damage.

Of the arguably positive things that some users might like about alum, there are better alternatives. Witch hazel also provides skin tightening, anti-microbial & anti-fungal properties, and shaving feedback without the deliberate slathering of chemical irritants on your face. But better yet, figure out how to shave without leaving so much irritation. Technique and/or gear make a lot of products pointless, especially alum. No idea why this continues to be a LG category.

NOTE: LG judges may disregard the below, or not, do what you want, you’re the judges.

——

The Tournament of Blades Fight 419, Round 1. Clifton - Classic (Bangladesh) vs Muster - Shaver (Turkey)

Both blades were good and perfectly shavable. The Muster had slightly better glide and more comfortable on chin and jawline.

Winner of R1: Muster - Shaver

LG SOTD 04Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Ever-hopeful - 24mm cat whiskers synthetic #RESURRECTIONBRUSH
• Razor: Karve - Bison (Blue) #RAINBOW
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (2)
• Lather: Barrister and Mann - Lavender
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Shave Balm, Lavender

Happy Tuesday, beautiful people! Welcome to the fourth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is "K.I.S.S.” where we shave with a soap that markets itself with but a single note. I have a few soaps that could have qualified but only one I wanted to use: BaM’s amazeballs Lavender. Every time I use this soap the first thought is this smells incredible… quickly followed by questioning how, out of all the shave soaps BaM made, this was discontinued. One true note or not, this is a lavender unlike any other I’ve smelled, and it ruins every other lavender for me.

The razor, my #RAINBOW entry, is Karve’s most recent razor, the Bison in anodized blue aluminum. The Bison is a Henson AL13 with some pizazz. That’s good. The Bison also very much mimics the best selling Henson version, the mild or + aggression. That’s not so good for me. Hoping a more aggressive version is released.

The brush is my #RESURRECTIONBRUSH entry. It is from a line of Ever-ready tributes that Yaqi has oh so slyly named Ever-hopeful. It features their new cat’s whiskers knot in 24mm. I got a 26mm (shave two’s Caramel handle) and this 24mm with the knot and, for now, the smaller knot is preferable.

I haven’t used the Bison much but I do like the razor’s design - the partially hollowed handle is particularly nicely done. It’s only real flaw is the aggression needs bumped a notch. This would not work for daily shaving. I doubt the shave is visually different from what any of my three regular razors would leave, but the feel (remaining stubble) is distinctly different. This razor would need to be a two-pass shave for me and that’s something I only do on the weekend occasionally. Nonetheless, I enjoyed the shave a lot, it’s a nimble razor.

——

Today’s shave was using Barrister and Mann’s Omnibus base. Bases determine all but the fragrance of your shave and we are the beneficiaries of years of competition.

The base wars are never ending. There are hundreds of soap bases out there, far more soaps than any one of us could hope to sample efficiently. So we rely on the so-called wisdom of the crowd for guidance on what to try as we seek to find the base to rule all bases. It's a competition seemingly without end. As one artisan withdraws from the fray, another decides they should be sapponifying fats into shave soap. Artisans that have carved out a space for themselves return to the lab and release new iterations of soap bases in pursuit of shaving perfection and driving their competition before them.

The fallen bases that have graced my face are Talbot Shaving and Dr. Jon's representing entire discontinued brands. I've also used A&E's first gen Kaizen and Barrister and Mann's Excelsior, Soft Heart, and Reserve bases. The only one I miss in any way is BaM's Excelsior. Excelsior is a great base, better than the majority of in production soap bases, that's how mad of a lad Will is. That leads me to my favorite in production base, BaM's Omnibus, the only base worthy of replacing Excelsior. Omnibus is somehow an improvement over Excelsior, it's been made all but idiot proof, and equals or exceeds performance of any other soap I've tried. And if Omnibus should somehow fall, HoM's Tusk isn't far behind it.

Enjoy your day

LG SOTD 05Jun2024

• Brush: N/A - we don’t need no stinking brushes.
• Razor: Gillette - Fusion 5 ProGlide
• Blade: Gillette - Fusion 5
• Lather: Gillette - Fusion ProGlide Sensitive Gel + Skincare
• Bowl: N/A - we don’t need bowls where we’re going
• Post Shave: Aqua Velva - Classic Ice Blue Cooling After Shave

Happy hump day, beautiful people! Welcome to the fifth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is "Canned Shave Goop” where we shave with, you guessed it, canned goo available locally.

I have skipped the versions of this theme in previous Lather Games - didn’t want to debase my precious face with such inferior products, but it’s been over three years since I last used the goo, so not only am I going to use the goo, going to go for the full experience.

For today’s shave using a selection of goods purchased at the nearby Target. The razor and gel were here, my wife and daughter both use them. Added the Aqua Velva to the den for the challenge to give it that extra authentic touch.

The razor is Gillette’s Fusion 5 ProGlide, a cartridge razor I’ve never tried. Borrowed a Fusion 5 handle from my wife and will shave using a fresh basic Fusion 5 cartridge.

Lather is the Gillette ProGlide gel, a product I used to use regularly. I’m a little confused regarding the daily challenge, “Reverse Lather Routine”. Though I am a bowl latherer usually, this doesn’t seem like reversing so much as totally changing it up. No brush, no bowl, just some gel squirted into the palms and rubbed over the face until evenly coated and worked in. Is that face lathering? I’ll let the judges decide, but while I could have used a brush just because, that would have hurt the purity of revisiting the mass produced drugstore experience.

The post shave Aqua Velva is also new to me. Growing up it was all Afta all the time with my dad and I never ventured beyond. By the time I was a depraved shave junkie I was buying the hard stuff like BaM and HoM. I figured this was a good excuse to try something that’s been around more than a century 👴🏻

The shave was banal, that’s the best word for it. Immediately brought me back to what nudged me to look into DE razors. Lather was perfectly adequate and no more. Wetted the razor after every few inches to compensate for the sludge of canned goo. Functional, no discomfort, but no glide to speak of, just this slow pace of “dragging” the cartridge head over my face. The resulting shave was good, no complaints on the results, but found no joy in the actual shaving.

The Aqua Velva was the most surprising element. Was expecting something in the aquatic zone of scents and instead this is much more vegetal and has notes that remind me of that lingering note in Vespers and FMOM more than whatever it was my brain was expecting. The “cooling” was more of a slow burning on my jaw but experience was otherwise not unpleasant though not enough to convert me. This is going into the “strategic reserve” box after today.

Enjoy your day, a weekend approaches

LG SOTD 06Jun2024

• Brush: Fuller Bakelite - 20mm x 48mm synthetic (refurbished by TSF) #SMOLL #RUNT #FRANKENBRUSH
• Razor: Gillette - Blue Star Lady Gillette (1964-J1)
• Blade: BIC - Astor (1)
• Lather: Talent Soap Factory - Oktoberfest
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Thursday, beautiful people! Welcome to the sixth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Thirsty Thursday” where we shave with a lather inspired by a beverage.

I am going with Talent Soap Factory’s Oktoberfest, a limited edition scent they produced last year to celebrate the Oktoberfest beer festival. I’m not sure what all is supposed to be in here scent wise, this was provided to me as a “first time customer” sample from TSF and the marketing verbiage is no longer up, but if you’ve ever been somewhere with a lot of beer drinking (and spilling) going on, outdoors, in the sun, where volatiles waft readily, you have a good idea what this smells like.

The brush, in addition to fitting the vintage nature of the razor and being refurbished by the same artisan as my lather, is my triple threat #SMOLL #RUNT #FRANKENBRUSH entry for the Lather Games. A vintage handle from the mid-20th re-knotted with a modern 20mm synthetic and set with 48mm loft.

The razor is a bit special, it’s a mint condition Blue Star Lady Gillette, and today will be using it for the first time.

The Wet Tuber daily challenge is another returning challenge I always passed on. This year I’m going to change that up and fulfill the requirement of being a wet tuber for a day. So, if you have 8 minutes, here you go:

Kind Simian’s Wet Tuber for a day shave

For those that can’t or don’t want to watch, I recently acquired a couple of vintage razors, aka the ones I found with long handles. I shave with the Lady Gillette and it’s ok. Shave is close, no issues there. Wound up with some minor nicks on my throat but nothing major. Later this month I’ll have another vintage razor shave.

Enjoy your Thursday, people!

Very informative post and video for wet shavers interested in vintage gear. Check out that sexy razor!

LG SOTD 07Jun2024

• Brush: Anbbas Black Resin - 21mm synthetic badger #FAUXFUR
• Razor: Henson - AL13 Mild (Copper Colored) #STAINLESSLESS
• Blade: Treet - Falcon
• Lather: Ariana & Evans - Vetiver Magnifique
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: Stirling - Shave Balm, Unscented

Happy Friday, beautiful people! Welcome to the seventh shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Vetiver you Want?” where we shave with a lather focused on vetiver.

Vetiver is a strange note - it isn’t much of a fragrance itself, how it’s perceived is down to what it’s paired with. Blend one way and you’ve got the organic smell wafting off a field of growing wheat after a gentle rain… blend another and you have a 50 gallon drum of fermenting, sweaty socks from the local high school athletic department.

Today trying a sample from Maggard of Ariana & Evans - Vetiver Magnifique. Off the puck it smells of vetiver over wood, which upon looking up the description makes sense - this is the marketing verbiage, “Our Vetiver is green & woody, with some pepper notes, before giving way to vetiver, tobacco and tonka bean. A fresh woody accord for a fragrance with authentic elegance.” Hoping that translates to, “does not smell of nasty socks” 🙂

The brush was my first shave brush and I did pretty good for something off Amazon. It’s a simple black resin handle set with a 21mm synthetic badger knot making it a qualifying #FAUXFUR. The fibers from wherever they were sourced could still hold their own against more recent types. It found its way to the box of misfit shave gear because the handle is very simple and the knot is smaller than I came to prefer. It’s a little brush that can with an owner that buys too much stuff 😅

The razor was chosen based on the daily challenge of shaving against the grain, one pass. Yesterday was my first use of the Lady Gillette (same razor head as a Super Speed) and first impressions were just ok. In addition to some throat nicks, just a more irritating shave than hoped, so going against the grain - something I almost never do - calls for the mildest razor I have. That would either be the Bison or the AL13 Mild, and already used the Bison this week so AL13 Mild it is. Using a carbon steel blade from Treet in it for the #STAINLESSLESS hardware hunt.

Onto the shave report - alas, this vetiver scent fell closer to the sock side of the line for me. It would come on almost like a sandalwood, then there was some of the pepper, blending to make an almost smoky note right before: GYM SOCKS!!! I will be throwing this sample straight in the strategic reserve box in case this theme returns.

The single ATG pass was fine except on my chin and the jaw line near the chin. This is a tricky zone even with the grain and I would have preferred to go back over it the right way but there is a whole 0.2 points on the line so I’ll live with the “stubble”.

Enjoy your Friday people! We have nearly reached the weekend 🎉🥳

LG SOTD 08Jun2024

• Brush: Maggard W&B - 24mm G&W (SilkSmoke) synthetic
• Razor: Henson - AL13 Aggressive (Metallic Gray)
• Blade: Rapira - Platinum Lux (1)
• Lather: Maggard Razors - Limes & Bergamot
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Aftershave Balm, Lavender

Happy Saturday, beautiful people! Welcome to the eighth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Small Business Saturday” where we pay tribute to a major enabler of the hobby, Maggard Razors, by using Maggard’s own soaps. I am expanding upon the minimum theme requirements and everything used today was purchased from Maggard Razors.

Like many of the participants here, I long ago abandoned any notion of saving money through wetshaving. I've run the numbers. Compared to when I shaved like "Canned Shave Goop" day, it would take four decades to break even assuming it were somehow possible to stop buying anything. Of course, while I could conceivably stop buying hardware, my software will run out long before the 2060s. I guess profligate shaver for life it is lol.

My descent into becoming a disgusting shave junkie began slowly. December 2020 I started lurking and researching. March 2021 ordered first razor. April 2021 ordered first soap and brush. June 2021 is when it went off the rails. I participated in my first Lather Games. I moved beyond Amazon and placed orders with West Coast Shaving, Razor Blades Club, The Razor Company, and Maggard Razors, a.k.a. wetshaving enablers.   * West Coast Shaving: 2 orders, average value $41. * Razor Blades Club: 10 orders, average value $36 * The Razor Company: 11 orders, average value $34

But the biggest dealer of general shave goods has been Maggard Razors. I am up to eighteen (18) orders, about one every two months, with an average dollar value of $59. The largest single order with Maggard was in August 2022. On that order, I purchased the Maggard brush I’m using today, two tubs of soap, and ten soap samples - total price was about $81. Not that big or stupid, but that’s how they get me, one uber convenient moderate sized order at a time.

The oldest piece of gear used today is the copper Capn’s Choice bowl, originally ordered October 2021. This is a great bowl. Used it happily for two years when I upgraded to the CaYuen, which gets most of my attention now.

Next would be the Rapira Plat Lux blades, ordered those May 2022.

I originally ordered the soap as a sample along with the White & Blue Maggard brush in August 2022. Later upgraded to a tub in February 2023.

Maggard’s Limes & Bergamot is my favorite citrus scent - bright and clean with none of the dullness of some citrus scents and none of cloying cologne-adjacent notes of others. Just shove your face in freshly halved fruit olfactory goodness.

The brush, though, was not long for standard rotation. The SilkSmoke knot turned out both too floppy and set too high for my preferences.

Picked up the Henson AL13 Aggressive in Oct 2022. They only make one batch of AL13 Aggressive a year and only sell them through retailers. Spotted it was back in stock at Maggard and threw in a half dozen samples while at it as you do.

Last and youngest is the aftershave balm. Ordered in Feb 2024 after u/BostonPhotoTourist shocked me when he announced that Lavender (except as a bath bar 🤔) was being discontinued. Headed online to get a reserve tub and decided to try BaM’s aftershave balm while at it (and buy a razor handle and a couple of samples since I was there 😅).

In short, Maggard does a good job of keeping a large and varied selection of shave goods available, just waiting to help me scratch an itch, and ships quickly. Like any good dealer 😉

Onto the shave. Happy to be shaving like a normal person today. The Henson +++ is not the best example of what makes a Henson a Henson (the small nick under my nose speaks to that 😬) - it is treated like the proverbial redheaded stepchild by Henson Shaving for solid reasons but it’s still a better shaver than many razors I’ve used. I would place the Henson +++ head just below my Karve CB with a D-plate on aggression/efficiency.

The nick under the nose was only down side, otherwise a pleasing shave followed by BaM’s balm in Lavender - and my chin is clean shaven unlike yesterday 😃

Enjoy your weekend!

LG SOTD 09Jun2024

• Brush: Omega S10005 - 24mm boar synthetic #OLDWORLD
• Razor: Karve - Christopher Bradley SB-C (Copper)
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (5)
• Lather: West Coast Shaving (Duck Fat) - Pear-brrr Shoppe
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Sunday, beautiful people! Welcome to the ninth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Shave and Haircut - Two Bits” where we shave with a barbershop themed lather.

I am using West Coast Shaving’s Pear-brrr Shoppe in their duck fat base. The packaging is the only description of this scent and part of why I haven’t found a good reason to place an order with WCS since back in 2021.

“A cooling fruit barbershop scent”

Cooling 🤔

There is not now, nor has there ever been, a cooling agent in this soap. I bought my tub three years ago and they still have the same packaging featured on their website. They also still have no standalone scent description or notice that the soap is not, in fact, cooling. That’s the sort of professionalism and attention to detail that does not engender customer loyalty 😉

That aside, it is a lightly fruity clean scent in the broad genre of clean smelling scents that get shoved under “barbershop”. The base itself is essentially a less expensive - for WCS that is, they’re still charging HoM and BaM tier prices to us - version of Chicago Grooming’s Darkwing base (WCS is another brand they produce under contract). The scent isn’t quite spot on for pear but it’s close enough that the punny name half works at least.

Using my #OLDWORLD brush, a beechwood handled Omega S-Brush with a synthetic boar knot. This is an interesting knot as it does mimic some of the physical splay & scrub of boar bristles, though not much else. I think the fibers would work better in a larger diameter knot than this one.

Since the razor is a repeat from day one, may as well take a moment to sing the praises of the CaYuen bowls. Is it a stupendously expensive shave bowl? Oh, yes - with taxes it was over $90 for the large size. If I could go back in time would I buy it again? Yes, no hesitation.

Unbreakable with a perfectly sized and grippable base that opens up into a 6” diameter, shallow bowl with an overhanging lip and raised spirals. The weight balances perfectly stable in my hands and the shallow but wide bowl lets me go to town with any brush I’ve got with zero handle banging. If I can’t coax a base into a lather I like with this, to hell with that base. The unique patterns from the mica powders used in the urethane is just a bonus. I’m ruined for any more pedestrian lather bowls going forward, good thing it’s largely indestructible under normal use 😅

——

I heard there was a quiz… and that was challenging and more than a bit silly. At least for me 😅

I don’t often remember marketed notes, I remember what I smell, and then figure in that I haven’t even tried seventeen of the quiz scents, and only use five regularly… well, this was not a passing score: 9/32

I felt particularly doofy missing Alive and Rawr, both of which I use regularly and would have picked out, if I’d gotten that far instead of scrunching up my brain to remember some obscure sample description on Maggard’s site 🤤

——

It has been a while since I used this soap (Lather Games 2022?) and today I realized that this is totally HoM Alive’s annoying little sibling. The bases have similarities - both are based around duck fat as the animal fat, both are mixed and packaged under contract by Chicago Grooming (I am assuming there is a large duck processing plant in Illinois based on the pattern 🤓), and the pear and green apple notes that lead these soaps are very similar. The performance of the WCS-DF base is solid, though, can’t argue with results. Alive is a considerably more complex scent that has stuff going on. Pear-brrr Shoppe would work great as a car air freshener, clean and boring.

I don’t generally like barbershop scents, something which this early purchase started me on the path of learning. Only “barbershop” soap in rotation is Ghost Town Barber and it isn’t very representative of the genre. Plus, any fragrance with a noticeable “talc” or a “powdery accord” is a nope - and guess what a lot of barbershop scents have?

Non-exciting scent aside, the shave was fantastic. I am loving the new C-plate in the Christopher Bradley. Getting just as close a shave as with the D-plate but not removing the top layer of epidermis with the hair. The three horsemen are complete.

Enjoy what’s left of your weekend!

LG SOTD 10Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Deep Stones - 24mm brown (cashmere) synthetic
• Razor: Henson - AL13 Medium (Black)
• Blade: Clifton - Classic (2)
• Blade: Muster - Shaver (2)
• Lather: Declaration Grooming - Cerberus (collaboration with House of Mammoth and Noble Otter)
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Shave Balm, Embrace

Hello, beautiful people! I hope this Monday isn’t too big of a shock to the system. Welcome to the tenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Happy Together” where we shave with a lather brought to us through the efforts of two or more artisans.

I am shaving with Cerberus from Declaration Grooming in collaboration with House of Mammoth and Noble Otter. This is via smoosh from, again, u/schontzm, and, again, my thanks. In hindsight, I probably should have grabbed a tub of this for the label art alone but I passed because Milksteak - Tusk or Noble Otter base and I’d have bought this blind, no question, but they released it in Milksteak, and I cannot make myself like Milksteak even though I seem to keep trying 😅

Using my Yaqui Deep Stones brush set with what seems to be a 24mm knot made from a denser arrangement of cashmere fibers dyed brown. Visually, I thought it goes with the music challenge. After the shave, it will go back to the bin, I don’t care for cashmere fibers. Too little spunk.

Razor is my first Henson Medium in the V1 AL13 version. Shaves functionally identical to Ti22 variant, probably some inconsequential differences from the weight, but I’ve moved back forth without noticing a difference. Like the brush, figured it visually went with the music challenge.

——

As soon as I saw the challenge, there was but one choice for me. Today is about how bringing multiple artists together can create something that they would not have made on their own. Thursday, 23May2024, one of the greatest music and video collaborations in history took place: BABYMETAL & Electric Callboy - RATATATA. BABYMETAL has had some great collabs, but they have been on a home run streak since Metalli with Tom Morello. The latest, RATATATA, is fun made audio, and the video complements it perfectly. I’ve watched the video, um, multiple times, I’ve watched reactions of the video, I’ve watched Electric Callboy react to reactions, I’ve listened to it driving down the road, at work, at home, and today we’ll try it shaving.

Like Ben from HoM lending his fragrance crafting expertise, DG’s unique base, and Noble Otter’s art style to make their ideas for a shave trifecta into the best it could, each musical act brings their own strengths to the song. The driving electronic beat is all EC, but when Su’s vocals come in, bam, it’s BABYMETAL in the house. Then we get harmonizing between Su and Nico. Then we get complementary harsh vocals between Momo and Kevin. There are hooks, ear worms, fun choruses. It’s just fantastic.

I can’t wait to hear it performed when I see BABYMETAL again this November, but for now I’m going to put it on the Echo Dot while I shave.

——

Shave Report - the choice of song was a perfect start to a Monday, it’s a song that improves my mood every time I hear it. Nice to revisit the AL13 and re-confirm it is as good as the Ti22 - this is one of the reasons I love Henson - they aren’t skimping on features on their lower end.

After the shave I’m feeling better about skipping Cerberus - Milksteak or not, which made for a very messy smoosh, this fragrance would not work for me. There is a smoke adjacent note I think of as “burnt umber”, like someone toasted some seed pods from potpourri. That note would stop me from ever enjoying the rest, certainly stopped me from being able to say much of anything else about this anticipated shave. I remember there being some background fragrance that was pleasant enough immediately before burnt seed pods appeared and blew the fragrance aside.

FYI: Length of complete shave routine this morning was just over two RATATATAs 😄

Enjoy your week, may it pass quickly

——

Judges may ignore everything beyond, or not. The judges make the calls.

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 419, Round 2. Clifton - Classic (Bangladesh) vs Muster - Shaver (Turkey)

Round 2 continued what I saw in R1. Double no-fault shaves from the blades, preference to the Muster - feedback and glide a bit smoother.

Winner of Round 2 and Fight 419: Muster - Shaver (Turkey)

LG SOTD 11Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Dandelion - 24mm cashmere synthetic
• Razor: Karve - Overlander (Brass)
• Blade: Personna - Lab Blue (5)
• Lather: Noble Otter - Rawr
• Bowl: AWEHIRU - slow feeder bowl (green)
• Post Shave: Stirling - Aftershave Balm, Unscented

Happy Tuesday, beautiful people! Welcome to the eleventh shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “April Showers” where we shave with a lather themed around spring, florals, petrichor, grass, etc.

I am shaving with Rawr from Noble Otter. This has been a stock tub in my den for more than two years and I always love it. The scent is Bloom County’s Dandelion Patch made into a fragrance. Soaps like this are great for the way they turn you onto a new fragrance theme for shaving, who knew that smashing dandelion blossoms in your face was so awesome?

Using my Yaqui Dandelion brush set with a 24mm cashmere knot. Visually, it goes with the special challenge but, like yesterday’s cashmere fiber knot, back into the bin after today’s shave.

——

For the Color Coordinated special challenge, I let the scent drive the set up. The fragrance of dandelion blossom is central. The soap is packaged in a green and white tub featuring the iconic otter in a T. Rex costume 😍. The brush is Yaqui’s Dandelion - a lush green handle with a 24mm cashmere knot reminiscent of the yellow of dandelion blossom. The bowl is a AWEHIRU (Chinese goods reseller on Amazon) slow feeder pet bowl (AKA “Stirling“ Travel Bowl) in a bright green color with the nub pattern reminiscent of the geometric shapes on the green field of the Rawr soap label. The aftershave balm is Stirling’s unscented in the iconic Stirling green and white packaging. I chose the brass Overlander for another suggestion of the yellow of dandelion blossoms. I then arranged everything on my lawn in the sun - no dandelions in bloom now so settled for some clover giving the photo a natural green and white themed setting.

——

Shave Report - It’s been some time since I used one of these pet bowls as a shave bowl and not a fan anymore. The nubs are too vigorous - doesn’t give you much control of volume and creaminess versus a less extreme agitation. That said, I am a professional and whipped up a decent NO lather and had a great shave.

Rawr is always pleasing. This is the soap I took on vacation to Disneyland with my wife in 2022 and that association alone gives it a leg up, and Noble Otter’s base is always solid if you feed it enough water. The Overlander as always was great and finished off with some color themed Stirling balm, unscented so as to leave the dandelion fragrance be.

Enjoy your day!

LG SOTD 12Jun2024 * Brush: Yaqi Mountain Lake - 24mm arctic synthetic * Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium * Blade: Personna - Viking’s Sword (1) * Blade: Rise - Classic (1) * Lather: Taylor of Old Bond Street - Peppermint Shaving Cream * Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large * Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy humpin hump day! Welcome to the twelfth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “CREAM” where we shave with a shaving cream versus a proper shaving soap.

I’m not a fan of shaving creams, there’s something visceral and pleasing in my brush loading routine. If I can’t brush load, I don’t want to use it (c.f. my Milksteak antipathy). While trying soaps out, scoop away, but when I get a tub, I want to rub my brush on that 😅. That said, I like trying stuff and I’m looking to upgrade the next generation ALL YOUR BASE PIFs so I bought a tub of TOBS Peppermint Shaving Cream from Maggard though the only time I am likely to use it is Lather Games.

Using my Yaqui Mountain Lake brush set with a 24mm arctic knot. This is another misfit brush for me, knot is too soft but it is purdy and fits the peppermint theme. Fibers might be a different dye job as timber wolf but not certain.

——

Before the shave report, time for a tour of the den.

• Overview

I have claimed the right side of our main floor bathroom. The top shelf was installed just about three years ago in July 2021 after the June software explosion. The shelving beside the sink that I am using as makeshift a soap caddy has been in the bathroom long term but I claimed the top to make the double row of soap tubs same time in 2021 (expanded to the entire top in fall 2022, used to be some of my daughter’s stuff and I used to have less soap). The middle is modular shave shelving from WetShavingBySteve, an Etsy seller, and was added at the beginning of 2024 and GREATLY reduced the shelf chaos.

• The high shelf

To the far left are the post shaves. Hanging on the left (cropped out of the picture, but visible on the overview), is a golf club cleaning microfiber. Works great for wiping off the copper and brass after use so they don’t water spot.

Moving to the right is the paper towel where I lay any blades to be used again. Got some overflow tubs and the larger sized samples. Then it’s the stainless steel Williams and Sonoma 1/4 teaspoon that I permanently borrowed from the kitchen for scooping samples.

At last, it’s the three horsemen, my favorite razors (that’s why I give them fancy stands, so they know they are better than the other razors 😀). And at the far right edge is the Feather blade bank and today’s Tournament of Blades contestants (with the U.S. Virgin Islands quarter that calls the starting blade).

• The Low Shelf

There are seven brushes in the modular WSBS shelving, one for each day of the week and my favorite seven of the complete brush pool. When I’m not being a flagrant shaving degenerate and showing off every minuscule detail of my shaves, I just follow the daily rotation (starts with the AP Shave on Monday at the right and moves to the left, finishing on Sunday with the Yaqi Caramel).

In the middle of the brushes is an area for whatever three other razors I’m giving some degree of attention to.

At the far left of the lower shelf of the modular shelving is the D-plate for the copper Karve CB. There’s the Lady Gillette I used on WetTuber day. And if you zoom in, at the rightmost bin is a restored 1920s Gillette blade box holding blades for upcoming ToB fights.

Below that on some metal bathroom shelving are double rows of soap tubs. I like this setup because I can get to whatever soap I want easily.

Last, resting on the tubs below the modular shelving is the box of samples.

That is the IN the den tour. But, I wouldn’t be a true shave degenerate if that was everything. The stuff I maybe sometimes use lives in the bin of misfit shave goods. If you want a quick look at it all, see my comment to this post.

And no tour of my den would be complete without showing you what 1700+ blades in several dozen types looks like.

——

Now, the shave report. Shaving creams are not something I understand - I save maybe two minutes with a cream versus a soap and that’s not enough for what I give up. I suppose if you find lathering soaps just a little too much they have their place because the next step down for effort is canned goo.

This cream is scented with peppermint oil and it smells fantastic off the puck, being lathered, and during the shave - the good part. You can feel the tingle of the peppermint oil on the skin. Worked up quickly, was sufficiently lubricating, but residual slickness was poor. Not great at holding water. Post shave is decent. The essential oil based peppermint scent was gone by the time my face had fully dried.

TL;DNR: I’d used TOBS a couple of years back and today’s revisit did nothing to change my mind.

Enjoy your day!

User makes long post and remarks "too long, do not resuscitate"

LG SOTD 13Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Caramel - 26mm cat whiskers synthetic
• Razor: Karve - CB SB-C (Copper)
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (6)
• Lather: Stirling - Haverford
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Shave Balm, Embrace

Happy Thursday, beautiful people! Welcome to the thirteenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Dupelganger” where we shave with a lather that is “inspired” by a non-shaving fragrance.

I’m going to shave with Stirling’s take on Tom Ford’s Tobacco Vanille, Haverford. No idea what the original smells like - I think I’ve worn standalone fragrance twice in my life - but Haverford smells amazing so I’ll assume the same applies to the original. When I first tried it, I didn’t know it was a fragrance dupe, just knew it was supposed to be pipe tobacco like. Both of my grandfathers smoked pipes and I had loved the smell of the different tobacco blends. Haverford isn’t a straight tobacco scent, but it’s a rich, spicy fragrance built on a core of tobacco and it was one of the first sample to tub conversions.

Today’s shave is all the more special because shaving with this one of a kind custom labeled edition 😉

The shave went well, the secret to getting Haverford to lather properly is after the first water is added work it into a homogenous paste, then work a little more, before adding more water - knocks the foaminess down that Haverford is prone to with all the fragrance oils crammed in there. The spiciness of Haverford pairs well with HoM’s Embrace. That is all.

Enjoy your day, tomorrow is Friday!

LG SOTD 13Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Midnight Blue - 26mm timber wolf synthetic
• Razor: Karve - Bison (Blue)
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (3)
• Lather: Noble Otter - Orbit
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Zingari Man - Aftershave Balm, The Watchman

Happy Friday, beautiful people! Welcome to the fourteenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Frigid Friday” where we shave with a lather that is cooling.

I’m going to use Noble Otter’s - Orbit, another long time denizen. I only have two cooling soaps in the den, this and SBS’ Cannonball, and that’s my summer soap for the games. I dislike menthol, I pick up the smell strongly - Stirling’s Glacial Lemon Chill smells like a cough drop, Cryogen like being a sick kid slathered with Vick’s - but the synthetic cooling soaps are fun for a change up. Orbit contains something dubbed Koolada-23 to bring us the cold of space.

Built the rest of the shave on the space theme of Orbit. Got the dark nebula lather bowl, the midnight blue brush, the blue Bison, the dark void of The Watchman. Like shaving in space 🚀🪐

But, before I freeze my face in the vacuum of space, there is a request that we stack all of our treasures. I see what you’re doing. We just prettied up our hoard for the den tour, then you make us drag everything out for something as daft as stacking our soaps like terrible Legos, trashing our efforts for the judges’ amusement. Well, that’s exactly what I did!

Not sure how tall it was, but I’m confident it was over 6 feet as I’m 5’10” and I was reaching up to precariously balance the sample of Everett that is the top of the stack.

From the A&E St Barts downward, that’s the regular den inhabitants. Above that is the stuff currently on trial.

The shave was solid but I should have pushed the water a little further. Slickness would have improved though was good enough for comfort. Although I still want to see a more aggressive head, I seem to have worked out how to get a better shave out of the Bison with my normal 1.5 passes. Still not as good as I can get with any of the horsemen, but not so much that I feel like I should have sucked it up and gone for the second pass. Orbit is an odd scent - it’s there but never that strong. Yet, it does hold your attention. The chill comes out best when you rinse your face and is usually a pleasant level of chill. It was a good start to Friday.

One more shift to the weekend!

LG SOTD 15Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Mojito - 24mm two band synthetic
• Razor: Gillette - 109 Super Adjustable (1970) #ADJUSTABLE
• Blade: Personna - Lab Blue
• Lather: Cella - Bio Organic (Green)
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Saturday, beautiful people! Welcome to the fifteenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Near Death Experience ” where we shave with whatever lather we have a tub of that is closest to being killed.

That is an easy pick - my tub of Cella green was the second shave soap I bought. Between the donations to my soap base PIFs and shaving, the tub is mostly gone.

For reasons, I did not change up the planned razor upon reading the daily challenge; I may regret that. I will be trying out a 1970-P2 Gillette 109 Super Adjustable with pasty lather 😅. This is not as nice as the Lady Gillette but it is still in very good condition for something that entered the world before me. A bit of tarnish & pitting on the upper handle and some pitting on the underside of the base plate is the worst of it, the business parts are in fantastic condition. I’m eager to try it as I am mostly sure it was an 84 Super Adjustable that my father had in the medicine cabinet and I tried (badly) while learning to shave. Kind of full circle - as a teen I tried this razor and went with the Atra cartridge razor, now I return to it decades later as an adult and experienced wet shaver to use it for an exhibition shave 🤔

The daily challenge is an amuse the judges for another 0.16% of your score challenges. Anyone that would choose to participate is stuck with the bad path and the panel knew it. May as well call this challenge “Fu*k Your Face!!!”

I hope this counts because it was the worst lather I’ve deliberately put to my face in memory. Turned foamy worked in, thin, dried quickly. Worst of all, none of that sweet creaminess you get when you’ve matched structure to hydration. I hated this lather. That unnatural blob on the brush stayed unchanged throughout the shave 🤮

I hope it’s a good thing I have the 109 planned for two more dates where there will (hopefully) be no more “FU Face!” challenges 😅, because no surprise today was not unlike that proto shave of yore and left my face more angry than it’s been in a long while. I want to assume that was the shite lather and not the razor. The Afta did a good job calming my face down.

Uncomfortable shave aside - cheeks weren’t too bad - detected no issues with the razor. Played with settings 3-5 on the adjuster, could tell there were differences, but all the iterations were not great with the lather. Very minor nick on left side of my face near where I got myself with the Lady Gillette - something different in the vintage Gillette head geometry and my face I’ll need to pay attention to tomorrow.

Enjoy the weekend!

LG SOTD 16Jun2024

• Brush: Fuller Bakelite - 20mm x 48mm synthetic (refurbished by TSF)
• Razor: Gillette - 109 Super Adjustable (1970) #ADJUSTABLE
• Blade: Personna - Lab Blue (2)
• Lather: Cella - Red
• Bowl: Stonecrest Andre Ponche bowl
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Sunday, beautiful people! Welcome to the sixteenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Father’s Day” where we shave with a brand of lather older than we are.

I’m taking this full throttle and everything is in some way older than my decaying body. The brush handle is mid twentieth century, 1940s or 50s. The razor is the 1970-P2 109 Super Adjustable that I’m hoping for a better experience than yesterday. The USA made Personna have been around since 1963 - although, per Razor Emporium, AccuTec has lost the rights to the Personna trademark and the blades will be branded as AccuForge going forward. The lather, Cella Red has been around way longer than me - as the packaging proclaims it was established in 1899. My lather scoop, the stainless 1/4 teaspoon, is from Williams & Sonoma, established 1956. The “lather bowl” is a pre-war, made in Korea soup/cereal bowl that was originally owned by my grandparents and is the last surviving bowl from the set. Finally, the post shave is a frequent flyer, Afta by Mennen, a brand founded circa 1878.

Today’s daily challenge was to shave our legs, and since that is a shower activity took care of that first with a different set of hardware. Used the same Cella Red with the Yaqi Caramel & CaYuen for lather and my copper Karve CB with a Treet Falcon.

The Christopher Bradley seems made for shaving your body. Ever since I decided to try it on the back of my neck early spring, been using it every weekend to clean up. I have shaved some things and had one very slight nick once. And that was with the D plate - I find it crazy intuitive for shaving at weird angles with poor to no visibility. With summer here, even been keeping the pits clean. That has not extended to my legs. I’ve never shaved my legs before this.

The results are unfortunately not runway worthy. I am, if the video and pics yesterday didn’t give it away, nearsighted AF. Though I contorted myself into weird and uncomfortable positions to view things as best I could, alas, hairs escaped the smoothening. Been wearing shorts at work so I’ll find out if anyone likes staring at my legs 😂

The themed shave involves Cella, a soap that I appreciate the solid performance of, particularly versus the cost, but that I do not use because of the scent. I don’t like strong almond scent. Marzipan and the like quickly reaches blech levels with me. However, after three years the levels are acceptable, maybe even light, as the soap smell itself was quite noticeable when shaving my legs.

I have higher hopes for the razor today with a proper lather (yesterday’s F your face challenge is still fresh in my mind 😅) but expectations are lowish. I like proper blade clamping. Henson and Karve’s clamping is fantastic. These vintage TTO razors are flapping in the breeze relatively speaking 😉.

My relationship with my father is complicated, but his influences are here with this shave. The razor is, as best my memory serves, the long handled variant of the same razor he had in the medicine cabinet when I was growing up. He wasn’t using it by the time I remember - the man was hardcore in his cheap efficiency and had switched to disposables as far back as I remember. To this day his razor of choice is whatever disposable BJ’s has in bulk the cheapest. I tried the TTO once, and I did not care for the painful tugging that was some combo of canned foam, old blade, and me being clueless and never went back. It’s neat revisiting it all these years later with proper lather and skills and see what could have been. The post shave will always remind me of my dad. He did and still uses Afta and only Afta. To me, it is the smell of shaving and the stuff works as well as any of the $15-$25 balms. I doubt it will ever leave my den.

I am pleased that being able to use properly hydrated lather improved the experience of using the Super Adjustable. It is not replacing any of the horsemen, but today I was able to play with the remaining adjustable settings and actually tell something beyond they were different 😅, arrived at only 2 being preferable. It was usable on 9 but the blade feel was off the charts. At 2 it was comfortable with minor blade feel and still efficient enough. It will return on Frugal Friday as it’s the cheapest razor in the den.

Enjoy the remaining weekend

LG SOTD 17Jun2024

• Brush: AP Shave Ocean Waves - 26mm synbad fan synthetic
• Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium
• Blade: Personna - Viking’s Sword (2)
• Blade: Rise - Classic (2)
• Lather: Southern Witchcrafts - Druantia
• Bowl: my left kneee
• Post Shave: Stirling - Aftershave Balm, Unscented

Monday has come again so let’s make the best of it. Welcome to the seventeenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “Don’t Have a Cow, Man!” where we shave with a vegan lather.

I’m a biologist - you aren’t going to sell me on vegan shave products strictly on ethical concerns. Nature and the universe does not now nor has ever given a flying fart how many aware beings are crushed, eaten alive, starved to death, drowned, tortured, etcetera. In fact, the notion of living beings having any differential value over non-living things seems to be a bias held by a small number of particularly clever living beings. There is certainly no indication that nature makes any such distinction.

But we do. It’s part of what makes us interesting as a species. We may very well cause the largest mass extinction in hundreds of millions of years, but we might also avoid or at least mitigate it because we are the first mass extinction causing phenomenon in the billions of years life has been creeping along the planet to be aware of what is happening and have some ability to affect it. Neat, right 😅

Which is to say that all things being equal, I would choose the vegan or at least vegetarian soap over the tallow based one. All things are not equal though. While there are excellent plant based shave soaps, it appears it’s easier to hit performance milestones with animal fats so there have been more tallow soaps in my den than non tallow by a wide margin.

Southern Witchcrafts has the best vegan base I’ve tried. Their base is great, period, top five of any base for me probably. Unfortunately, the Venn intersection of scent aesthetics for Southern Witchcrafts and my tastes is narrow. I’ve tried fourteen different scents from them and liked only one: Druantia. Fortunately, I love it, but wish they made other scents I liked. Druantia is obviously the lather for today’s shave.

Being that it’s Monday and on my way to work, should have skipped the challenge, but after going back and forth, decided that may as well try it because then I can really protest what a brain dead, not fun, waste of everyone’s time this challenge is.

Worked out that the only way to achieve this was to shave before the shower. Then, because of that, needed to move day’s shave gear to upstairs bathroom where normally shower because can’t very well go walking around the house with lather knees making a bigger mess than already. Then got to work. The shave itself was fine, typical blade face off in the Henson Medium. After the shower and cleanup I regretted the unscented Stirling - had picked to not clash with Druantia, but that was long gone in the shower by time I applied balm.

Ultimately, this is face lathering with extra steps. You literally can’t build up the volume of ready to go lather as in a bowl, so instead you treat it like a palm lather on the knees and transfer the goopy protolather to the face and then finish it there.

So, ultimately the challenge is about face lathering for bowl latherers and face lathering for face latherers while a wholly time wasting and unnecessary step is introduced for both to make it technically different than the challenge to change up your lather routine we already had.

I learned nothing, nothing about the challenge was better than slightly silly, and visually and prose-wise it’s boring to present. The only way to possibly make this challenge interesting for the audience would be to make us build on the knee standing up while the whole thing is filmed, and there is nothing that can be done to make it interesting for the shaver because it’s just needless disruption of routine for an arbitrary 0.2 points.

The “New All the Things” shaving challenge introduced the participant to a different class of razor. Reverse Lather pushed us out of comfort zone to lather up with a different but still standard method. The ATG highlighted the value of following your hair’s normal growth patterns. Pasty Lather Day served to remind us of the importance of proper hydration. Even yesterday’s leg day gave insight to most about shaving a body part that only one gender is normally expected to maintain.

But what did knee day accomplish? Nothing. Is this to build empathy with someone with only one arm and leg and an aversion to straight face lathering? There is no lesson, good or humorous, to be found.

Enjoy your day!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 420, Round 2: Personna - Viking’s Sword (Israel) vs Rise - Classic (Bangladesh)

For the second round, the Rise gave a near perfectly smooth shave. The Personna had no faults but it had more noticeable feedback.

Winner of Round 2 and Fight 420: Rise - Classic

User uses a lot of words to chastise judges for a wholly pointless daily challenge.

LG SOTD 18Jun2024

• Brush: Stirling B&W - 24mm boar
• Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium
• Blade: Dorco - STP-301 Prime Platinum (1)
• Blade: Zorrik - Super Stainless (1)
• Lather: Dr. Jon’s - Hydra
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Aftershave Balm, Lavender

Happy Tuesday! Welcome to the eighteenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is “RIP in Pieces” where we shave with a lather from a shuttered company.

I’ll be shaving with Dr. Jon’s Hydra, a citrus scent made with essential oils from six citrus sources approximating the name sake. Dr. Jon’s operated out of New York from 2014 to 2023 and specialized in vegan products.

I tried seven different samples (from Maggard’s) of Dr Jon’s soaps over a year and, even before they announced their closure, I had placed them in the “don’t buy again” bucket. They had some very nice scents that were usually at half strength or less compared to the competition. The base was functional - no creaminess, light on structure, average slickness, average residual slickness, mid post-shave. Though it’s not nice to say, the failure of Dr. Jon’s was not shocking and it was not a tragedy. You can’t coast indefinitely on being vegan when it’s just not much of a niche.

——

As to the daily challenge, can we drop this already? The two subs have their places, and the idea that there is quantitatively more nonsense on wicked edge versus here is very debatable - we just have better enforcement of posting structure to keep it less in your face whereas wicked edge is perfectly content letting someone post a giant pic of a single tuck on their front page to go along with their useless review.

Likewise, what is the challenge? It’s another vague description that leaves us to use our imagination. So, I’m going very literal…

This is my most stereotypical r/wicked_edge post: https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/comments/oaii0z/im_just_swapping_razors/

I posted a very newbie style post about just how much soap I was accumulating. Wonder what that version of me would have said if knew where I was headed 😅

My favorite post was crowning the winner of my Tournament of Blades: https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/comments/yibmja/and_the_winner_is_tournament_of_blades_finale/

——

For the shave I broke out a boar brush that I haven’t used in a forever. It will likely be a forever before I use it again. I don’t care that much for the way boar performs. Definitely a synthetic brush shaver.

Shave itself was nice. The soap was functional, the scent pleasant, and I’ll see it again next time this theme returns.

Enjoy your day!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 421, Round 1: Dorco - STP-301 Prime Platinum (Vietnam) vs Zorrik - Super Stainless (India)

These two blades paired much like the last - no faults to speak of but the Zorrik was close to perfectly smooth and the Dorco had noticeable feedback.

Winner of Round 1 and Fight 421: Zorrik - Super Stainless

LG SOTD 19Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Purple Haze - 24mm (synbad) synthetic
• Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium
• Blade: Dorco - STP-301 Prime Platinum (2)
• Blade: Zorrik - Super Stainless (2)
• Lather: House of Mammoth - Embrace
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Shave Balm, Embrace

Happy Hump Day, beautiful people! Welcome to the nineteenth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's Theme is Juneteenth where we shave with a lather made in a US state that fought on the side of the Union during the American Civil War. 19June1865 marked the freeing of some 250K formerly enslaved in Texas and symbolically marked the end of slavery in the USA.

For today's shave, using House of Mammoth's Embrace. HoM is a bit of a multistate endeavor. Ben operates the business from somewhere in New York (I think) and, if I'm remembering right, he started doing this while in Boston, Massachusetts. However, the challenge says "made" and HoM's soaps are made under contract by Chicago Grooming in Illinois. Fortunately for this challenge, all three associated states fought on the right side of the American Civil War with Illinois providing more than 250,000 troops for the Union.

——

The challenge is another I question though I usually phone something in. Memes are largely a cancer on the species. They are cruder than hieroglyphics yet form the basis of entire political movements. Today you get a screenshot that Imgur would not accept a stupid, quick meme of adding, “Embrace the Mammoth - He’s got good smoochies!”

Wasted too much time on trying to figure out what violated their filters until I said, nope, keep your 0.2 points, I have way too much to get done today to mess around any more on a challenge I detest.

——

Shave was good, of course, Embrace is one of my favorites and thinking back on it helps with some of the frustration that I couldn’t make the day’s stupid challenge and about to not stop going for 14+ hours. This time tomorrow I’m going to be taking the Lather Games on the road but until on the way to airport, it’s nonstop rushing.

Enjoy your day!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 421, Round 2: Dorco - STP-301 Prime Platinum (Vietnam) vs Zorrik - Super Stainless (India)

Today the Dorco was a wee bit smoother and the Zorrik a wee bit less smooth than yesterday BUT Zorrik still in the lead… slightly.

Winner of Round 2 and Fight 421: Zorrik - Super Stainless

LG SOTD 20Jun2024

• Brush: DS Cosmetics Kensurfs ‘23 - 26mm A2S fan synthetic
• Razor: Karve - CB SB-C (Copper)
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (7)
• Lather: Summer Break Soaps - Cannonball
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Zingari Man - Aftershave Balm, The Watchman

For today's shave using Summer Break Soaps' Cannonball, a pool themed scent described as, "...an initial burst of of Pineapple and Orange, but the sweetness is quickly cut by the scents of Water, Ozone, and Chlorine, creating a unique and complex scent that is truly perfect for summer". Cannonball is my second favorite aquatic scent following ZM's The Watchman and it does capture the sense of a sunny day at the pool. I all but lived at the pool in the summer as a kid and young teen and this is a great, nostalgic scent.

If I interpreted the Old Hiker daily challenge correctly, the goal is to shave outdoors with a maximum of a single wall in our proximity. My flight leaves today at 5:30am. It is an ungodly hour of the early morning and I am shaving in my backyard in the dark. Only wall within 15 yards of me is my home's back wall. Not sure which is better - that it's very unlikely my neighbors will notice me shaving in the backyard, or that if they do, I will definitely appear insane. Oh well, only two possible sets of witnesses, I have a wooded lot I own between me and the neighbors behind me. Now, if you were expecting a literal hike on a weekday at 3am, you can keep hoping but it ain't happening.

So I shaved standing like doofus in my back yard and... ok.

https://youtube.com/shorts/FKA8ae-lVN8
https://youtube.com/shorts/XZuk7z8sl68

No worries, only about 30 seconds of video.

That is all.   Tomorrow's LG SOTD will be brought to you from a Four Seasons in Texas. Hoping for challenges I can manage on the road.

LG SOTD 21Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Bali - 24mm silver tip synthetic
• Razor: Henson - AL13 Medium (black)
• Blade: Euromax - Platinum (1)
• Blade: Sharp - Hi Platinum (1)
• Lather: Chiseled Face - Topanga Fougere
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Friday, beautiful people. Welcome to the twenty-first shave of the 2024 Lather Games. It is Fougere Friday where it is our solemn duty to use a lather that is definitely some sort of fougere.

For today's on the road shave, going to try a sample from Chiseled Face of their Topanga Fougere, one of the fragrances they acquired from LA Shaving Co. when they folded. The lengthy marketing verbiage starts with,

"This distinctive fragrance offers a new approach to the classic fougère genre, crafted exclusively with essential oils and extracts for a pure and authentic olfactory experience. Our Topanga Fougère is an homage to the grandeur of Houbigant's Fougère Royale, created by the young genius Paul Parquet back in 1882. Although not a direct interpretation, this scent carries the inspirational spirit of its predecessor, transporting you to the heart of an imaginary forest. "Fougère," meaning fern in French, describes a scent that blends the woody, floral, and herbal notes reminiscent of a forest floor, despite ferns themselves being largely scentless".

I think I'm covered.

I have been curious to try this as it skips the oak moss and coumarin that are common in these earthy and/or forestry fougeres. The style of fougere (aka the main style) has yet to impress me but, off the puck, this was smelling pretty good.

(today’s shave description is in the form of a limerick - five lines, three long and two short, rhyming with aabba scheme)

I lathered my face with fougere,
Wondering if I should be rhyming it with Gary?
I held the blade steady,
For my face was ready,
And the shave was smooth and not a bit scary.

Alas, lathered, all the good vanished from the fragrance and was left with something that was most reminiscent of the smell of a compost pile with decaying fruit in the blend. If this was the creation of a genius in 1882, there were different metrics for that moniker. TTPP with this stuff.

If this theme returns next time, guess it’s back to Fougere Angelique that smells as similar to these authentic fougeres as gasoline or breakfast cereal but counts because Will Carius says so 😇

Enjoy the day!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 422, Round 1. Euromax - Platinum (India) vs Sharp - Hi Platinum (Bangladesh)

The Sharp Hi Platinum started out as an accidental buy (meant to get more Sharp Titanium) but I tossed it in the blade pool and glad I did because such an easy comparison. The Sharp was a super smooth, comfortable shave with no faults. The EuroMax, though only a spot or two of discomfort around jawline, had just OK feedback versus the smooth, slick operation of the Sharp.

Winner of Round 1: Sharp - Hi Platinum

What is this horrible grotesquerie,

Ruining a nice day of poetry?

It is not fair

to rhyme "fougère"

with "Gary" and it draws my ire

LG SOTD 22Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Bali - 24mm silver tip synthetic
• Razor: Henson - AL13 Medium (black)
• Blade: Euromax - Platinum (2)
• Blade: Sharp - Hi Platinum (2)
• Lather: Stirling - Hot Apple Cider
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Saturday, beautiful people. Welcome to the twenty-second shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is Spooky Season where we shave with a lather featuring a fall, spooky, or spicy themed scent.

For today's shave, going for two out of three with Stirling's Hot Apple Cider. It is marketed as, "Apples, cinnamon, and clove make for a perfect shave as the weather turns cool and the trees turn", and it is one of their fall seasonal scents. It's nice that they give the notes description but this is spot on the smell of spiced hot apple cider; the name says it all. If you’ve been to a fall/winter school function or similar, you have undoubtedly been handed a styrofoam cup full of the stuff.

This is the remainder of a sample I purchased from Stirling during their 2022 fall release. I’m glad I held onto one of my PIF packed samples because I have zero qualifying scents in the regular den. I love fall, probably my favorite time of the year weather wise, but fragrance designers must perceive it differently because every fall scent I’ve tried was weird to gross. Held onto this because HAC’s only sin is being a spot on recreation of spiced apple cider and just wasn’t appealing as a shave scent (weird). I’ll take this over the burned leaves and composting coffee grounds that seem to form the core of Darkfall and similar fall themed scents. A common thought trying some of these fall scents is what sort of hellish post apocalyptic dystopia did they grow up in if this is what they associate with fall?

At any rate, had another great hotel shave. The scent is on the weird side for shaving but is otherwise a nice fragrance. I had the same sort of reaction with BaM’s Smoking Bishop - smelled spot on for mulled wine, which is a neat trick from a fragrance design pov, but doesn’t mean you should shave with it 😅

Unfortunately there will be no carved pumpkin (or banana) to present for the challenge. 1500 miles from home in a hotel with no access to fresh anything, I will forego these 0.2 points. Tomorrow’s challenge appears to be the same deal, shave in a kitchen might as well be shave in a thatched hut on a moon of Jupiter for me.

Enjoy your day!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 422, Round 2. Euromax - Platinum (India) vs Sharp - Hi Platinum (Bangladesh)

I didn’t find these blades as black and white as R1 but it was still a charcoal and light gray comparison. Double no fault shaves from both blades for R2 but Sharp again had the smoother feedback between the two.

Winner of Round 2 and Fight 422: Sharp - Hi Platinum

LG SOTD 23Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Bali - 24mm silver tip synthetic
• Razor: Henson - AL13 Medium (black)
• Blade: Croma - Diamant (Germany)
• Blade: Gillette - Wilkinson Sword (India)
• Lather: Chiseled Face - Orange Creamsicle
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Happy Sunday, beautiful people. Welcome to the twenty-third shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is Sweet Sunday where we shave with a lather featuring sugary sweet gourmand fragrance.

For today's shave, I almost went with what I have used previously, BaM's Dicken's revisited. Then I remembered that I was going to be traveling today. Fortunately, I recently went on a sample buying spree and have a sample from Chiseled Face of their Orange Creamsicle, another scent that originated at LA Shaving Co. It is marketed as smelling just like the real thing. Off the puck I get the sweat creamy center but not so much the orange outer layer, have to see how it smells lathered.

The daily challenge was to shave in a kitchen. A kitchen proper is out of the question, I’m in a hotel 1500 miles from home and the closest thing to a kitchen is the coffee station and mini bar of the hotel room (see SOTD pic in title). Does it count? Hope so, otherwise I’m using a hotel ice bucket as a rinse basin for no discernible reason 😅

The shave was fine, never any complaints with CF’s base but the scent… starting to suspect there is a molecule out there that perfumers use for orange and other citrus and I simply cannot smell it. Seville barely smells like it has orange in it, Pompelmo smelled like the decaying rind of grapefruit with next to zero citrus. Everett that is supposed to feature orange slices prominently has one lone orange slice across a soccer field, downwind. I love Maggard’s Limes & Bergamot because it actually smells like citrus to me. And this “orange” creamsicle never had more than a whiff of orange, it was a shave with the creamy center of a creamsicle from puck to final rinse - someone had nibbled off the sweet outer layer of orange sherbet like goo 😭

Tomorrow will be another crazy early shave as taking red eye flight so I’m glad the only extra challenge is to vote for someone 😄

Enjoy your day!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 423, Round 1: Croma - Diamant (Germany) vs Gillette - Wilkinson Sword (India)

Very similar no-fault shaves from both with average feedback. Between the two, the Croma was preferable today. A bit slicker on the glide - not much.

Winner of Round 1: Croma - Diamant (Germany)

"otherwise I’m using a hotel ice bucket as a rinse basin for no discernible reason" is a textbook LG quote.

LG SOTD 24Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Bali - 24mm silver tip synthetic
• Razor: Wolfman - WR1 0.80 SB
• Blade: Treet - Falcon (1)
• Lather: Spearhead - Blackwatch
• Bowl: Captain’s Choice - Copper, standard
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Monday is here again. Welcome to the twenty-fourth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today's theme is Christmas in June Eve where we shave with a lather that we got as a PIF, trade, or gift.

For today's shave I am going to be using a smoosh of Spearhead's Blackwatch that was, once again, generously provided by u/schontzm. Thankyou, thankyou once more. In spite of the limitations of traveling, I'm going to take it up a notch and use PIF'd hardware (minus the bowl, nobody has given me a bowl). The Yaqi Bali brush was from a loser's PIF after my first Lather Games (2021) held by u/Cadinsor aka WetTuber Michael Freedburg. It was, up until last month, one of the den regulars but, alas, the Yaqi cat whiskers knots are really nice and the Ever-hopeful took its Tuesday spot. But, it's small and reliable so made a good pick for this trip's travel brush (it's also gone to Disneyland 😄). The razor is the Wolfman WR1 that I won in a charity PIF from u/erchamionberen (he’s deleted the account since then) and it's been neat getting to shave with something I wouldn't buy at MSRP or even close. What I do like about this razor is that it was thoughtfully engineered. I may not love shaving with this razor but I like that you can tell that every feature was considered at length and planned. Highlights why you won't see me using one of my razors during the games (or probably again)😉

Before the shave, the challenge is to vote for an artisan to make the next r/wetshaving exclusive and this is easy: Barrister and Mann. Omnibus is my favorite soap base and Will has made some of my favorite fragrances. No one better in my opinion (although acceptable alternates like HoM or ZM exist).

Now, the shave. I don’t particularly like this razor to shave with and don’t use it often. I had never used a Treet Falcon and don’t think I will again. If this were a ToB shave would say that the feedback was uncomfortable some of and unpleasant all of the time. But you can’t say it’s not efficient (and has functional lather channels! The “spoiler on a civic” lather channels on some razors a big knock for me).

The lather off the smoosh had a warm pleasant smell to it (the sandalwood probably). Lathered, what I presume was supposed to be the incense became the strongest black pepper note I’ve experienced shaving and am glad this was a smoosh and not a blind bought tub 😅. I will say that the Seaforth lather was better than I remembered.

Anyhow, It’s 2:30am and I need to leave for the airport in 30. You all have a great day!

LG SOTD 25Jun2024

• Brush: AP Shave Black & Green - 26mm synbad synthetic
• Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium
• Blade: Croma - Diamant (2)
• Blade: Gillette - Wilkinson Sword (2)
• Lather: Noble Otter - Tis the Season
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: Stirling Witch Hazel - Coniferous

Happy Tuesday and Christmas in June! Welcome to the twenty-fifth shave of the 2024 Lather Games where we shave with a winter or winter holiday themed lather.

I love Christmas and have a weakness for trying Christmas themed scents. In the den as residents I have BaM’s Dickens Revisited, based on a beloved Christmas cookie. Stirling’s Christmas Eve, a blend of spices and conifer that is a nostalgia bomb for the Christmases my mom put on with the natural tree and oil warmers. But there was only one choice for today, Noble Otter’s Tis the Season. I went for the blind buy in 2022 when it dropped and it nearly instantly dethroned Christmas Eve for favorite holiday.

Artisans that only deal in original scents make for some of the strongest reactions, negative and positive, and Noble Otter is no exception. I’ve tried sixteen (16) scents from NO and five (5) were tub worthy. That puts Noble Otter as the most compatible fragrance maker for me, far ahead of BaM (seven out of forty-two) or even HoM (four out of eighteen). I will also say that my negative reactions with NO have never come close to the intensity with some of the misses from BaM (c.f. TFH: Death) or HoM (c.f. Santa Noir). This is why, as much as I hate doing it, I will go for the blind tub buy from NO when the description is seemingly a can’t miss and samples are scarce.

Three times I took the leap - Monoi de Tahiti, Tis The Season, and, most recently, Jasmine Green Tea - and three times I found a new den tub. In comparison, never blind bought from BaM and my first and last blind tub buy from HoM was Santa Noir 😅. That does leave six scents I haven’t tried (and none sound sure enough for blind buying) so maybe one of them terrifies my olfactory centers like Death but, for now, the otter has special privileges 🦦🏖️

Tis the Season was the Christmas scent I didn’t know I needed. The harmonious blend of fruit and gentle conifer pulls me in and I’ve been looking forward to this shave all Lather Games. I did not know I would be wearing my hat doing so.

The brush is only new for the games hardware. It’s an AP Shave brush from their stock of premade handles and the third synbad knot in the collection. It is also my least favorite one. Very little backbone the way it’s set but the other two knots have some oomph.

After, tried something I’ve never used - a witch hazel splash, conifer scented of course. As a kid, my dad kept the witch hazel in the hall closet vs the bathroom with the rest of the shave stuff and I always thought that was because it was the “big guns” and on the level of mercurochrome. It was a bit disappointing that there was no real discernible sensation at all from it 😂. I don’t find this as good as an aftershave balm but interesting to try.

Merry Christmas in June!

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 423, Round 2. Croma - Diamant (Germany) vs Gillette - Wilkinson Sword (India)

The Croma maintained the slight lead on feedback over the Gillette. Wish things were more dramatic but pretty much everything left in the pool is decent.

Winner of R2 and Fight 423: Croma - Diamant.

LG SOTD 26Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Cavern Lake - 24mm tuxedo synthetic
• Razor: Karve - CB SB-C (Copper)
• Blade: Wizamet - Super Iridium (8)
• Lather: Stirling Conditioner Bar - Queen of Hearts
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Shave Balm, Embrace

Welcome to the twenty-sixth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today’s theme is wildcard Wednesday where the goal is to shave with any sort of shave lubricant you want so long as no one else uses the same thing first. It’s always a weird theme because there are different ways of approaching.

There’s the stunt lube - guacamole, motor oil, toothpaste, KY, whatever, the idea is to go for theme and judge points with something dumb enough that statistically no one else is as dumb as you and earns respect from the sadistic side of the judges.

There’s the early bird where you grab a lather for scoring purposes and hope to post first. Not a deep strategy but it’s usually going to work out and, if you go early enough, maybe even cause a later DQ for someone thinking like you and not paying attention.

Then there’s the route I’m going - plausibly functional but statistically unlikely to get a DQ. If someone else uses this at all, let alone before me, I will be very surprised. I have high hopes for it as a makeshift lather.

Stirling’s Queen of Hearts, or should I say their dupe of Juicy Couture by the Viva la Juicy Project, may not be the manliest of scents by pedigree, but I rub that stuff on my head daily via this conditioner bar. It is a delicious and warm caramel or toffee like scent and whoever tried to market it to just the ladies was evil and clearly trying to keep the awesomeness from us gents.

I discovered that Stirling’s conditioner bar makes for a great shower lubricant for shaving my neck and other bits and pits. True lather is too easily rinsed off in the confines of a running shower, but this stuff is slick and clings even in the splatter with solid residual slickness. Today I’m going to put a brush to it and see what sort of “normal” shaving lather I can make out of it.

Turns out it’s not bad but not really lather. Just creamy-ish goo. Was slick enough used out of the shower but not up to soap standards. Pretty sure results would have been identical if not a bit better if I just slicked my face with the bar like I do in the shower for shaving. The awkward loading, the iffy water loading, none of it seemed to have improved the final product beyond trying something for the games. It did take a lot more effort to rinse the skin post shave. Would not recommend this as a replacement for proper shave soap.

The brush cleaning routine is more that I don’t let them get nasty to begin with - even today the alternative lather will clean easily from the brush. All my usual brushes are synthetics that don’t absorb much grossness and I only have the two infrequently used boar brushes and never use them with anything unusual that can penetrate the natural fibers. After I shave, swish the brush out in the sink to remove bulk of lather and then under running water straight into the knot while I massage and squeeze until nothing but clear water coming out. Rinse a few more times, snap out all the water, and give it a good sniff. It should barely smell like the soap I just used unless something with unusual funk like Melange. If still smells too strong, more rinsing. Then I air dry it, usually for days (or longer), before it gets used again. Every brush has stayed fresh thoroughly rinsed and rotated like this.

If there ever is a reason to clean clean the brush, dish soap is how I go, but BaM’s Death may have been last time that was necessary.

——

There’s a bit of false bravado going on these past two days. Put our sixteen y.o. Aussie down yesterday. If you’re a dog lover, pour a little lather out for a good boy and friend

LG SOTD 27Jun2024

• Brush: DS Cosmetics Kensurfs ‘22 - 26mm G7 synthetic
• Razor: Karve - Overlander (Brass)
• Blade: Personna - Lab Blue (6)
• Lather: Wholly Kaw - DFS 2021
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Shave Balm, Embrace

Welcome to the twenty-seventh shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today’s theme is Information Overload where the goal is to shave with a lather that has ten or more scent notes in its marketing.

I originally came by this soap in a PIF from u/whollykaw himself. I dug it at first but the more I used it the more my brain fixated on something I smell as an intense powdery note from the fragrance, and I don't like powdery notes. Not sure what it is exactly, but once smelled, couldn't unsmell it so the tub has been living as a donor tub helping to spread the knowledge of WK's Sego base in my own sample PIFs. Using it today because some last minute calendar shuffling left this as the only possible remaining spot to slot in an on-theme Wholly Kaw product.

There are eleven, count them, eleven notes in the marketing for WK's DFS 2021:

• 01 - Ginger
• 02 - Osmanthus
• 03 - Bergamot
• 04 - Lemon
• 05 - Lime
• 06 - Artemisia
• 07 - Tobacco
• 08 - Patchouli
• 09 - Guaiac Wood
• 10 - Vetiver
• 11 - Vanilla

The ginger and tobacco forms the backbone of the scent to my nose and I’d be hard pressed to pick out any individual fruit notes. Regardless, if you get past the “powder”, it’s a lightly spicy, warm scent with a lot going on.

The daily challenge is to shave with our non-dominant hand and that is why I chose the Overlander as without any data at all I determined this to be the better razor to use left-handed. It worked out very well - no nicks or irritation and shave is within acceptable parameters. It’s a bit awkward shaving without the muscle memory, but shaving is something my left hand can handle.

Enjoy your day, everyone!

LG SOTD 28Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Ash Wood - 20mm tuxedo synthetic
• Razor: Gillette - 109 Super Adjustable (1970)
• Blade: Personna - Lab Blue (3)
• Lather: Arko - Shave Soap in Bowl
• Bowl: SLSON - Pet Travel Bowl
• Post Shave: Afta by Mennen - Aftershave Lotion, Original

Welcome to the twenty-eighth shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today’s theme is Frugal Friday where the goal is to shave with our cheapest lather, and I’m going for the added special challenge of shaving with cheapest everything.

For reasons that I would be hard pressed to explain logically, I have made a hobby out of shaving. And like every hobby, it is not a money maker or even saver. Like most of us in the games, I have spent enough on wetshaving to make cartridge shaving look practically free in comparison. Today shines a light on our degeneracy.

——

For today’s shave have put together the most inexpensive set of soft and hardware in my collection:

• ARKO - Shaving Soap Puck in Bowl $5

This was a curiosity buy last spring that I am finally trying today. Based upon the full price paid, ARKO weighs in at $1.58/ounce, making it the cheapest soap in the den. Next closest was the Palmolive Classic Shaving Cream at $1.89/ounce.

• Gillette - 109 Super Adjustable ~$40

I realize that a $40 vintage razor may not be that cheap relative to the possibilities out there, but it is the cheapest razor in my den. I'm not sure what the original MSRP would translate into in 2024 dollars, but since the cheapest modern market razor is a $70 Henson, it's probably the cheapest no matter how you look at it.

• SLSON Travel Dog Bowl $3

The bowl is very similar to what a lot of people call the Stirling travel bowl, but unlike the slow feeder bowl that Stirling sells, this does not have the nubbins; it's just a collapsible bowl with a barely raised silhouette of dog. On those occasions I've not been able to bring a proper bowl when traveling, this has been my go to. The material has enough texture/friction by itself to work just fine without the difficult to control over threshing of the nubbins. Paid $6 for a two pack (used the other as an actual travel bowl for my dogs - perfect for giving water on the go) making this a $3 lather bowl from some RNG named Amazon reseller, SLSON.

• Yaqi Ash Wood - 20mm tuxedo synthetic $5.60

Impulse buy on AliExpress while picking up another brush figuring it would work somewhere in the Lather Games and here we are, cheapest brush in the den it is.

• Afta - Aftershave Lotion, Original $5 give or take

I have no idea what this stuff is supposed to cost - if you can find it on the shelves at Wal-Mart, they want $3, there are online sellers that want $9 for a bottle. I've always managed to find it online in multipacks for about $5 per 3 oz bottle. Whatever the case, it's about the same cost as the Aqua Velva I used for drugstore day and far cheaper than any of the artisan aftershave balms.

• Nothing at all for fragrance $0

I hope that the fact I never use fragrances doesn't count against me for the special challenge and I'm going to use this opportunity to voice a beef I have with the scoring for the Lather Games: After on-theme lathers and judge points, the highest contribution to your lather games score is stand alone fragrances. Not daily or special challenges, not your vast hardware collection, no, it's something that has absolutely nothing to do with wetshaving beyond cross marketing.

I am not 100% neurotypical and can be overstimulated by some scents - if a soap wants a one way trip to the PIF pile all it needs is some non S-tier note detectable too long after I shave. Many are the times I posted a neutral or even softly positive first impression about a new soap in the SOTD only to come back later in the day and remove it from the den permanently because some part of it kept coming back. Wetshaving opened up the world of fragrance for me because it's ephemeral and temporary. I experience the burst of scents, and then they go away. There are very few scents I would even contemplate wearing as a stand alone fragrance, certainly not enough to compete against someone that routinely buys the trifecta. That is all.

——

That's a complete wet shaving kit for under $60, less than I paid for the Henson Medium that signaled my descent into depravity. But it doesn’t make me feel better as I would NEVER use this kit outside of the games. It’s my definition of penny wise and pound foolish.

Arko was not as bad as some describe it, certainly preferable to Stirling’s Electric Sheep scent wise, and performance was acceptable. But saving the small amount of money on this is hardly worth using it over the literal thousands of more pleasant alternatives. Let’s also keep in mind that I purchased this “cheap and money saving soap” while sitting on a few years worth of soap.

The brush was also functional but when for $10-$15 more could buy a nice Yaqi or DS Cosmetic, there is no reason to buy this other than stunt purposes.

Similar for the razor. A $70 Henson or $80 Karve will blow this and every other cheap razor out of the water - and if you don’t keep buying razors is effectively free compared to cartridge razors. I detest the tendency to regard something like a Henson as “expensive” when it steers people to “save” a few dollars on zamak garbage. You save money on razors by buying a good quality razor from the start and never reading these subs and related forums again. No such thing as a beginner razor, and cheap razors are just cheap.

The bowl is decent and for $3 is certainly cheap, but I’ll take my CaYuen and pay the extra. Cheapest bowl I would use on the regular is the standard copper Captain’s Choice. This is good for overnight travel and that’s it.

The only thing I shaved with today that I will use regularly is the Afta, everything else was about experiencing inferior products to understand and reinforce why the cheapest shave kit I would use comes in at more than double today’s stunt kit.

Enjoy your Friday, the weekend awaits!

OP does it all cheap.

More importantly, makes an interesting point about fragrance being relevant to the final scores, and makes a case for changing the rules next year.

LG SOTD 29Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi B&R - 24mm boar
• Razor: Blackland - Era SB-L4 (using Maggard MR18 handle)
• Blade: Gillette - Platinum (3)
• Lather: Stirling - Vanilla Sandalwood
• Bowl: CaYuen - Dark Nebula, large
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Aftershave Balm, Embrace

Welcome to the twenty-ninth and penultimate shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today’s theme is Sandalwood Saturday where we shave with a sandalwood centric lather. There’s also something about doing the judges’ jobs for them, but I’ll get to that later.

First, we must shave. Today’s lather has been in the den since September 2021 and was purchased as a sample from Stirling. It fell into the “no but finish” bucket - a soap that isn’t tub worthy but I still like enough to finish out the sample, which in Stirling’s case equals years in a den with a soap selection that moves beyond practical 😅. At least another four shaves to go so possibly kill it before 2025.

Sandalwood is one of those descriptors that is almost useful but not really. For some the scent is almost spicy, think the Proraso Red version. Some it’s kind of nutty, ZM’s sandalwood comes to mind as a version of that. Then there are the ones like Stirling’s Vanilla Sandalwood where it’s a pleasantly aromatic wood-ish scent, not at all in your face, and nothing weird. Recently I tried a sandalwood from Smitten Soapery, ancestor to the current ZM, and wouldn’t place it with any of these recognizable buckets, wouldn’t even classify it as a sandalwood if I were in charge, so there is a lot of room for variation under that single scent descriptor.

This brush is the second boar that I have and though more broken in than the Stirling is not as good. Not sure why I keep it around, or why used it today when there was no good reason 🤔

The razor is not one that gets a lot of love since I got the Karve CB. The Era is a razor that elicits a lot of mixed opinions from me. On the positive side I think they nailed an American made tech-like that is rock solid in construction and shaves well, that’s why it’s still in the den.

On the other hand, they screwed the pooch with project management and product support, and overhyped what was clearly not as slick as implied in prerelease marketing. I was marketed a $150-$200 caliber razor for $75, what I got was, checks notes, decent but not particularly competitive even for a $75 razor in a world where the Gamechanger exists. More importantly, I was hyped a Blackland product that was fully subcontracted and when the second contractor bailed after delivering one, repeat, one set of parts, they canceled the whole project leaving many customers unable to purchase additional plates because they had no capacity to support the product as Blackland proper. They can spin it however they want but I won’t be getting any more Blackland razors after my experience.

Called an audible and switched to the HoM Embrace over Afta for the post shave, it was a good call.

——

The day’s challenge is to tell the judges about our favorite posts. That is a bit arbitrary since so much skimming and selective attention goes into looking over other people’s posts, so I decided to be a pseudo judge for Dupelganger day (everything I know about commercial fragrances was learned here and this is a good way to learn more). I read over every single post from 13June2024 and provided comments:

• alg82 - No formatting, no explanation of what it was a dupe of or even if was a dupe. No challenge participation. Whatever the penalty for DQ's were, this one gets them all.
• OnionMiasma - On theme for lather, presumably had matching theme for fragrance related BS. Low effort but compliant. No challenge participation.
• socialkittielynx - On theme for lather. Don't see how the post-shave fits with the other fragrances. Decent write up but "Nancet"???. No challenge participation.
• USS-Spongebob - On theme for lather, matching theme for fragrance related BS. Low effort but compliant. No challenge participation.
• gorgbob - On theme for lather, barely. No points for the challenge - if that is original work, it's nice, it also doesn't become shave label art because you title the imgur upload of what is clearly an unrelated wall piece, "label art" lol.
• GroundbreakingRole45 - On theme technically but taking away 25% (0.5 points). Is it a dupe? Yes, but it shouldn't be on the judges to do your job for you. This is the lowest effort post possible that could potentially qualify.
• jwoods23 - On theme for lather, matching theme for fragrance related BS. Good write up with clear justifications given. Challenge completed.
• dean_peltons_sister - On theme for lather. No challenge participation. Decent write up with bonus points for thumbing the nose at the theocracry by using PAA in the games, this sub member approves.
• oswald_heist - On theme for lather, matching theme for fragrance related BS.
• tsrblke - On theme for lather, matching theme for fragrance related BS. 0.1 points for challenge - disregarding whether AI prompted images should count, they ought to at least be in the form of a damn label, these were just themed pics, low effort but at least better than taking a snap of a wall poster. High effort post, could be tightened up, but solid and the interview was amusing.
• hugbckt - On theme for lather; don't know if fragrance BS met, don't recognize the stuff and he didn't explain. Nailed the daily challenge, best so far. Decent write up.
• InfernalInternal - Technically on theme for lather and qualified for related fragrance BS, 25% penalty for sending the judge to google machine to do what you should have done yourself. Challenge completed. Low effort in general.
• rebdoomer88 - On theme for lather. No challenge participation. Minimum effort post.
• BossHoggins10 - On theme for lather. Challenge completed. Decent but modest effort write up.
• SufficientKnee - On theme for lather, 25% penalty for no statement of what it's a dupe of. No challenge participation. Very low effort post.
• Str8_Razor - On theme for lather, matching theme for fragrance related BS. Challenge completed. Hashtags appear correct. Short but decent write up.
• ShaveyMcShaveface - On theme for lather. No challenge participation. One hashtag was questionable, other two seem legit. Very low effort post.
• Breadheater9876 - DQ'd from me. I've used Trade Winds, I've used Old Spice, and invoking Cowzilla's name as though it's imbued with magical bullshit does not make Trade Winds even tangentially an Old Spice dupe, sorry. Good effort :). Challenge completed.

Judged all shaves for dupe day and chose their winner. (Didn't get challenge point)

LG SOTD 29Jun2024

• Brush: Yaqi Purple Haze - 24mm (synbad) synthetic
• Razor: Henson - Ti22 Medium
• Blade: Silver Star - Super Stainless (1)
• Blade: Treet - Falcon (1)
• Lather: Los Jabones De Joserra - Passion Incense
• Bowl: La Creuset - Yellow Mug

Welcome to the thirtieth and final shave of the 2024 Lather Games. Today’s theme is Bon Voyage, Lather Games where we bid farewell to a month of scripted shaving by shaving with lather made somewhere other than where we were born. Taking the difficulty up (and possible satisfaction down), adding in the World Traveler special challenge where every bit of gear used is from a different country than the other gear, and none of those are where I was born (USA).

As covered on earlier shaves, don't do fragrances and I don't have anything to use as a post-shave that was made outside the USA. But, do have a selection of other gear from around the world to shave with today.

• The lather is something brand new to me, Los Jabones De Joserra, a mouthful of a brand made in Spain that I picked up a sample for recently.
• The brush is the first nice brush I ever bought myself, my Yaqi Purple Haze that was made in China.
• Going to whip that up in another makeshift bowl, this is a Le Creuset mug made in France that my daughter picked up when she visited there.
• Razor is my Henson Ti22 that was made in Canada.
• The blades facing off in today's fight are the Silver Star, made in Egypt, and the Treet, made in Pakistan.

As special challenges go, this one is on the easier side since wetshaving is a fairly international affair and there were a number of combinations I could have used to fulfill the conditions.

——

The shave…

Off the puck the lather was squarely in the spicy aromatics branch of fragrances and lathered that opened up more intensely. This is very much a fragrance you might have found in a mall import shop in the days or yore and lives up to the “Passion Incense” name. I don’t see it as tub worthy likely but it’s pleasant and I’ll be back to test the lather with a more standard hardware set up.

Today was the opposite of the tiny vintage brush and a large modern bowl, it was a modern brush versus a vintage sized mug and much banging about was had. The soap held less water than I expected but didn’t break thankfully and it was very slick. Since I am skipping any sort of post shave, experienced the full dry down and post shave from this stuff and it’s solid. I got a very close shave, no irritation, and my skin feels good. The fragrance holds the same balance as it fades out, another plus. It reminds me of BaM’s Melange minus the fireproofed chimney brick scent. A good first impression and I’m likely to try other scents from LJDJ.

——

Tournament of Blades Fight 424, Round 1. Silver Star - Super Stainless (Egypt) vs Treet - Falcon (Pakistan)

No question today, the Treet gave a near perfect performance. I can’t really fault anything from the Silver Star but its feedback was not nearly as butter smooth as the Treet’s.

Winner of R1: Treet - Falcon

——

And there we have it, another Lather Games in the bag.

• I shaved with twelve different razors from six brands, three of them hardware sponsors. I fulfilled five of the razor HWSH hashtags.
• I shaved using twenty different brushes from eight brands, one of them a hardware sponsor. I fulfilled six of the razor HWSH hashtags.
• I shaved with thirty on-theme lathers from twenty-three brands in twenty-five bases (Stirling and Cella getting in there twice each with base variants). Thirteen of the brands were software sponsors. I completed the “30 Lather Scents Bonus”.
• I completed twenty-four of twenty-six daily challenges and three of four special challenges.

I went further than I have before. By my reckoning, my score looks something like this:

• Daily Theme Points: 60/60
• Relavant Post Shave & Fragrance: 0/6
• Daily Challenges: 4.8/5.2
• Special Challenges: 1.5/2
• Daily Judge Evaluation: ?/20
• Bonus for Legendary Posts: ?/5
• Hardware Scavenger Hunt: 1.1/2
• Hardware Sponsor Points: 2/2
• Software Sponsor Points: 13/16
• Software Sponsor Bonus: 0/1
• 30 Lather Brands Bonus: 0/1
• 30 Lather Scents Bonus: 1/1
• 30 Post Shaves Bonus: 0/1
• 30 Fragrance Bonus: 0/1
• GRAND TOTAL: 83.4 / 98.2 Pre-Judge Points

Without the judge’s input, I’ve got a passing grade of 84%. Not bad but any chances of doing well are going to come down to how I am measured by my judgey peers.

That is it. Enjoy what is left of your weekend! Tomorrow I get to bust into my BaM veggiebus samples I’ve been dying to try and had no where to slot in during the games 😄

User does djudges' homework by grading own performance in remarkable level of detail.

Possibly auditioning for djudgeship in LG v11?