**June 1, 2024**

LG24 DAY 1 - A NUTCASE'S SUITCASE

photocontest

Fill the Frame (subject: the suitcase with its contents)

Prep: Shower with Oleo & Company Cedarwood Handmade Liquid Soap. Pre-shave beverage: Cedrata Tassoni (alcohol-free soda, embossed glass bottle)

* Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm #FAUXFUR #FRANKENBRUSH
* Razor: EldrormR Industries MM24, Two-Toned Finish #FLIPTOP #MODERNGEM
* Blade: Personna GEM (1)
* Lather: AA Shaving - Wapiti
* Post Shave: Tallow + Steel - Himalaya - After Shave
* Fragrance: Hermès - Eau de Citron Noir (sample)

ACROSTIC OUVERTURE

“Begin your journey with an SE Blade
Oh, you shave nerd, on this first day”
“New all the things”, “Easy thing to say!”
“Jump on the chat, and we will give you aid!”
OnionMiasma sent a (AA) generous smush
u/EldrormR, his GEM fabulous, and in a rush!
Rookie as I am, I still lacked a faux boar brush

Lather then I made with all my brand-new goods:
AA’s soap scent kinda inspired by woods
TS put its mark on the world’s peak heights
Hermès a dark citrus from the city of lights
Exact match it isn’t, your cedar’s not citron
Riddled with false friends, this lifeboat I got on!

GEM blade: I was ready, u treat'd me like spaghetti
Acrostic rhymes or rap will not become my brand
My mic’s about to drop, my shave to reach its end
Experiment, I’ll keep to, and share it naming names
Such is my commitment, for this year’s lather games

ACT 1: NORTH BY NORTHWEST

AA shaving is a new-to-me lather brand (just like it’s my first time with an AP Shave Co brush). I read that Wapiti is inspired by a forest in Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, a place that according to Google hosts the northernmost and northwesternmost points in the contiguous United States.

I wondered if there was a connection with Hitchock’s North by Northwest: I checked and there isn’t any. Nonetheless, take it as my MOTD recommendation, together with a cool quote that is likely unrelated, yet still somewhat meaningful:

“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw”
William Shakespeare. Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2

AA's soap base has immediately proved to be very easy to lather: I was quite impressed, and I can't thank enough u/OnionMiasma for sending me a smush across the ocean.

As instructed by u/EldrormR, in preparation of the shave with my new MM24 I kept the lather as hydrated as possible, to the point that I accidentally projected a couple of lather splashes across the room.

However, testing the lather under the (figurative) pressure of the unfamiliar GEM made me wish for more slickness.
While I got a BBS on my face (after a slow shave during which I was entertained by the acoustic feedback of the blade), a small area of my neck - which had been heavily scrubbed by yesterday's experiment with a vintage boar - ended up getting a few annoying nicks. Technically, it could easily be my fault, as I might have fumbled the razor angle on the neck, but still I had the feeling that the lather was not as glide-friendly as some of the top performers such as DG Milksteak, B+M Ombnibus, MM Kodiak.

I was pleasantly surprised by AP's Faux Boar: I purchased it as a way to honor the first hardware sponsor on the list, and to try an example of boar replica, but I didn't really know what to expect. While it doesn't have the strong backbone of some actual boar knots, it does perform quite effectively and without too much of a "whiplash" effect. So far, I really like it.

I'm very happy about my new hardware, looking forward to using both razor and brush again!

ACT 2: CANADA’S STAKE ON THE HIMALAYAS

After a US brand for the lather, I wanted a Canadian one for the post-shave, as the exploration of North American artisans’ creations from both sides of the border has been the leading theme over the last few months of my wetshaving journey.

In our hyper-connected world, an Italian like me can get an AS splash crafted in Winnipeg, Canada, that uses Himalayan Cedarwood among its ingredients.
I had totally forgotten that Ryan from T+S in an email had advised me that Himalaya is "a warm / sweet amber type oriental scent".
I had purchased it last January and then put aside, so when I was looking for some Canadian cedarwood from an unusual provenance, I picked it without remembering that the woods were just one of the instruments in the symphony.

I actually like it, but it doesn't fit much with AA Wapiti (whose scent rapidly fainted), nor with my subsequent choice..

ACT 3: HAIL CEDAR!
A CAUTIONARY TALE ON PICKING A FALSE FRIEND AS YOUR TRUE LEADER

Upon embarking in a journey away from the comfort of your homeland, one must be ready to embrace chaos and confusion, to mistake a hawk for a handsaw, a Roger Thornhill for a George Kaplan, and then
live with the consequences, as bizarre as they can be.

Today my FOF semantically challenged challenge was: can we trust Cedar as our Leader?

Do we even all mean the same thing when we talk about Cedar?

Here in the Mediterranean, when you talk about a Cedar tree, people will likely think about the Cedar of Lebanon. However, the Italian word for the tree, Cedro, also refers to a citrus fruit, that in English is called Citron or Cedrate – a name that sounds like our popular soft drink Cedrata, a soda made with Citron fruit juice.

But Citron turns out to be yet another false friend when you speak with a French, to whom citron is a just a standard lemon.

There is no steady ground.
It all keeps shifting. Nothing is certain.

This is my Hail Cedar, a madcap story of woods and citrus, silver screen compass directions and misdirected investigations, a story that starts in a dupe place called “Olympic” even if it's half a world away from the original Mount Olympus, then goes to Himalaya to look for a mythical high-altitude Cedarwood note, but comes back jet-lagged with a boozy oriental drydown. A final detour brings us to a Paris fashion house, where we find out how they deem it elegant to spin the woody-citrus thread, in this mad mad world where Cedro is not the fruit of the Cedro tree, and your Citron is not the same as the Citroen’s workers Citron.

FOF

EDITED a couple of times right after posting to fix some bugging text editor issues

ROTY

Just curious: why is this called *Saturday* Lather Games *Thursday* SOTD thread?

Is Thursday a hint for a future challenge, or a leftover from a copy and paste?

June 2, 2024

LG SOTD, DAY 2: ATLANTIC STORIES EXHIBIT SPECIAL EDITION OF OUR SUNDAY'S LITERARY SUPPLEMENT

LG theme: Ahoy, Lather Games!

PHOTOCONTEST

Theme: Pirates (small Han Solo miniature figure, justification sources here about Han Solo pirate's history; in case judges are revisionist SW historians who dispute that Han shot first, I also included pictures of the real pirate Roberts and of his fantasy dupe, the Dread Pirate Roberts)

Special challenge: Paleontology

Prep: Barrister and Mann - Hand & Boady Soap: Spice

• Brush: Aurora Grooming - LG24 multicolor LE with Oumo 26mm synthetic knot
• Razor: Henson AL-13 Medium - Blue #CNC #RAINBOW
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue [1]
• Lather: Henri et Victoria - Navigateur (Maggard Meetup Sample)
• Post Shave: Murphy & McNeil – Granuaile AS Balm
• Fragrance: Chatillon Lux – Admiral (sample)

Now, as Reddit keeps preventing me from posting the essays requested as punishment by many pirate prisoners, let's see if this workaround works:

• click here for the introduction
• click here for room 1: lather and brush choices
• click here for room 2: a tribute to a real and legendary pirate queen
• click here for room 3: homage to u/Priusaurus, frag choice intro

Now, for today’s FOF: OUTSTANDING PAIRING!

As an aquatics- ozonic- and oceanic- averse wetshaver, I was not expecting such an amazing journey. HeV Navigateur opens with a nice lavender-jasmine accord that evolves into a pretty quasi-fougère, the kind of non-controversial scent that may easily accompany you while you need to focus your brain on the navigation maps. Granuaile, at least in its balm form, smells like the masculine sunscreen lotion I didn’t know I wanted: the so called “white leather” notes smell rounded and suave, with a levity that I reminds me more of soft suede than of sturdy leather. The gunpowder note shot by Granuail’s ship cannon gave just the right, gentle kick (less prominent than in, say, HoM Fu Dao), to accurately propel me and make me land on the deck of CL’s Admiral.

Admiral’s herbal aromatics of lemongrass and verbena then gave a new lift to my combined scent trail, while the riverboat smoke provided the perfect segue to my pirate adventures, seamlessly fusing with the gunpowder waves that occasionally resurface on my skin.

FOF

You have reached the end of the exhibition, but rest assured that today's gunpowder trail will keep leading us to tomorrow's theme...

ROTY

June 3, 2024

LG SOTD, DAY 3: DUCK, YOU SUCKER!

(A SPAGHETTI SHAVER EPIC)

Daily theme relevance: my beef tallow alternative (or surrogate, if you are a beef suprematist) is duck.

PHOTOCONTEST - ANIMAL

Mexican painted ceramic duck (tribute to today’s MOTD setting) and Yellow rubber duck (tribute to AdP yellow faux-leather fantasy of a sophisticated shatter-proof life)

Special theme: As a tribute to u/OnionMiasma, my SOTD pic includes the actual envelope he used to send me smushes, as well as an Italian spaghetti-alum block: we reinvented westerns, think we can't do a decent OSMA dupe?

OPENING CREDITS SEQUENCE
-> Soundtrack by Ennio Morricone here

--THE CAST

Pre shave: Acqua di Parma - Bagno alla Colonia Bath and Shower Gel, Acqua di Parma - Deodorante alla Colonia Deodorant Spray

• Brush: Muhle – Anodized Aluminum Travel Brush Black 21mm #HOLLOW
• Razor: Henson AL-13 Medium blue
• Blade: Silver Blue [2]
• Lather: Chicago Grooming - Shiloh (Canard base)
• Post Shave: Ethos Grooming - DFS Colonia Skin Food Lotion
• Fragrance: Acqua di Parma - Colonia Assoluta EdC 30cl

Additional Post-Shave: Acqua di Parma – Barbiere Emulsione Rinfrescante Dopobarba

--THE SCENE

Yesterday’s gunpowder scent trail takes us back to Andalusia, today a cinematic stand-in, or dupe, for 1912 revolutionary Mexico.

We are here for a story of undaunted dupes and surrogates, an epic of reluctant reinventions and revolutions, a fable about heroes who stand broken but not defeated.

Duck, you sucker is the title of Sergio Leone’s penultimate film, a film he didn’t mean to direct. It was released in 1971, three years after Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), thirteen years before Once Upon a Time in America (1984).

After using the alias Bob Robertson to make his early films sound more “international”, the director returned to his real Italian name, Sergio Leone, after he reached global success with the so-called Dollars Trilogy, the cornerstone of the spaghetti western genre.

As film heroes are defined by conflict, here are the links to dig into the genesis of the MOTD (parts 1-3), and to the SOTD it inspired (part 4):

parts 1 and 2:
- THE HERO'S (UN)ORIGINAL SIN: KUROSAWA’S BEEF WITH LEONE
- NOT IN ~~KANSAS~~ ITALY ANMORE: LEONE'S BEEF WITH THE AMERICANS

parts 3 and 4:
- A STUBBORN LION, PRONE TO BEEFS AND FIXATED WITH DUCK
- DUCK, YOU SHAVER! MY SOTD WITH DUPES, SURROGATES AND THINGS THAT GO BOOM

part 5: FOF WRITEUP
Today’s FOF is a journey that spans from well-groomed city brightness of the AdP products I used for the pre-shave, to the dustier notes of CG’s Shiloh soap, that feel as if it has been seasoned by the experience of some tough travels across a Mexican desert. Compared to its fragrance inspiration (re-tested through prep with two AdP products: shower soap and deodorant), and in particular to AdP's signature opening, a bright lemon/verbena and Spring rose accord, my tub of Shiloh leans toward a more powdery floral/orange smell with just a hint of nutty-ness. Dunno if it is a problem with my tub being kinda "seasoned" before my recent purchase, in any case it’s still very pleasant per se – just not an accurate dupe if you make a back-to-back comparison with the original.

Having been broken similarly to Rod Steiger’s character in a painful sequence of DYS, my flacon of Ethos DFS Colonia remake still shines for excellent qualities of its own, just like Leone’s For a Fistful of Dollars when compared to Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. Actually, compared to AdP mildly scented aftershave emulsion, Ehtos’ reinvention stands out as a more punchy reinvention, like spaghetti westerns when they “exploded” against the all too familiar backdrop of Hollywood stories of the old frontier.

For the finale, I didn’t want to backtrack to the original AdP Colonia. Instead, I explored the self-remake/reinvention of AdP Colonia Assoluta, a fragrance created by Bertrand Duchaufour and Jean-Claude Ellena in 2003 and discontinued a few years ago. While Ellena is widely known for his signature “transparent” aesthetic (mostly evident in his Hermès creations), AdP Colonia Assoluta conquered me for its oakmoss-heavy and spicier drydown, reminiscent of old-school, old-world perfumes. On a Cary Grant scale, AdP Colonia is like watching him in the light sophisticated 1930s comedy Bringing Up Baby, AdP Colonia Assoluta feels more like 1950s North by Northwest, where he keeps being charming and cool, but is also shown doing more "mature" stuff (by that time's sensibilities: today these are just SOP for college kids) like being drunk in public and having casual sex with a stranger.

Yes, DYLF Colonia Assoluta is Dad's spaghetti, way cooler than plain vanilla Colonia.

FOF

Edit 1: links added
Edit 2: hw scavenger hunt hashtag added

ROTY

If your content doesn't fit in a single Reddit comment, you're probably writing too much.

June 4, 2024
I WAS MADE FOR LAVENDER

THEME: KISS : MY Assertion for today’s challenge is that LAVENDER IS THE ONE

#photocontest - Darkness

Prep: Shower with Barrister and Mann – Lavender (Cootie Killer liquid soap)

• Brush: Cream & Wine Merit 99-4 by Heritage Collection / AP Shave Co. Pure Bliss SHD Premium Synthetic 24 mm #SHD
• Razor: Rex – Konsul #ADJUSTABLE
• Blade: Gillette - Nacet (1)
• Lather: Ethos Grooming - Lavender Supreme
• Post Shave: Catie’s Bubbles - Lavender Mélange
• Fragrance: Barrister and Mann - Lavender

Mmm, yeah, ha
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do, do
Do, do, do, do, do, do, do

Tonight, I wanna give it all to you
In the darkness, there's so much I wanna do
And tonight, I wanna lay it at your feet
'Cause, frag, I was made for you and, frag, you were made for me

I was made for lavender, baby, you were made for lovin' me
And I can't get enough of you, baby, can you get enough of me?

Tonight, I wanna smell it in your scent
Feel the magic, there's something that drives me wild
And tonight, we're gonna make it all come true
'Cause, frag, you were made for me and, frag, I was made for you 

I was made for lavender, baby, you were made for lovin' me
And I can't get enough of you, baby, can you get enough of me?
I was made for lavender, baby, you were made for lovin' me
And I can give it all to you, baby, can you give it all to me?

-> MEMORIES OF LAVENDERS PAST

SHAVING WITH OCCAM’S RAZOR

“Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity”, says Wikipedia

That’s why I am using my Rex Konsul adjustable, nickname “Occams”, the ONE razor to ~~rule~~ replace them all.
Man it's good!

First time using the brush, it performed ok but I think I prefer G5 knots.

Ethos' F base is easy and reliable.

CB Aftershave splash provided the requested alcohol kick, “that unique feel of masochistic masculinity” that I was longing for after yesterday’s dry punishment with alum.

BASE WAR STORIES: THE ACE(S) OF BASE(S)

It’s only been a year since I started my exploration of soap bases, so all the ones I put my brush into tend to still be available.

Except Murphy and McNeil bear-tallow Kodiak, made in a limited early run : when the initial small batch of a scent gets sold out, my pain for the non-replicability of the scent / soap base combination is barely sustainable. Then I get distracted by the cringe-y wordplay on “bearly” etc, and my mind gets distracted by bad jokes and puns.

My favorite four aces from non-LE soap bases are the latest from HoM, CG, B+M and DG.
Wildcards: Mo does great stuff with AION, but similarly to Dimitrios from HAGS, he keeps tweaking his bases, to the point where I just got overwhelmed and gave up trying to keep track.

If you are asking me to KISS and tell, i.e. pick just one, think twice: well, my friend, you are entering a world of pain!

FOF WRITEUP

Before it got discontinued, I purchased all the remaining B+M Lavender liquid soap I could find, as it’s my favorite hand and body soap of all time.

As its scent was inspired by the discontinued Caldey Island Lavender, a fragrance that also features a vanilla note (similarly to Caron Pour un Homme, the first masculine lavender in perfume history), I decided that for today’s KISS I was going to use to use it only for the “bookends” of my fragrance journey.

You wanted simple? According to Ethos’ website, Lavender Supreme “contains only 100% pure Organic Lavender Essential Oil sourced from a grower in Provence”.

But me? I can’t say no to the thrill of complexity. Screw you Occam! (Actually, that’s what I do any time I adjust your settings). I mean, isn’t the one of the most remarkable philosophical feats of Catholicism to have so many people agreeing about the existence of multiplicity (in the specific case: trinity) in The One? Here we have “ a blend of 5 high end lavenders from around the world” (multiplicity) “Designed with the sole intention of being the ‘Ultimate Lavender Experience’” (The One!).

Ethos is perfectly nice, but frankly a bit generic and boring.

CB is more nuanced, but damn! It still misses something. What could it be?

Time to go back to B+M Lavender.
More than a dupe, the loving replica of an olfactive monument that was on the verge of disappearance, until it got discontinued again.

Now I see it, the perfumery truth that had been hiding in plain sight.

Vanilla.

In fact, is there anything simpler than that?

FOF

EDITED to add link and fix typos

ROTY

Adapted a ballad to become an ode to Lavender.

June 5, 2024

DIFFICULT LOVE: THE ADVENTURE OF A WET SHAVER

(theme: Canned Shave Goop)

photocontest - Hobbies (Movies)

Prep: shower with Mario Fissi 1937 Firenze - Royal Musk soap

• Brush: Proraso (Omega rebranded) - Professional Brush - Boar #OLDWORLD
• Razor: Bic - Monolama disposable
• Blade: Bic - Monolama - integrated blade (1)
• Lather: Mario Fissi 1937 Firenze - Crema da barba rinfrescante
• Post Shave: Denim - Musk Aftershave
• Fragrance: Denim - Musk EdT

A long and busy day, I am posting late and I apologize for the decreasing quality of my English.

Happy to have involved my GF, who helped me with today's pic's set dressing by making the paper wedding arch and the stylized yellow bus.

Let's jump into today's story about the difficult love life of mass market products in a world dominated by plastic and multi-blades.

BIC = BEN'S INNER CONFLICT: A STORY ABOUT DIFFICULT LOVE IN THE TIME OF SUPERMARKETS

-> click here for the real story of the Graduate

SPECIAL CHALLENGE: REVERSE LATHER ROUTINE

As I usually shift between Bowl- and Face- lathering, I decided to subvert my routine and reclaim my shaving destiny by taking it into my hands.

This was my second time using Mario Fissi's Crema da barba rinfrescante, a puzzling product that presents itself as a hard soap (in a commendably recycled cardboard box), while being labeled as a "cream".

During my previous shave with it, I scraped some of the dry soap and put it in a bowl to try to lather with a brush.

This time, I energetically rubbed the soap bar with my own two hands so as to cover them with its oily and alnost sticky proto-cream, then I used the Proraso Professional boar brush (Eur 3.73 at the same supermarket where I purchased the Fissi Crema da barba) to lather it frommy hands.

The resulting foam was (same as last time) full of bubbles and not particularly reassuring. On the other hand, the shaving experience with the humble Bic 1-blade disposable (Eur 1.18 for a pack of ten) was incredibly effective, and THE POST-SHAVE WAS AS GOOD AS WITH MOST TOP ARTISAN SOAPS. Seriously, this is uncanny.

I feel vastly unequipped to decode this cheap soap from a mass-market company I had never heard about until a few weeks ago. I'll need to further investigate the mystery of this "cream" that appears as a solid bar, makes a very ugly lather, and then performs way beyond its league. Very happy to have used just my hands and the most no-BS boar brush I could find, to get the most "hands on" experience (literally) I could conceive.

After the intense palm lathering (one palm for each one of the two passes), a side effect is that my hands benefitted from the moisturizing properties of the soap, returning to a state of softness that reminds me of my pre-adult life.

FOF WRITEUP

Today's products were all selected on the base of their availability as mass-produced goods that are available at local supermarkets here in Florence, Italy, so the pairing options were limited from the start.

I started with a pre-shave shower with Fissi's soap bar "Royal Musk", a nice citrus/green/musk accord, and then used the Floid Vetyver Deodorant Stick, which provided a generic but pleasant, consistent and persistent citrus/green accord.

The lather was nominally featuring Vetiver and Lemongrass essential oils: while I could smell them both from the hard soap bar, once lathered they were almost non-perceivable from my nose.

After many decades wondering what is the scent of "The man who don't have to ask, ever", I used today's LG theme as an excuse to finally find out the truth about the legendary Denim Musk.
The AS alcohol splash, available at least three different supermarket chains, cost me Eur 3.90.
The EdT, available only at one of the three stores I scouted, cost Eur 6.49.

While lacking any functional properties beyond, well, being alcohol-based, the AS splash punches waaay above its weight, offering a clean citrus/green/musk accord, with a short but impeccable evolution from the bright top notes to the surprisingly nuanced synthetic musks.

The EdT tries to add some woody/spicy complexity to the drydown, with a result that ends up being so bland and generic that it's almost unnoticeable (yet, luckily, not annoying) to my nose.

The Mario Fissi Royal Musk soap bar combined with its Vetiver and Lemongrass Crema da barba sibling, and Denim Musk AS provide a seamless and excellent pairing: for a cumulative price of less than 10 Euros, it's possibly the most affordable good scent pairing I ever experienced.
On the other hand, the Denim Musk EdT is ok, but I'd rather apply more AS (which has a decent staying power, and a less brooding scent), than buy again the EdT, which had the counter-productive effect of covering the citrus/green and musk duality with an underwhelming woody spiciness.

FOF

ROTY

June 6, 2024

MY CUP OF TEA (WetTubing it ain't)

(theme: Thirsty Thursday)

photocontest - Water

(the key element for wet shavers and tea brewers)

Prep: shower with Barrister and Mann - Cheshire bath and body soap

• Brush: Omega - EVO Titan
• Razor: Rex - Konsul adjustable
• Blade: Voskhod - Teflon Coated
• Lather: Noble Otter - The Noir et Vanille
• Post Shave: Noble Otter - The Noir et Vanille
• Fragrance: Masque - Russian Tea

CHALLENGE FOR WHOM?

Today offers various challenges to various people.

For me, a big one is trying to remain civil and politely sip my cup of tea while I try to share with you my constructive disagreement about WetTubing.

"If this is truly impossible...", you pre-emptively concede.

Well, it is impossible.

Not logistically, but logically.

Here, let's try not to be emotional, and rely on rational thinking to calmly discuss the issue with quiet, dignity, and grace.

IT JUST DOESN'T MAKE ANY FUCKING SENSE TO BLABBER ABOUT HOW INSIGHTFUL WET SHAVING IS, HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO TAKE A MOMENT JUST FOR OURSELVES, AND THEN ASK FOR A FUCKING VIDEO OF IT!

If you have some kind of insecure histrionic itch to scratch, just follow Randy's lead and stop pestering me here!

But if you keep asking me for my own video, this is what I do have for you!

Guys, today's challenge is not for me, but for you.

Just make peace with your own brains and start making sense.

I am still a newbie and still too mad to remember names and make effective searches, but the one member of this sub who did a meaningul YT upload is [edited to add name] u/phteven_j, the guy who contacted the late Gilbert Gottfried ~~that American comedian~~ thru Cameo to do a video about shaving and brushing your teeth. Remind me his name and link and I'll be happy to edit accordingly. His video says everything.

FOF WRITEUP

Hard to write this one, because I'm still madder than a mad hatter at a tea party.

For my pre-shave shower I decided to start with the soft, soothing notes of BM Chesire, a scent that for me works perfectly as a nice "background" that smells good without being imposing.

Then I turned to the NO The et Vanille soap + AS set, as it was my first time using them (I had previously only tried a sample of the TeV soap), and I wanted to take them together to an open road test.

While the soap mostly delivers a Jasminey-forward note, that can somewhat evoke the olfatctory world of tea, the AS provides additional depth not only with the titular vanilla note (not that perceivable in my soap tub), but also with an orange note that, combined with jasmine, almost veers towards a strawberry-ish accord.

As overall the NO dickhole combo leans toward a gourmand accord, I felt the need to add a layer of complexity.

I thus decided to try my sample of Masque Milano's Russian Tea: while the actual Russian Tea beverage (to which I paid homage in my picture with a cup of Damman Freres Grand Gout Russe) leans citrusy gourmand, Masque scent not only provides all of it (with raspberry instead of strawberry), but also adds a rather transparent leathery-spicy accord that finally reminded me of the "darker", tannic black tea vibes that were still missing from the picture.

I do like NO TeV, but in the future I think I'll not repeat the combo, so to tweak the gourmandy-ness with something darker.

My experiment with Masque was great, but I was so mad that I accidentally broke my sample vial while i was putting it back, so I will not be able to trying it again anytime soon.

FOF

EDITED to add the names and link I was not able to retrieve: special thanks to u/ginopono for providing the essential info.

And a big shoutout to u/phteven_j for bringing to fruition the only YouTube wetshaving video you'll ever really need.

ROTY

June 7, 2024

V FOR VETIVER

(theme: Vetiver You Want)

• Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm
• Razor: Muhle - Hexagon DE89
• Blade: Treet - Carbon Steel #STAINLESSLESS
• Lather: Cyril L. Salter - French Vetiver Shaving Cream
• Post Shave: Catie's Bubbles - 322 After Shave
• Fragrance: Heeley - Vetiver Veritas

WHY I LOVE IT

Just like Haitian spirits (rhum agricole and Clairin, a "no-filter" distillate full of rough edges), Vetiver walks the the fine line between smooth and wild, bright and dark, the tension between being a boasting crowd pleaser and an idiosyncratic loner with a truthful story to tell.

TODAY'S SPECIAL CHALLENGE: A GRASSROOTS SHAVE

ATG as first and only pass. Just as I did when I was an impatient teen in high school. Today's throwback shave with a DE was also my first time using a Carbon Steel blade. It went all fine, with the exception of the Danger Zone on the right side of my neck, where I couldn't get as clean as I wished. But well, there's always tomorrow.

AS TRUE AND AUTHENTIC AS IT GETS

On day 7, I feel it's time to open up and share some real truth.
In this fake digital world, we all struggle for a spark of authenticity.
To me, Vetiver is the olfactory equivalent of that spark.
The following two little chapters are like my bottles of Vetiver essential oil: just pure truth, distilled.

MY QUEST FOR TRUE VETIVER

My quest for True Vetiver started in the world of fragrances.

From the respected French classics (Guerlain, Givenchy, Dior) to the British reinterpretations, I was trying out anything that claimed to be the definitive answer to The Question About Vetiver.

Then I turned to Essential Oils: as I wanted to better understand Haitian Vetiver, during a trip to Paris I thought: "well, France made Vetiver a hero of male perfumery, and Haiti is a former French colony; as I have no chances to physically visit Haiti, let's see what the French can teach me about Vetiver". I went to stores specialized in herbalist products, and purchased a couple of essential oils made with the actual plant.

Their smell felt so great, that my perspective on Vetiver fragrances shifted drastically: as the real thing smelled so great, the biggest challenge for perfumers is, in my opinion, to find a way to elevate the ingredient without betraying it, the way that the best chefs can make a refined meal with even the most humble ingredient.

TODAY'S FEATS OF FRAGRANCE WITH VETIVER

I decided to start with Salter's French Vetiver, one the most "truthful" vetiver soap I could find here in the Old World (more authentic, to me, than MdC or LPL). It does remind of the root notes of the essential oils I tried, but without the fresh aromatic complexity I expected. From this honest but underwhelming base, I leapt into the understated complexity of CB's 322: if you smell it on its own, you could even be tempted to say that it's a simple scent that just smells like, well, good vetiver. But the comparison with French Vetiver reveals that 322 is actually a well blended accord, where the smooth yet fragrant (not overripe) black currant note acts like a prism to multiply the facets of this beauty.
Heeley's Vetiver Veritas takes me back to the canonic accord with a citrus and a green element, but with an inversion that makes it way more enjoyable than heavy-handed alternatives like Malle's Vetiver Extraordinaire (whose drydown for me is just bad).

FOF

THE QUEST IS OVER, AT LAST!

As an uncanny coincidence, today I went to the market and found a new stand with exotic fruits and vegetables. Next to the cash register, some green stems put there for decoration looked somewhat familiar. Hesitantly, I asked: "Is that...".

"C'est du Vetiver!" replied the vendor, a lean guy with Afro-Caribbean traits.

Filled with joy, I thanked him and bought some of it to bring it home, and add it to my SOTD pic.

THE TRUTH LIES IN THE BIGGER PICTURE

"Do you hear amidst the vetiver the loud cry of sweat?"

This quote from Afro-Caribbean poet Aimé Cesaire helps me shift the perspective and reveal some less-appealing truths beyond the comfort of the carefully selected frame.

While I did respect my promise for two little chapters of truth, I then embellished it with the inauthentic anecdote about the market vendor. A cheap trick to remind us all to remain vigilant and pay attention to the bigger picture.

Seduced by the stories of sophistication woven by perfume brands, we could easily forget that most of the world's Vetiver is harvested thanks to the hard labor of Haitian workers, on an island that has faced countless crises since it became the first Caribbean independent state, and the first Black republic. Foreign powers (mostly France and the US) kept trying to exploit it for decades. Today, the "Pearl of the Caribbean" is one of the poorest countries in the world, torn by a political and humanitarian emergency.

My little onion trick intends to be a reminder - first of all to myself - to not take out of the picture the hard sweat-smelling truths that make possible our daily comforts.

photocontest

ROTY

June 8, 2024 - Small Business Saturday - Maggard's Day

A FIRE IN THE SKY?

photocontest - Fire

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - T-400 Blue Shaving Brush with 24mm Synthetic Knot #RESURRECTIONBRUSH
• Razor: Henson - AL-13 Medium Blue
• Blade: Gillette - Silver Blue [3]
• Lather: Barrister and Mann - Fougère Angelique
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Fougère Angelique AS splash
• Fragrance: Barrister and Mann - Fougère Angelique EdP

YET ANOTHER MUSICAL HOMAGE

PROOF READING

Okay, let's double check if I in my homage I mentioned all the notes:
Citrusness = Lime, Lemon, Neroli - check
Lavender, Geranium, Sandalwood, Tonka Bean - check
Cedar, Balsam Fir = woods - check
Oakmoss - check

Wait a minute... WAIT A MINUTE!
"Smoldering Flame"? Where does this come from? Let's check what the official website says... Uhm, a "gleamingly citrusy, approachable fougère touched by the cleansing flames of the heavens".

What?!

Aren't flames supposed to be in Hell, and wasn't being flame-less kind of one of the key selling points about going to Heaven?

We knew that u/BostonPhotoTourist had a penchant for violent suffering (proof), but he is also a very knowledgeable and well-read guy... Am I missing out here?
A google search on heavenly flames took me down a rabbit hole at whose bottom was... An Epic Symphonic Power Metal album by an obscure musician? WTF? After an extensive and expensive rehab cycle to detox my brain from derivative hard rock music, with painful relapses and unwanted flashbacks of a 1986 hit, I finally regained some glimpses of sanity.

Still looking for illumination, I turned to books, and finally I did find an illustration from a 15th Century Islamic manuscript from Central Asia: I shouldn't have doubted Will the Wise, he was right, there is a tradition of flames being a feature of the Seventh Heaven, and I was just too rooted in my received knowledge to know about it. I repent! Please don't exclude me from the Angelic spheres!

THE NEED FOR FAITH

No, not the religious one. The one in people who are fair and correct. One of the great things about both Brad Maggard and Will Carius is that I know I can blindly trust them with my business. Plus, they always answered any questions I could have, replying quickly, throughly and with courtesy. Maybe good deeds don't bring us to a celestial heaven, but I am content of this earthy world where karma made it so that B+M is by far the most represented artisan in my den (especially if you count the samples, mainly purchased from Maggard's!), and that Maggard's is the first US store where I have already placed more than ten orders over my first year of wetshaving shopping from the Americas.

MY MAD BRAGGARD DAY WAS MY CHEAPEST ONE

In November 2023, in a fit of FOMO I decided I needed I could no longer wait to try the newly released samples of the B+M (coincidence?) Winter seasonals: four mini-tubs, $3.80 each, for a total of $15,20. Even after I added three more samples, in the end I still managed to spend more for shipping and import costs than for the actual products.
It would've been wiser add more products to my cart, and to wait to make a bigger order, but the bug of impatience had bit me. I can't thank enough Maggard's team for fulfilling such a tiny order with the same care and professionalism that they devoted to more substantial ones.

FEATS OF FRAGRANCE

You may call it dickholing, but a heavenly fragrance requires to be experienced as a trinity.
Also, I don't think I ever tried these three products in the same shave.
To me, the lather mostly evokes a mossy, creamy rich citrus accord, bright but also soft, almost sweet. It has a somewhat "spherical" quality to it, like a heavenly hallucination of a ball of an intoxicating citrusy-mossy ice cream.
Nothing is spherical in the AS splash, which on the contrary provides a more vertical experience: the various notes are now in a succession of accords, like steps on the Stairway to Heaven (not the song, but the visionary MOTD!). During the drydown, you start to experience a slight metallic, gunpowdery note. Could it be...?
Well, the EdP brings this note of scorching metal more forward.
Is it the fire of an Archangel sword?
Only Will can tell us his flaming intentions, but in the meantime... Wait! Is it peppery? Or maybe, more accurately, pyrazinic, like that herbaceous note in many Cabernet wines?
Uhm, hot metal + u/BostonPhotoTourist equals to... Here's the epiphany! We may have previously rejected it within the context of human belligerence, but here, it actually adds an intriguing facet to the fragrance. I don't know if I'll still love it on the lung run. But for today, I am glad I went for the trifecta, being encouraged to pay attention so to continue with my daily #FOF

ROTY

June 9, 2024 - TWO BITS!

• REPOST: u/tsrblke warned me about this going poof

photocontest

Theme: Money
(inspired by the “two bits” of today’s challenge)

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm
• Razor: Edwin Jagger - DE89 #ZAMAC
• Blade: Treet - Carbon Steel [2]
• Lather: Maggard Razors - London Barbershop - Shave Soap with Tallow (sample)
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Seville - Balm
• Fragrance: HAGS - Barberwood - Rollerball Extrait de Parfum

FIRST BIT - AN INTERPLAY OF LEGACIES

Today's theme comes from a song with African American roots.
Also, barbershop quartets have African American roots.

When advertising their barbershop scents, manufacturers often evoke Italian or French traditions. Why?
I wonder if it could be because Figaro, possibly the most famous barber in popular culture, was created for a play by French author Pierre Beaumarchais (also a key supporter of the US revolution, as seen in Apple TV's Franklin), and then made even more famous by an opera by Italian composer Gioacchino Rossini. If you dig deeper, Figaro is inspired by Brighella, a stock character of the Italian tradition of Commedia dell'Arte, strongly based on a component of playful improvisation.

Today we live in a world of intertwined legacies.

African-American music has been the main influence for all the popular styles of the 20th Century, including jazz - a musical genre based, just like Commedia dell'Arte, on playful improvisation.

An example of interplay of all these legacies is IL FIGLIO DEL BARBIERE (The Barber's Son), a quasi-absurdist song recorded in March, 1949 by Quartetto Cetra, an Italian quartet inspired by the African-American quartet The Mills Brothers.
The song tells an eccentric story about Figaro's son, and then concludes addressing directly Rossini in the Afterlife. I'll post the full translation in the comments.

One year before recording Il figlio del barbiere, Quartetto Cetra had also dedicated a song to a guy who is desperate about losing his hair. The song, titled Crapapelada (Milanese dialect for bald head), is featured in this short newsreel / proto- music video. Decades later, in yet another interplay between legacies, Crapapelada made a glorious comeback in a memorable scene with Gale's character in Breaking Bad

We keep embracing and re-hashing each other's cultural expressions, and that's inevitable. Today I posted a little personal rant about how Italians were represented in a SOTD: I fully believe in 's good faith and good spirit, and I am sorry if I came out a bit harsh. We can all laugh about self-humor from within a community (like with this series of barbershop-based clichés), but when the mockery comes from outside, people can easily get offended. I don't have The Answer, but I guess one of the key issues is feeling misunderstood, getting frustrated because "the others" don't even properly comprehend what they are trying to make fun of.

All that said, I'll share an anecdote on the only old-school barbershop I did visit in my adult life, about twenty years ago, in a different Italian city. The barbers, two white-haired brothers in their 70s (one of them with big candid mustaches), had a very classy salon with leather-covered chairs. Only after I had been seated, I discovered that they followed the old-school approach with the utmost rigor. Another client appeared at the entrance, accompanied by his girlfriend. The woman stopped suddenly on the threshold, as if held back by an invisible barrier, like an uninvited vampire. Then, the client sat on the leather-bound couch and opened one of the magazines available to read during the wait. It was the Italian edition of Playboy magazine.

SECOND BIT - LET'S BE EVOCATIVE!

Barbershop scents are rarely interesting to me, but I came to this opinion after smelling a bunch of samples by various brands.

One of them was Maggard's "private label" London Barbershop, which according to the dupe list, is based on an EO accord that is also used by many other artisans. Today's shave confirmed the impression I had at first sniff: forgettable, generic, somewhat "fake".

I followed with B+M Seville (the balm, as the lather had not provided the kind of post-shave I was longing for), which embraced me in an original orange-led citrus accord, combined with a fresh herbaceous note. It doesn't smell like any barbershop I ever set foot in, but it's good, comforting and refreshing. The name feels both clever (citrus + Figaro) and appropriate: in a word, evocative.

Barberwood Extrait de Parfum is an oil- (not alcohol-) based fragrance that represents a worthy addition to the still short list of original scents by HAGS. The official blurb promises that - guess what! - the fragrance "evokes the timeless charm of a traditional barbershop".

To me, it's mostly a warm and soft (sandal)woody / ambery scent that shares some DNA with Ritual. I am not a big fan of sweet "oriental" drydowns, but I am happy I purchased Barberwood in the whole trifecta (I still have to try the soap).

I consider it as an original "fantasy barbershop", where both the "barber" and the "oriental" aspects feel like re-imaginations of distant cultures.

I may be wrong and this could be the most accurate conjuration of the Spirit of Barbershops in Greece (where the artisan, the American-born Dimitrios Charokopos, is currently based), but in any case it's a great scent, and for me it could have a non-barbershop related name, and I would still buy it. It's a rich scent, whose name, while catchy, feels like just a pale reflection of its layered complexity.

FOF

EDIT to add my quiz score: 13/32. Lost time trying to understand how to skip the questions I didn't know how to answer.

ROTY

June 10, 2024 - BACK IN TIME!

photocontest

Theme: Time

• Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm
• Razor: Edwin Jagger - DE89 #ZAMAC
• Razor: Muhle Hexagon - DE89 #TWINS
• Blade: RK - Stainless
• Lather: Zingari Man - Mousse Illuminee - Shave Soap
• Post Shave: Zingari Man - Mousse Illuminee - Recovery Splash
• Fragrance: Rogue Perfumery - Mousse Illuminee (sample)

-WARNING-
The following contains 1980s innuendo.
Reader discretion is advised.

The year is ~~1984~~ 1985: Miami Vice is a new show filled with vibrant colors, smartly dressed people, and amazing cars. Marty McFly is driving an amazing car at 88mph only to find himself projected in a time-traveling adventure that will eventually fix his family, so that back in ~~1984~~ 1985 they could all have, well, amazing cars.
On a separate note, the predator / prey dynamic seems so pervasive that you have to be constantly on the lookout for school bullies and killer robots from the future.

But fear not, fellow time traveller, as today is all about collaboration between Awesome People. Even if you are using one of those uncool time machines that can only send you back in time if you are butt-naked, our organization, the Scent Resistance can equip you with a full kit of the Ultimate Awesomeness Device. No need to physically carry it, you just wear on your skin. The name? Mousse Illuminee, aka the Powerhouse Fougere From the Future (PFFF).

Mousse Illuminee's turbo-charged Green Mossy Resinous hi-octane power will instantly disarm any adversary. Your clearance status does not allow me to reveal too much, but how do you think that un-moustached guy, Harrison Ford, managed to defeat someone as quintessentially 1980s as Tom Selleck? Yes, our organization uses the power of fragrances to change key events of human history, so to prevent the Stream of Awesomeness from running dry.

While wearing Mousse Illuminee, you are protected by the Power Fougere Projection, a force field that has nirvana-like effects, preemptively neutralizing the risk that you may accidentally give a fuck about anybody else's criticism.

You wanted to object against Dickholing? Sorry pal, I have no fucks to give you: I am wearing Mousse Illuminee.

All I can tell you is that today the soap welcomed me with BOLD core notes of mossiness muskiness resinousness. As soon as I lathered it with my Heritage Collection x AP Shave Co. collab (yes, today is about mixing up, baby!), I was already projecting so much that both the Twins (EJ and Muhle) insisted to do a little rasage à trois. Before you whine about incest and stuff: fear not, they are not real siblings, they just look alike and share the same easygoing attitude. I confess a slight preference for Muhle, who has a more balanced personality under that irresistible green designer dress.

Speaking of green, the AS also revealed the more nuanced green, floral and woody notes, while the roll-on perfume sample just placed the Final Seal of Awesomeness with a deep darker-green and mossy/musky drydown.

FOF

Today's challenge: song day

Far from being in the overconfident Powerhouse Fougere spirit, the song that is in higher rotation in my shaving routine is Tezeta (Nostalgia) by Ethiopian musician Mulatu Astatke. I'm no expert in jazz or Ethiopian music, I just discovered this song by chance thanks to Episode 4 of Season 2 of The Bear, which is an awesome show with plenty of great needle drops.
So far, I haven't found any other song that reflects as well as Tezeta the state of no-rush introspection that I seek while I shave.

ROTY

June 11, 2024 - PRIMAVERA!

photocontest

Theme: Bokeh Balls (plus some marbles, the closest approximation I could think of to the 10-points "real thing" here)

• Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm #FRANKENBRUSH #FAUXFUR
• Razor: Muhle Hexagon - DE89
• Blade: RK - Stainless [2]
• Lather: Declaration Grooming - Sunrise on LaSalle - Artisan Shaving Soap
• Post Shave: Declaration Grooming - Sunrise on LaSalle -
• Fragrance: Guerlain - Vetiver - Eau de Cologne (vintage bottle)

"Primavera" is the Italian word for the Spring season.

Wikipedia informs me that it comes from Latin ver-, which in turns comes from a Sanskrit word that means "shiny", or "splendid".

It's a time of new beginnings, a powerful symbol that I immediately appropriate, as I mean this post to represent a fresh new start after a constructive clarification with the judges.

Let's just put on some Vivaldi ~~telephone wait~~ classic music inspired by Spring, and jump to today's frags.

As this is my first time using Sunrise on LaSalle, I wanted to experiment the soap + AS combo to appreciate the common thread as well as the differences.

Also, I wanted to continue yesterday's good-vibes celebration of collaborations, as my choice today is for one of the many collaborations between DG and Chatillon Lux.

The soap lathers impeccably and hits the mark in evoking a flower market, and "reflect the early morning hours of freshly cut flowers, with their dew-laden sweetness and vibrant freshness". Spot on.
Extremely mind-opening that this mental image is evoked through a feat of olfactory alchemy: the main note is, in fact, not floral but fruity. Mainly one fruit, a pear, transmuted into a floral orchestra. What a great symbolic resonance to the impermanent and transformative essence of the Spring season!
Love it both viscerally and conceptually.

The AS, as it's common, features a wider range of facets - some of them a bit disorienting to my nose.
To me, it evokes a ripe pear skin scent, as well as a less "round" scent, possibly evoking the slightly "dirty" smell of pear flowers. It's not off-putting, but my brain keeps searching for a clearer analogy, only to settle on a mental association with an aspect of the scent of Pyrethrum, the (former) name of a variety flowers also used for insecticides. It's not a bad smell, but it's unfortunately a bit distracting to me.

Today's fragrance is a vintage bottle of Guerlain's Vetiver: the top citrus notes are muted by the effect of time, but the drydown feels more complex and, again, "dirty" (in this case, with an intriguing leathery/tobaccoey accord) than the one of current formulations.

The transition from SoLS to GV worked even better than I expected: both evoke a clean accord with a green element, and then surprise you with mysterious transmutations that reveal an unexpected complexity beyond the easygoing façade.

#FOF

#ROTY

June 12 2024 - FIELD OF CREAMS

#photocontest

Theme: Baseball

• Brush: CREAM & Wine Merit 99-4 by Heritage Collection / AP Shave Co. Pure Bliss SHD Premium Synthetic 24 mm
• Razor: Rex - Konsul #ADJUSTABLE
• Blade: Voskhod - Teflon Coated [2]
• Lather: Acqua di Parma - Barbiere - CREMA soffice da rasatura
• Post Shave: S.M. Novella - CREMA pre-dopo barba
• Fragrance: Murphy and McNeil - Barbershop De Los Muertos 2 Solid Cologne

American newsletters inform me that I should hurry with my carts checkout, as the Father's Day discounts are about to expire. I am moved by how online stores really care about my attention for family-related festivities. There's no better way to show affection that to buy some stuff.

Following Father's Day rules (yes, I committed to keep following the rules), for my lather and AS I diligently used two local brands that are older than me.

Accidentally, they also happen to be mention their adherence to the CREMA category, Italian for cream. The first word in my brush description is also CREAM. As this creaminess seems to be important to someone out there, I even tried to find a fragrance that came in cream form: as deodorants are not eligible, the closest approximation I could find was a "solid" (actually kind of soft lip-balm consistency) cologne.

Today's photocontest scavenger theme is baseball, which as you all know is Italy's national sport: depicted in today's photo is a snapshot from tonight's amateur leage game, together with my shaving gear. Yes, I do follow the American habit of regularly taking my shaving gear out to public arenas. I am well aware that you are nothing but a sore loser if you're not taking your gear out and shave in public while watching people trying to grab or bat each other's balls.

Thanks to American cinema, I also learned that a father/son relationship will never be fulfilling unless you spent a lot of time playing catch in your backyard. Grabbing balls is really essential if you want to live up to your potential.

Another American pastime that is super-popular here in Italy is showing off our own shaving den: man, what fun that is! It's even more popular than staring at each other's dicks while talking about your preference in cream.

As requested by the judges who don't even want to get paid for the privilege of looking at such mind-opening photos, here's my metonymic picture that reflects the chaotic spirit of my shave products collection. It feels so rewarding to share some sexy visuals! Words are boring, but a lifetime is not enough to enjoy all the shaving den pictures that can be found in the world!

Now, I have to interrupt this celebration of Uncle Sam's values in the overseas consumeristic domains, to say a few words about the topic of fragrances. I know, it's not as sexy as grabbing balls and peeking into each other's bathrooms, but you don't really have to read it if you don't care.

My lather, Acqua di Parma crema soffice da rasatura, is a surprisingly good reflection of the Acqua di Parma Colonia scent, including the bright topnotes: compared to the muted AdP balm I used on day 3, this was actually very centered and expressive in terms of scent. And it even performed more than decently, even if I had no clue about the appropriate level of hydration, and eventually just started shaving hoping for the best: it all went way better than I feared.

On the other hand, Santa Maria Novella pre- and post- cream was an olfactory disappointment - possibly because it's a few years old. Not much to say here.

More recognizable scent notes were provided by the BDLM2 Solid Cologne, which is allegedly inspired by Tom Ford for Man (according to the manufacturer's website). Fragrantica mentions no individual Man, but plural Men. In any event, I am not familiar with the original fragrancel. The dupe, while offering a very convenient form factor with its lip-balm-like tube, feels generic and ultimately meh.

Acqua di Parma was the star of the day.

All the rest was as memorable a fun as a sport that makes a big deal out of balls-grabbing since you early childhood. Too bad the day is almost over, and tomorrow we'll have to move to different challenges!

#FOF

#ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 13, 2024 - BASHING THE WAVES ABOVE THE DUPE DEPTHS

photocontest

Theme: Water vehicles (Painted sailboat by TTAAP, Yellow Submarine figure, BASH dupe boat)

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - T-400 Blue Shaving Brush with 24mm Synthetic Knot #RESURRECTIONBRUSH
• Razor: Henson - AL-13 Medium Blue #CNC #RAINBOW
• Blade: Gillette - Silver Blue [4]
• Lather: Stirling - BASH - Maggard Meetup 2023 sample soap
• Post Shave: Stirling - BASH - Maggard Meetup 2023 sample aftershave
• Fragrance: Rogue - Bon Monsieur - sample

NEEDLE DROP

BASH!
Ah-ah
Sailor, I'm dupe-averse

BASH!
Ah-ah
You shave without a fuss

BASH!
Ah-ah
You're not typical

BASH!
Ah-ah
Stirling is usable
Lathers for everyone of us
With ease for anyone of us
AS is all 'bout drydown
Every man, every woman, could use the dupe-y BASH!

INTRO

First time for me using Stirling: found it super intuitive to lather, although (understandably, given the lower price per tub) just not as stellar as other artisans' top bases.

I lean dupe-averse, and strongly prefer official collabs between perfumers and shave artisans, but I can understand "applied" dupes of beloved frags when there's no official equivalent in the soap/AS world, although I believe that credit is, in any case, always due, and that artisans are way more deserving of respect when they're not exploiting other creators' work.

However, I try to keep in mind the dupe-evoking paradoxes I shared on my entry on day 2.

THE SCENTS

I am not familiar with Maison Francis Kurkdjian Grand Soir, allegedly the fragrance inspiration for BASH.

Opening the plastic wrapping around the simple I got a whiff of a pleasant amber-vanilla accord. Once lathered, the smell got reduced to a faint hint.

I am happy I dickholed because the AS provided the most unusual experience: at first, you get a strong volatile, fragrance-less alcohol kick. Once it evaporates, the drydown reveals the amber-vanilla accord, and the vanillic notes keep doing a little minimalistic dance, bouncing between the slightly more "dirty" facets and the more rounded and gourmandy ones.
It's like a stripped down version of Catie's Bubbles Miracle, without the Bergamot and Lavender notes.
A pretty long-lasting one, to the point where after a couple of hours I started to feel the need to wash it off, because I don't like scents that overstay their welcome. I would be super curious to try the prestigious model fragrance, Maison Francis Kurkdjian's Grand Soir, to see if from its "Real Deal" heights it does provide more complexity, uniqueness, etc.

My fragrance choice for today's shave goes into a completely different direction: as I used my only declared fragrance dupe (which I bought mainly to test its "solid" form factor) in yesterday's SOTD, today I wanted to continue my celebration of official "originals" that reflect the work of creative perfumers.

Bon Monsieur (which is also available in soap/tonic form as a collab with Zingari) is an official Rogue creation. However, if you are familiar with Drakkar Noir, you may find a striking resemblance.
The twist here is that instead of being a cheaper surrogate, Bon Monsieur is a more expensive and sophisticated reinvention - like when a couturier take inspiration from street fashion and then designs something unique, which looks a bit like the original, but feels totally different.
Someone (whose name bizarrely is not u/cowzilla3) mentioned in the Fragrantica comments that Bon Monsieur smells like Old Spice. I have no frame of reference to comment on that. I'll just say that Bon Monsieur is just the quintessential lavender/wood aromatic fougere.
It's excellent, but for some reason I can't rationalize I don't feel like wearing it, so I won't go beyond sample size.

FOF

SPECIAL CHALLENGE, PLUS BONUS MATERIAL (BONUS MATERIAL COMES FIRST)

As I was planning to use a 2017 piece by Florentine street artist TTAAP for today's photo background, I contacted them to ask for clearance to publish the sailboat featured in my SOTD pic. I mentioned how there are all kinds of soap label art, and ended up making the examples of the two different versions I saw of B+M Passiflora over the last couple of years: the older black/red/white "heart" label, and the new minimalistic black text on magenta background that almost feels Vignellis-inspired.
After this conversation, and having smelled u/BostonPhotoTourist's Passiflora, TTAAP ended up sketching three alt versions of a Passiflora label, that I'm happy to share here even if they are not an entry for today's challenge (all choices were made by the artist only, I cannot take any credit besides sharing my Passiflora trifecta).

Back to today's challenge, my concept for a label for BASH is here in two variants, obtained thru a digital collage of a vanilla pod trapped into an amber ball. These are just concept sketches, not mockups of complete labels with Artisan and Product name.

EDITed for clarity and typos

#ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 14 2024 - EYES EYES BABY

photocontest

Theme: Eyes (Eyes in the sky, Eye ring on Hydra, Eye-shaped background to contain bowl that contains shave sample)

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm
• Razor: Henson - AL-13 Medium Blue #CNC #RAINBOW #STAINLESSLESS
• Blade: Treet - Carbon Steel [2]
• Lather: Seaforth - Sea Ice Lime - sample
• Post Shave: Dr. Jon's - Hydra - sample
• Fragrance: Etro - Lemon Sorbet - Eau de Toilette - sample

I had almost forgotten how good Seaforth base is.

I had been skeptical about the scent, on the (misleading) base of an off-the-tub whiff, which felt a little plasticky. Once lathered, the scent is remarkably good, with the spicy/mossy drydown nicely balancing the citrus top notes.

However, Sea Ice Lime's cooling component feels already too much for me, so at present (while temperature is still below 30°C) I'm not planning to go full tub. I am usually not interested in open refrigerator effect. But things may soon change once the heat becomes unbearable.

Unbearable heat was the circumstance that made me appreciate Dr. Jon's AS cooling properties last year, when I managed to lay my hands on some remaining stock at Maggard's and TOC, after Dr. Jon ad gone RIPped.

Hydra offers a tart, kind of unripe-lemon citrus accord, that is better on its own than layered on Sea Ice Lime (which provides a more perfume-like, three-dimensional smell). Wish I had dickholed here.

I got this Etro Lemon EdT sample a few years ago in a department store, and then forgot about it, until I found it at the bottom of a samples container. Being inspired by a lemon-flavored crushed ice recipe, it felt like the perfect complement for my citrus / cool shaving products.

With this EdT I was expecting a shallow sweet citrus accord, and was pleasantly surprised to find out that the fragrance also features aromatic green notes: with respect to my low expectations, this felt pretty good, a lemon + herbaceous fougere that on my skin didn't feel fake or chemical. I am not a big fan of lemon-forward frags, but this was a more than decent final step for today's shave

FOF

SPECIAL CHALLENGE: my chaotically-stacked Tower of Babel, a reminder of humankind's doomed dream to have one comprehensive shaving horizon that may put together all preferences and languages.

ROTY

This is a truly impressive stacking of wares.

LG SOTD Jun 15 2024 - I CAN FEEL IT COMING IN THE AIR TONIGHT

Needle drop: the theme of Near Death Experience reminded me of how the song contributes to evoking a sense of impending doom in Michael Mann's Miami Vice (2006).
A previous incarnation was already in the original 1980s TV series.

photocontest

Theme: Air (Air as lack of anything else: Air in the sky, Air in a bottle, Air in the almost-emty tub, Air in the Sea breeze in Sea Spice Lime, Air in the windy notes of Uitwaaien)

• Brush: Simpsons - Chubby 2 - Synthetic 27mm
• Razor: Rex - Konsul #ADJUSTABLE
• Blade: Voskhod - Teflon Coated [2]
• Lather: Simpsons - Lime - Ultra Glide Shaving Cream
• Post Shave: Seaforth - Sea Spice Lime - sample
• Fragrance: House of Mammoth - Uitwaaien - sample

Years ago I got a complimentary tub of Simpsons Lime Ultra Glide Shaving Cream together with the order of a Simpsons Chubby 2, my first synthetic.

Among my tubs, this is the NEAREST TO DEAH, as my SOTD pic shows.

Scent is simple but nice, a Lime one-note.

I decided to pair it with Spearhead Seaforth Sea Spice Lime AS splash, which I wanted to review after yesterday's experience with the Sea Ice Lime soap. This helped me understand that there are indeed some "synthetic" edges (more metallic than plastic, I guess) to the lime top note, possibly related to the sea air breeze deliberately evoked among the scent notes (ozonic component?).

In any case, the drydown binds it all together, and the lather -> AS progression felt really rewarding.

For the fragrance at the end of the shave, I had a couple of options, and in a daring moment I picked Uitwaaien. I remembered it had iris and oceanic notes, together with seaweed and driftwood, and wondered if there was any chance of it being an intriguing counterpart to Sea Spice Lime.

The short answer, for me, is no: there's some cedarwood in Uitwaaien's drydown that screeches against the whole Sea Spice Lime experience. The fault is all mine, I tried to pair the two fragrances on the basis of a vague conceptual analogy, wihout paying sufficient attention to their respective specificities.

Lesson learned. Maybe.

FOF

SPECIAL CHALLENGE: As Simpsons' shaving cream is advertised as "Ultra Glide", I accepted the challenge to use as little water as possible, fighting all my instincts. I deliberately under-lathered, adding too little water, and not getting rid of the air bubbles. Proof here, for the perverts among you. Using the Konsul helped getting a 2-pass shave done, in this joyless shave. I removed my stubs and didn't get cut, which is a testament of the forgiving quality of the products I used. I want to be a team player, but am not sure I understand the point of "challenges" like this.

#ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 16 2024 - Boundaries

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Theme: Black and White

• Brush: [unknown] - Boar Bristle
• Razor: Gillette - Slim Twist
• Blade: Gillette - Silver Blue
• Lather: Santa Maria Novella - Crema Pre-Dopo Barba
• Post Shave: 4711 - Echt Kölnisch Wasser Original Eau De Cologne - After Shave
• Fragrance: Knize Ten - Toilet Water

One of the most important influences from my father has been his insatiable curiosity.
Seeking to know more.
And therefore, be skeptical about what others may take for granted.
Embrace facts, but challenge conventions and question authority.

The documented facts are as follows:

1. Santa Maria Novella, nominally est. 1612 but the monks' pharmacy dates back to 1221
2. 4711 has a complicated history, but in spite of their Farina-related claims, in any case the brand was established in the 19th Century
3. Knize, est. 1858 (for some initiatory reason, the English version of the company history is in German nonetheless)

Enough to know they are all older than me, but also enough to realize how hard it is to define something as apparently easy as a formal beginning.

We strive for clean-cut truths. Distinction through separation, like looking at the world in black and white, and then deciding that one is bad, and the other is good. This is the attitude that fueled Scientific Racism, a self-asserted "scientific" dogma that cherry-picked some incomplete "evidence" and then reframed it into a worldview to try and legitimize agendas of oppression and domination.

Dem Bones is a spiritual composed by James Weldon Johnson and his brother, J. Rosamond Johnson, two great African-American artists and activists who contributed to a more open culture during the first half of the 20th Century. The song evokes the resurrection of the army seen by Ezekiel in the Bible (no, not this bit), and offers an obsessive progression into the interconnectedness of the various bones of each body.

Its message of connectedness has an anti-establishment vibe that has been reflected in its use in a memorable episode of The Prisoner; on the other hand, the satyrical film The Ruling Class underlines the word DISCONNECT to bring about a message of fear and oppression.

This brings me to TODAY'S SPECIAL CHALLENGE: I am here to make a stand against any oppressive view based on black and white, polarizing disconnected-ness.
I first thought about going on strike against the auhtoritarian, frat-house attitude of "daring" people to submit to the request of doing something on a specific part of their body in exchange for a reward. Talk about toxic peer pressure. And what is with your voyeuristic insistence on looking at my body, my house, my intimacy?
But I remain a team player, I am not going to butt heads against you.
Rather than joining u/AirBudRulian in his paranoid solo antagonism, my most positive response is to share some sociable yet chaotic anarchism, just like the rebellious Number 48 interpreted by Alexis Kanner.
We are all connected.
Your thigh bone is connected to your hip bone.
As controversial as it may seem, butt is leg.
Your leg bones are literally part of your butt.
So, that's what I shaved today. Unfortunately, pics are not only NSFW, but posting and/or soliciting them may be considered a crime in most countries.

SOTD WRITEUP: A SPA(RTAN) SUNDAY

I had already used the S.M. Novella as a post-shave on Cream day, but today I used it for the first time as a soap replacement: its officicially listed use also as a shaving cream perfectly fits today's question about boundaries.
Both my razor and brush for today were my father's.
On my face, the brush felt as soft as sandpaper, and was pretty useless in getting a lather: in fact, the S.M. Novella cream seems to reject oppression, and doesn't want to be whipped. As I wanted to be a trooper and do every step in TODAY'S SPECIAL CHALLENGE, I still used the brush on my butt, which proved to be less caring about the scrub (u/Enndeegee, this is dedicated to you).
After the shave, the alcoholic splash felt like a slap on my face (I had no visible cuts, but I got that burn that makes you feel like a good Spartan: no pain no gain!), but just a tingle on my butt.
In the end, all four cheeks feel soft and relaxed.
I could definitely wear the shortest of shorts, like hot pants or some vintage Tom Ford Gucci Summerwear, and people would notice my clean and thorough shave.
Mission accomplished.

THE FRAG CONNECTION

The transition from the powdery soapiness of S.M. Novella to the classic cologne of 4711 to the leathery-animalic notes of Knize is less audaucious as some may think, as Knize's top notes are actually super-cologney: once again, there's no disconnect, just an organic transition, a continuum of awesomeness.

FOF

ODE TO THE RULEMAKERS: As part of this Sunday's supplement, here's a hint to solve the hidden puzzle in my SOTD entry from Day 4: today's ode to the rulemakers is contained under the title of that post, in the first 9 letters after the word "THEME". Additional hint: the first of the three words is KISS.

ROTY

user shaved butt/leg

user shaved butt/leg. beautiful SOTD photo also!

LG SOTD Jun 17 2024 - Leather Lather Memories

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[Theme: Kipple, sometimes also called Trash]

• Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm #FAUXFUR #FRANKENBRUSH #RESURRECTIONBRUSH
• Razor: Muhle - R103 Tortoiseshell OC #ZAMAC
• Blade: Muhle - Stainless Razor Blade
• Lather: Catie's Bubbles - Lancaster Leather - Luxury Cream Soap
• Post Shave: Catie's Bubbles - Lancaster Leather - After Shave Lotion
• Fragrance: Memo - Oriental Leather - Sample

"Come in. Sit down."
"Ok if I talk? I'm kind of nervous when I take tests..."

MEMORIES OF GREEN

Vegan. No animals.
Cruelty. All there's left.
Green. Memories.

Memories. Are they mine? Are they real?

I have no recollection of the reason why my username here is MudAccording.
Did a Reddit bot suggested it for me? Not a clue. 

Could I be the bot?
I took the test before accessing the forums.
The other shaving forums, where they call me deckard.

An intrusive memory pops up in my brain:
“They don't advertise for killers in the newspaper. 
That was my profession. Ex-cop. Ex-blade runner. Ex-killer.”

After a chain-reaction of extinction events, big corporations like Tyrell flooded the market with synthetic replicas of animal products.
Some small artisans had started earlier, mostly for conscientious objectives, trying to raise awareness about the impending risks.

Awareness.
Risks.
Truth.
Objectives.

None of it matters anymore.
Nor does objectivity.
Objects are all that's left.

So. Many. Objects.
If entropy is irreversible, might as well make the most out of it, right?

Kipple.
Useless objects, like junk mail or match folders after you use the last match or gum wrappers or yesterday's homeopape. When nobody's around, kipple reproduces itself. For instance, if you go to bed leaving any kipple around your apartment, when you wake up the next morning there's twice as much of it. It always gets more and more.

No hope.
Hope was a trap invented by those in power. Still, it provided a sense of purpose.
No longer.
No more life, just survival.

Like many others, I have trouble remembering.

Objects. Collectibles from a past that is long gone.

My razor.
Handle is supposed to be tortoise.
Another intrusive memory: 
“Tortoise? What's that?”
“You know what a turtle is?”
“Of course!”
“Same thing.”

My brush.
Faux boar, it says.
From before the Third Boar War, I guess.
And the handle is advertised as a replica of Merit 99-5, a lost artifact from before.

Objects and memories. That’s all we live by.

I keep trying to recall the smell of leather.

Today I opened one of the most precious artifacts in my collection.
A sample of Catie’s Bubbles Lancaster Leather shaving soap.
Just the Luxury one, not the Premium, still missing from my collection.
There was always the promise of a better version, back then.
Sample tub will soon be done.

Philip K. Dick,holed in his apartment, wrote some of these words already.
Obsessed by old memorabilia.
After the shave, here's one of my proudest finds: the matching splash.
Full bottle, it was. Each time I use it, I regain some memories, but lose a bit more of what was left.

It's too bad, she don't last, eh!
But who does.

SOTD WRITEUP

Brand new razor. I always wanted to try the R41 OC head. Thanks to an online offer, the tortoiseshell handle was just a few bucks more than just the head. Too bad it’s the most stupid handle I ever tried. A perfectly cylindrical slippery surrogate of all the gravitas an actual tortoise stands for. The weight of the head is not balanced by the plastic material, nor by the length of the handle.
Loved the head: with the Muhle sample blade that came in the package, I got a nice close shave, without irritation even after an ATG pass.
Loved the head, but that handle is already turning into kipple.

SPECIAL THEME

No rule-subversion today.
As Captain Bryant reminded me: “Stop right where you are! You know the score, pal. You're not cop, you're little people!”.
Sometimes you have no choice but bow. So I kneeled and knee-lathered. All I learned is that I wasted more of my precious soap than if I had been bowl-, hand- or face- lathering.
All that lather has been lost in vain, like tears in rain.

THE SCENTS

Dick.hole today.
CB Lancaster Leather embraced me in its suede leather accord, soft-hearted beneath its HarrisonFordian aura of ruggedness. Frankincense, Cardamom, and what seems like a touch of aromatic wood (Agarwood?) provide a glimpse of Orientalism.

The melting pot overflows in the AS. My brain is electrocuted by sudden memories of dried fruits, candied citrus and spices that are used in many traditional Italian Christmas sweets. Also Vanilla and bergamot, like in Miracle, but there's so much more here.

I picked Memo Oriental Leather to complete the animal-free reinvention of a tanned animal hide.
What a surprise! While the fragrance per se used to reflect the idea of an oriental leather, today my brain's and nose's leather receptors have been satiated by Lancaster Leather, so all I can smell in Memo's fragrance is the patchouly drydown. I almost thought I had accidentally sprayed a fresh reinvention of Givenchy's Gentleman.

No, Memo was not a false memory.

I still feel human.

I hope.

FOF

END TITLES

ROTY

OP has watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.

LG SOTD Jun 18 2024 - That is not dead which can eternal lie

#photocontest

Theme: A bucket (of blood)

• Brush: Alpha - Outlaw 28mm G5 knot #PREMIUMPLASTIC #SHD #TOLL
• Razor: Merkur - Futur #ADJUSTABLE #FLIPTOP
• Blade: Feather - New Hi-Stainless
• Lather: Maol Grooming & Talbot Shaving - Heliopteris - Artisan Shave Soap - sample
• Post Shave: Dr. Jon's - 8th Dimension - Aftershave tonic
• Fragrance: JMD Jean Michel Duriez - L'illusiomagiste - Sample

WARNING WARNING WARNING

As solicited by the Lather Games rulers, this post contain mentions and depictions of cuts that go beyond safe hair removal. The following includes, but is no way limited to, NSFW and potentially triggering texts and pics.

Reader discretion is advised

If you feel urges of “purging” or cutting your skin, please take note of the following resources, and consider talking to a qualified health professional.
https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/conditions/skin-picking-disorder/https://www.nhs.uk/mental-health/feelings-symptoms-behaviours/behaviours/self-harm/getting-help/

TODAY'S THEME

My tribute to some shaving and fragrance companies that are no longer in business:

• The soap is signed Maol Grooming and Talbot Shaving, two artisans who often collaborated on great soap + AS offerings
• Dr. Jon's, whose 8th dimension AS was released as a limited edition for 2019 Black Friday
• Jean-Michel Duriez, a French perfumer who launched his own brand after decades of working for big international houses, made it to the 2018 Perfume Guide by Luca Turin & Tanya Sanchez, and was announced as shutting down in 2021

TODAY'S SPECIAL CHALLENGE

I have no beef with anyone on r/wicked_edge.
I am not familiar enough with the posting style that I seem to be asked to mimic.
But "mama raised no quitter": today I am here to fully comply to the judges requests.
I understand that the goal is get the best shave ever with the most badass gear I have. No compromises.

You wanted Feather? Sure: got a brand new one, sharp as a scalpel.
And I picked my Merkur Futur, the Face Mauler.
Shaving is all about aggressiveness + efficiency.
What's better than Japanese medical technology combined with German heavy metal engineering?

So, forward to the objective. DFS?
You didn't say "amateur day challenge".
Today I'm gonna shave until there's no more sound feedback from my razor.
The Futur & new Feather combo provides that special toast bread scraping sound that I had previously felt only with my MM24.

After the first pass WTG, I got just a couple of red spots, as inferred in this pic.
But I remember some WetTuber guy saying that it's ok to get cut.
Must persevere!

After nineteen other passes (especially on my left side, where hair seems to be a bit more rebellious), I got the cleanest shave since I've been born. I know that in the past I objected to be asked to share pics of my shaved body parts, but I now understand, gotta be proud of accomplishments such as today's.
As requested, here's the evidence.

THE SCENTS

No dickholing today, but an effort to provide kind of an olfactory memorial.

The ceremony begins with the Heliopteris, a solar and clean fougère inspired by Ancient Egypt suggestions, and with notes that seem to care about reflecting the North African theme(Egyptian geranium, Egyptian coriander, Atlas cedar).
Helios, the sun, may appear to die at the end of each day, but its death is not eternal: a new dawn, a new day, a new life are waiting.

We then leap to the AS, an audacious 1980s throwback to the 8th dimension: since its creation, it was a Scent from Beyond, seducing the nose with a warm wood accord, but shocking the skin with a mentholated cooling effect. Totally different style and experience with respect to Heliopteris, but the overwhelming woods have no trouble making you forget the sunny fern of the lather.

Finally, another woody sensation - this one by a French perfumer who was tired of the "quick explosiveness" of commercial fragrances, and wanted to create scents that were mostly about the drydown.
L'illusiomagiste is the kind of cedar-vetiver accord with a hint of citrus that I can easily fall in love. This is not the first time that I wear it, and today I am still loving it. However, more often than not, I become maddened by "undying" drydowns.

After a long time smelling the same notes, my brains starts to impatiently ask for something different, more mobile, more lively.

The idea of something ending is discomforting, but at the same time, we are even more scared by the prospect of being in the presence of an undying creature?

#FOF

Note to the curious: if you travel to Italy and are up to a visit off the beaten path, check out the old anatomical wax models in museums such as La Specola in Florence. Also check out the website of the University of Cagliari collection of waxworks by Clemente Susini, where you may recognize someone familiar.

#ROTY

User completes 19 passes going after the w_e ideal of BBS.

My browser crashed before I managed to post my entry, so here we go again for take two:

LG SOTD Jun 18 2024 - Shaving Privilege Off

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Theme: Humor
An ironic depiction of a member of the white herd being (Rebell-iously) shaved off of its socioeconomic privilege, while taking instructive doses of Armonia, Rumble and Beloved.

• Brush: Aurora Grooming - LG24 multicolor LE with Oumo 26mm synthetic knot #SUBBROOSH
• Razor: Muhle Hexagon - DE89
• Blade: Gillette Silver Blue [1]
• Lather: Wholly Kaw - Rebelle - Siero base
• Post Shave: Chicago Grooming (& House of Mammoth) – Armonia AS
• Fragrance: House of Mammoth - Rumble

Additional on-theme Fragrance: House of Mammoth - Beloved

INTRO

I learned about Juneteenth thanks to these Lather Games.

I take today's entry as a challenge to try to contribute to the celebration and conversation.

As a non-American, I applaud the US government’s commitment to take a responsible look at their country’s past, and inspire us all to deal with inequality and its consequences.

As a European. I am mindful of the fact that the official narratives of most continental European states are still comparatively slower, with respect to the US and UK, in facing the uncomfortable truths about local exploitation of the slave trade. The fact that we abolished slavery before the US did does not mean we were not profiting from it, or that we were champions of democracy.

Not at all: between the 1700s and the 1800s, most European states were not democracies, and definitely not republican ones. Yes, France had its famous Revolution, and proposed the ideals of Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood. But just a few years after 1789, Napoleon was already deciding to reinstate slavery in the colony of Saint Domingue (modern Haiti), and then sending the Army to reconquer the colony, together with its precious plantations, after it had revolted and declared independence, becoming the first Black Republic in the Atlantic. Freedom, Equality and Brotherhood were not something to be shared with the colonies.

Other places, like Italy, were not even a unified country. As a country/state, Italy is younger than the US: our first run as an autonomous country was as a kingdom between 1861 and 1946 (1946 is the year we voted to become a Republic).

All this to recollect that over the last three centuries, different countries have had various shades of freedom and lack thereof.

Provided that some will always use it to find arguments to "prove" who is most blameful, history also gives the opportunity to understand responsibility and consequences.

To me, the fact that the United States revolution brought democracy and independence in 1776, but kept slavery on a large part of its own territory for almost another century, is a significant reminder of how the accumulation of wealth may fuel exploitative behaviors that may otherwise seem in contradiction with the professed values.

My SOTD here tries to reflect the three goals that I see (and according to Wikipedia have been summarized by historian Mitch Katchun) associated to the celebrations of the end of slavery: "to celebrate, to educate, and to agitate"

CELEBRATE

WK Rebelle is named after the French word for a she-rebel.
A fitting name to celebrate those who challenge conventions, and stand up for Freedom.
Freedom, the first of the three ideals of the French Revolution.

EDUCATE

As free adults, this is a responsibility that we carry on our shoulders throughout our lives.
The name of the AS, Armonia, comes from the Italian word for Harmony, a concept that evokes the other two ideals of the French Revolution: Equality and Brotherhood.
Chicago is the city used by Ta-Nehisi Coates in his 2014 article "The Case for Reparations", where he investigates how inequality perdured way after 1865. Thanks to its brotherly group approach, the Contract Buyers League was able to fight the oppressive methods that were used to undermine Black Americans' right to own homes.

AGITATE

House of Mammoth is the star here.
Rumble evokes the idea of a turbolence.
With his pledge to donate to RestoreNYC for their work to make freedom real for survivors of trafficking in the United States, u/mammotben reminds us of the lack of freedom that can still happen in Western democracies:

As a bonus fragrance I also picked Beloved, because it's also the title of the powerful book by Toni Morrison that deals with the long lasting effects of trauma, with deep repercussions in the protagonists' affective life.

Freedom is not only a right, but also a responsibility. To remain aware. To act.
Just like love is a doing word.

FRAGRANCES WRITEUP

In addition to the names, also the notes resonate to the themes of today's journey

Rebelle: Its contrasted Tobacco note is a reminder of the troubling history of the cultivation, transformation and marketing of tobacco in modern history.

Armonia: Again a Tobacco-forward fragrance. This time, no contrasts, only Harmony.

Rumble: Chocolate and Rum are products that for centuries have relied on exploitative practices.

Beloved is a symbolic departure, and was sprayed only on one wrist because it doesn't match with the profile of the previous fragrances. Lavender and bergamot mint evoke the intimacy that is always invested by any collective policy.

FOF

TODAY'S SPECIAL CHALLENGE

I don't care for most memes, as they rely on:

1. common sense (that one shouldn't need to reiterate) and/or
2. pet peeves (made more annoying by the meme's shallow obsessiveness)

For my challenge today, I tried to diligently comply to the judges' request by dedicating to them this meme that I believe fits both the above criteria.

ROTY

OP dunks on memes, then proceeds to drop on one us that makes fun of memes while honoring the form.

OP came armed with citations. Excellent writeup.

LG SOTD Jun 20 2024 - Summer Solstice Sun Seeking Hike

#photocontest

Theme: Grass

• Brush: Muhle Travel Brush - Synthetic #HOLLOW
• Razor: Bic single blade disposable
• Blade:  Bic single blade disposable [1]
• Lather: Eleven - Sicilian Lemon (smush by u/OnionMiasma)
• Post Shave: Murphy & McNeil and Black Mountain Shaving - Nantahala aftershave (sample)
• Fragrance: Maher Olfactive - Sun Soaked (sample)

Today's weather forecast was for an overcast sky, high humidity, and max temperature of 37°C/98,6°F.

Not a Sunny Day, not the ideal day for a hike.

But I'm no quitter blah blah: woke up an hour earlier for an AM hike to one of the hills that surround my city.

Today's SPECIAL CHALLENGE forced me to revolutionize my plans.
The Eleven - Sicilian Lemon kindly provided by u/OnionMiasma fit the Citrus-forward Theme Requirement, and was also easy to take outside for a hike.

Everything else I had planned to use today was not as minimal as I now needed.

The special challenge made me decide that the rest of the hardware and software had to be something that I could carry in my pants' pockets, without forcing me to carry a bag during the hot humid morning hike.
I wanted the hike to be enjoyable and meditative.
No luggage. Literally and metaphorically.

The prospect of a hike into nature immediately inspired me to grab the Nantahala AS sample, because of all the outdoor references in the official description for the scent.
My previously selected pairing, T+S Sicily, would have been more connected to the "Sunny Days" theme as well as to the "Sicilian Lemon" lather, but my full AS bottle refused to go out for a hike, also claiming that all this Summer / Citrus association is vastly unnatural. Google up when the majority of Sicilian lemons and oranges are harvested, and start questioning the criteria behind the arbitrary decision to associate Italian citrus and Summer. Just to double check, after the hike I went to my greengrocer and asked what citrus they had: lemons from Argentina, oranges from Spain.

There was also no way to bring with me the envisioned large bottle of my favorite Citrus-forward chypre. So I quickly browsed my samples collection and picked Sun Soaked, hoping that through powers of synesthesia it would have provided the Sunny-ness that was absent from my actual view.

FRAGRANCE WRITEUP

Sicilian Lemon is a rigorous and straightforward "restitution" of a green lemon scent. I particularly appreciated the vaguely herbaceous (almost, but not really, smoky) note, that made it more vegetal than gourmand. It reminded of Limone Verdello, the Sicilian variety that actually does mature during the Summer.
Hats off to Eleven for actually picking a citrus scent that has an actual connection with Summer.

The transition to Nantahala was perfect: after the citrus top notes, the AS opened up to the rest of the accord, providing no contrast to the actual experience of being outside for a hike.

This was my first experience with Sun Soaked, and I must confess that it took me completely by surprise.
The accord is not just citrus/neroli forward, as the amber and chamomile notes are making their "rounding" presence felt from the very beginning. This is not a background citrus cologne, it's a main player who requires your full attention, a properly "mature" scent, also in the sweet / "ripe" sense of the word (in Italian we use just one adjective, "maturo", for both meanings). I would've sworn I could smell a mossy chypre drydown, but I see no mention of such notes in the official writeup, nor on the Fragrantica page.

A fitting Baudelerian correspondance to the serendipitous, off-the-beaten-path nature of my experiences today.

Baudelaire, which rhymes with Fougère.

See you tomorrow.

#FOF

#ROTY

OP may not have literally shaved outside, but definitely took "gear on a hike."

LG SOTD Jun 21 2024 - Fierce Fool's Fire Fougère Friday

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm #TOLL
• Razor: Muhle Hexagon - R41
• Blade: Muhle - Stainless Razor Blade [2] 
• Lather: Tallow + Steel - Baygère
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Beaudelaire - Aftershave Balm
• Fragrance: Rogue - Fougère l'Aube (sample)

#photocontest theme Prius

There was a Prius, Latin for Previously
Posting he enjoyed, even quite deviously
Forward he pushed, never did tire
Until one day he went on fire
This was poor Prius, burn did he greviously

SOTD

A Royal Fern at the time of Baudelaire
Inspired so many, all named Fougère
Three were their faces: ball, bottle and tub
Trickhole I didn't, I ain't no scrub
u/Enndeegee mind me, I need the Bear

FRAGRANCE NOTES

Is it too spicy? I asked of Baygère
Trust it you need to, don't you despair
There was a balm, all Mousse de Saxe
Very persistent, talc to the max
Best was Rogue's dawn, brightest Fougère

#FOF

#ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 22 2024 - Courgette O' Lantern wakes up in the woods and goes Bananas as the Fog Cowers on Hallows

#photocontest

Theme: Wood

• Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm
• Razor: Henson AL13 - Medium #RUSTYBUTTRUSTY #CNC #RAINBOW
• Blade: Treet - Carbon Steel [1]
• Lather: Southern Witchcrafts - Boonana
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Hallows - Aftershave Splash
• Fragrance: Maher Olfactive - The Fog Cowers (sample)

LET'S START TO TALK ABOUT FOOD

Pumpkins (or "Zucche", in Italian) are mostly an Autumn sight.

During the Summer, they are harvested while they are still young babies: not a full-blown Zucca, but a small Zucchina, also known internationally as Courgette.
The freshest ones are sold together with their flower, which you can use for many recipes.

Then, there are also the round courgettes, harvested while they are still young, just like the long ones. These are sold without flower, so that no protruding element will distract from their promising roundness.
Because of their soft skin, they are destined to be carved, stuffed with other ingredients, and then baked in the oven. A google search will reward you with plenty of options.

THE STORY OF COURGETTE O' LANTERN

Born under the Summer sun, a round courgette was harvested together with her sisters and cousins, all looking the same, all looking forward to the same baked destiny.
The following morning, they were all in a box on the shelf of a greengrocer in the big city.

Throughout the day, all her companions got progressively Picked Up and went away with their new human partners. By the time the greengrocer closed shop, our round courgette found herself left over, all by herself in the big empty box. Suddenly, a deep soothing voice with a sexy foreign accent resounded in the darkness of the closed shop: "What are you doing up here all alone?"

"It's just a matter of time, my partner should be picking me up any minute now..."

The courgette's skin was suddenly reached by a sensuous smell. At first, the sweet scents of flowers and vanilla made her nostalgic for her past life under the sun. Then, a darker accord started to creep in, with notes of tobacco and something boozy, something forbidden...

In the darkness, young courgette barely saw the shape of the tall yellow stranger leaning on to her, then felt a sharp cut on her soft skin, and lost conscience.

She woke up light headed and surrounded by the warm embrace of a variety of woods - some smooth, some rugged. A faint smell of lemon was lingering in the air. "Am I finally meeting my destiny, am I on a chef's chopping table ready to be transformed into a human meal?".

"Your transformation is a thing of the past" - the voice was coming from the branch of Fir that was almost surrounding her with its soft yet spiky embrace - "Can't you feel this smell in the air?".

All around her, beyond the faint lemony resin of the Fir, another sweet yet dark scent was lingering around her soft skin. If the tall yellow stranger at the greengrocer's had seduced her with intoxicating notes of vanilla and booze, this time there were notes of cocoa, and then aromatic green/woody notes of vetiver and cedar.

While trying to smell all this, Courgette felt something different on her skin.

"You have been touched by the Magic of the Rotting Blade", explained Fir. "You are now one of us. Not living, yet not dead".

Courgette's desperate scream was muffled by a thick Fog that was starting to Cower in the woods. The air was filled with more moss and musks, as well as heady flowers from somewhere Beyond.

"Today is All Hallows, the day of the Unliving" said a familiar voice. Round Courgette suddenly noticed that a whole pack of bananas where surrounding her, all lit by an unnatural light.

One of the strangers was still yellow, untouched by decay. She immediately realized it was the same yellow tall stranger who had approached her at the empty green grocer, on that lonely night. The other bananas, however, showed the black streaks of having trespassed the threshold of ripeness.

"Embrace your destiny, you little zucchina" - said Tall Yellow Stranger. The Magic Rotting Blade gave you a new purpose. Your undead name will be Courgette O' Lantern. From now on, your immortal duty is to forever glow in the darkness, luring other fruits to this unholy ground, where they will join us for the rest of eternity"

"But what is this place?" - asked Courgette, with her last glimpse of sanity.

"Just shut up and shine, my dear, you must learn to shine and wait"

"Wait for what?"

"The only thing worth it. The Next Coming of the Once and Future King!"

"Who?"

"They call him the Grave Fruit. That is not dead which can eternal lie, And with strange aeons even death may die"

#FOF

#ROTY

OP tells a scary tale of scent, undead fruits, and the glowing Courgette O' Lantern.

LG SOTD Jun 23 2024 - Remembrance of sweet things pastry

photocontest

Theme: Sugar and Sweets

• Brush: Vintage STANHOME restored and reknotted by Talent Soap Factory 20mm #FRANKENBRUSH #RUNT #SMOLL
• Razor: Rex - Ambassador #CNC #ADJUSTABLE
• Blade: KAI [1]
• Lather: Talent Soap Factory - Nevermore
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Dickens, Revisited - Aftershave Splash
• Fragrance: Meleg - Very Cherry Rose Chocolate Patchouli (sample)

LET'S KEEP TALKING ABOUT FOOD

I am not a fan of gourmand scents, especially when they take their inspiration from stuff I like to eat.

Why would someone want to smell like yummy food?

Are you trying to lure your peers into cannibalism? Halloween was yesterday's theme!

So, here I am with today's theme, outside of my comfort zone.

Big thanks to Aaron from Talent Soap Factory for assisting me with my choice of soap among his various dessert-y options. In the end, I was undecided between Kcal and Nevermore, and he suggested the latter.
Which made me happy, because I LOVE both the label art (I wish the artist was credited), and the E.A. Poe reference.

Nevermore's scent is inspired by a Fudge Jalapeno Cupcake, a recipe I would be curious to try, one day.
To my non-American nose, the dough + cocoa/chocolate accord that I get from the soap evokes core memories of chocolate chip cookies.

After Poe's Raven reference, this Sunday's literary supplement continues its homage to 1800s authors with a brand new bottle of Dickens, Revisited.

Just like with Nevermore, my emotional memories prevail here on any rigorous scent analysis.
I smell mostly a nice accord of dark cherries with gingerbread and Swiss-style Christmas cookies.

My photocontest scavenger theme required me to include an actual sweet.
I thought about continuing my exploration of confusing identities, by choosing a danish pastry, like a typical Italian "sfoglia ripiena", i.e. laminated pastry filled (with custard, would've been my dream choice).
The confusing identity aspect is that in Danish and other Scandinavian languages the term for laminated pastry is wienerbrød, meaning "Viennese bread". On the other hand, in Vienna, danish pastry is called Kopenhagener Plunder, referring to Copenhagen, or Dänischer Plunder.
No one seems to want to take credit and own it.
I understand this kind of attitude when applied to something annoying, such as Syphillis (various countries used to name it after a country different than theirs: French disease, German disease, Polish disease, etc). But in a world of continuous appropriations, why leave to other the credit for good pastry?

In any event, I felt that it would have been insensitive to Dickens (Revisited) if I had picked a Danish, after the the "barbershock" that befell on Charles Dickens when Denmark's most famous writer, Hans Christian Andersen, went to visit him in the UK:
"When he arrived, he asked that one of Dickens’s own sons give him a daily shave, explaining that this was a custom for hosting male guests in Denmark. Weirded out, Dickens made him a daily appointment at a nearby barbershop instead."

I therefore picked another Florentine pastry specialty, the budino di riso, a rice-pudding tart.
As an homage to B+M cherry-forward AS, I picked a variant with a sour cherry on top (pictured in my SOTD).

To complete my shave, I tried yet another new-to-me creation, Meleg's Very Cherry Rose Chocolate Patchouli, which I found surprisingly great (considering the gourmandy notes in the name): the chocolate backbone connects to the main inspiration of Nevermore, while the other notes entertain a subtle and hypnotic dance that resonates with the cherry element in Dickens (Revisited).

FOF

And this could be the revisited song for that hypnotic dance.

SWEET JUNE

Anyone who's ever had a rice tart
Wouldn't turn around and diss it
And anyone who loved cocoa with their heart
Wouldn't turn around and hate it

Sweet June, sweet June
Oh, sweet, sweet June

You're thinking of chips in your cookies
Your Nevermore smells just like them back home
You're splashing down with Dickens
And thinking of cherries back home

Sweet June, sweet June
Oh, sweet, sweet June

Anyone who's ever had a cherry
Anyone who's ever had a rice tart
Anyone who's ever been gingerbread-hungry
And anyone who's ever loved pastry art

Sweet June, sweet June
Oh, sweet, sweet June

Heavenly cherry and roses
Seem to whisper with chocolate
Heavenly cherry and roses
Seem to whisper with chocolate

La-la-la-la, la-la-la
La-la-la, la-la-la
Na-na-na-na, na-na-na
Na-na-na, na-na-na

Sweet June
Sweet, sweet June

TODAY'S CHALLENGE

No issues shaving in the kitchen: there's a sink, all it lacks (at least in my kitchen) is a mirror, but my tablet's front camera solved the issue.
No, I didn't use any kitchen tool to prepare my shave, mainly because today I was using another untested product for the first time: the tiny Stanhome restored and re-knotted by TSF. To me, the handle looks a lot like a caramel pudding, and I couldn't think of any other tool to make my first TSF lather. It felt like shaving with a toy, and I wouldn't use it every day, but it was fun and it contributed to the slightly nostalgic mood dominated by classic authors and memories of past pastries.

ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 23 2024 - A Rainy Dairy Day

photocontest

Theme: Soccer - SOTD was done in front of Stadio Artemio Franchi, home of ACF Fiorentina

• Brush: Muhle Travel Brush - Synthetic #HOLLOW
• Razor: Bic - Single Blade Disposable
• Blade: Bic - Single Blade Disposable (1)
• Lather: Summer Break Soaps - Remote Learning - smush by u/Onionmiasma
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann - Le Grand Chypre - Aftershave Splash
• Fragrance: Jovoy - Remember Me - sample

STILL TALKING ABOUT FOOD, AND THE PROBLEMS YOU HAVE WHEN YOU SMELL LIKE IT

"If you want to go ahead and do it, you're out of this house!"

"But it's just a tiny smush of a NachoCheeseDorito-scented soap!"

"This is no longer a game. You have changed, I don't recognize you anymore."

"You don't understand, Americans have a different approach to fragrances, they need them to smell like food"

"Why don't they just try to cook some?"

"You know, they lack our inter-generational homecooking traditions..."

"They are just food illiterates! It's not as if they didn't have a choice! Of all the food scents and flavors in the world, why Nacho Cheese Dorito?"

"It started off as an April Fool, then u/Priusaurus made it serious..."

"Who's that?"

"Last year's champion, the guy who always shaves outside!"

"You're about to follow the same path!"

"Don't worry! You know I don't do that I want to shave quietly, in private, as a meditative moment just for myself..."

"It's not a worry. It's a statement: if you want to shave with THAT SCENT, you're out of this house! Maybe it'll teach you what it means to be as desperate as that poor online guy who feels the need to assimilate to an extinguished species!"

"But he is the Champion!"

"GET. OUT. OF. THIS HOUSE."

"But it's raining outside!"

CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR, OR: LIVING LIKE A LATHER GAMES CHAMP

Regardless of the fate I ended up facing, I wish to thank u/Onionmiasma for providing me the smush of the unobtanium Remote Learning. If only I knew, when I innocently asked for it, about the ordeal it was going to cost me...

Now I am wandering the streets around the soccer stadium.
The national soccer championship is over, and today is a city holiday, so the area is semi-deserted.
It's a different kind of champion that I am living like. Now I see it. Oh, u/Priusaurus, how little I understood your tragedy! You didn't deserve my shitposts!

To prove that I am indeed on a rainy street in Italy, I found a stereotypical vintage Vespa that immediately became my dream shaving station: the top box is good put my gear on, plus there's a nice round mirror! Modern scooters have those aerodynamically-shaped rearview mirrors that are almost useless for an outdoor shave. Long live the round mirrors!

I left the plastic bowl on the top box to slowly fill with rainwater.
Meanwhile, I tried to call all my friends to seek for a shelter.
No luck: everyone's away for the long vacation weekend.

A bunch of minutes and phone calls later, I had gathered an amount of water that felt like a little too much, but I didn't want to waste any water, and then have to wait under the rain for more drops.

I documented the first stages, then I had to rush because of a sudden increase of the downpour. Thunders approaching. Lighting striking in the distance.

Obviously, the Ancient Gods of the Mediterranean were punishing me: our ancestors offered them sacrifices of beef grease and bones. I had contaminated my offering with the blasphemous promise of Nacho Cheese Dorito.

TRAGEDY OF A RIDICULOUS MAN...

... is the title of a film by Italian film auteur Bernardo Bertolucci. Like some fellow genius filmmakers from the US, he tried to warn us about the deceitful nature of the dairy business.

My own tragedy was all for nothing: I could smell ZERO cheese in my SBS smush.

Did u/Onionmiasma try to save me by sending me a divorceproof soap replacement?

Have I been blessed by the Ancient Gods with anosmia against American Abominations?

I have now experienced the tragedy of living like u/Priusaurus, and I know I that's not how I want to end up.

The Gods gave me a Second Chance. I'll make it matter.

FROM NONSCENT TO NONSENSE

After the mystery of the Cheese Who Wasn't There, I still had to complete my SOTD routine.

As I was missing the complementary SBS Mountain Dew scented aftershave, or even actual Mountain Dew (unavailable here), I went with the best approximation.

My Special Santa, u/Onionmiasma, is on record claiming that Le Grand Chypre smells like fancy Sprite.To show him my allegiance, my SOTD rain gear (see pic in the title) included a bottle of LGC and a can of Sprite.
I smelled them back to back: in comparison, LGC smells broodier, less easygoing, more mature.
Sprite smells more "natural" than I remembered, almost as if it contained a blend of actual citrus EOs.

The convergence of the food and perfume aroma industries has Big Soda offering almost wearable scents in their beverages, and respectful artisans making soaps that smell like junk food, and potentially are made with the same aromachemicals. Food for thought.

Then, the Final Fragrance: I wanted something that could reconcile the alleged industrial dairy-ness of Remote Learning with the supposedly gourmand citrus of ~~Sprite~~ LGC.

Jovoy's REMEMBER ME felt like a signal from karma.

The name revealed my purpose: I was here to be a Martyr, a sacrificial Exemplary Witness of a Cautionary Tale that needed to be remembered for centuries to come.

The Remember Me official scent notes asked me: "How many times have you secretly wished to be that anonymous stranger who captivates merely by virtue of a perfume?"

I had sprayed it on myself, and now I was smelling just like that anonymous stranger: not the real-life u/Priusaurus, obsessed with smelling like cheese nachos and bothering homeless people with his obscene public shaves; no, the wannabe American Gourmand, smelling like a fantasy rendition of a dairy product from France.

Tragedy was striking again: I could not appreciate all the nuances mentioned by Jovoy's official marketing.

All I could smell was this.

FOF

TODAY'S CHALLENGE

Could SBS help me lift my curse, and make me return home with a sub-esclusive scent to be proud of?

ROTY

shaved outside soccer stadium

LG SOTD Jun 25 2024 - Runaway Christmas in July

photocontest

Theme: DIY

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm #TOLL
• Razor: Rex - Konsul #ADJUSTABLE #CNC
• Blade: Voskhod - Teflon Coated [3]
• Lather: House of Mammoth - 福 (FÚ DÀO) - sample
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Santał Noir - AfterShave
• Fragrance: Meleg - Honey Deer Musk - sample

ON THE RUN

“We saw what you did”
“Huh?”
“Yesterday, in front of the Stadium. Didn’t think about the surveillance cameras all around, did you?”
“Oops!”

This is how it started. 
Getting off the grid. 
Not so easy in 2024.

I never thought I would appreciate so much the bad cell reception here in the countryside.
Try to trace my recently-shaved ass now, motherfuckers!

Banned from home. 
Hunted down by a faceless authoritarian system.
Now I understand how u/Surikem and u/AirBudRuler must feel like.

I have lost a lot, and They know it.
I’ll have to be smart and not use any digital payment.
I’m concerned I don’t have enough cash to stay under the radar for much longer.

What I do have are a very particular set of skills, skills I have acquired over a very long career.
Skills that make me a nightmare for people like them. 
I have watched American films and series.
More than ten thousand hours of them.

I am now proficient.
There are so many secrets I have learned over years of obsessive watching.
Like how to disappear.
A hoodie and a baseball cap.
I just put on my Cap of Shadows, and POOF!
Invisible. Better than Frodo with the Ring.
Yeah, science! Who’s faceless now, bitches?

I am now here in this undisclosed location, ready to apply everything I learned from MacGyver.
I have all I need for today in this shed near a countryside farm.

But I can’t stay here for long. Gotta keep moving.
What about the Lather Games remaining SOTDs, you may ask.

Watching films taught me that one of the greatest risks when you are on the run is shaving with underwhelming supplies. I didn’t want to end up like Roger Thornhill, so I’ve planned my outs.
For decades.

Also, keeping well groomed here is not as challenging as it seems to be overseas.
I know about many (more or less secret) stashes of shaving supplies all over central Italy.
And as I said: should I be missing anything, I’ll just MacGyver it.

I just have to keep running. I know I can lose Them.
I have a full day head start on Them, which is more than I need.
I’ve got friends in every town and village from here to Rome, I speak a dozen dialects, know every local custom. I’ll blend in, disappear. They’ll never see me again.

THROWING THEM OFF THE SCENT

“The nostalgic scent of mandarins and sweet flowers fill the house with a clean slate and blossoming auspiciousness to start the new year”.

Ha!
While They will be looking for a fake trail of hints leading to a mountain Winter Cabin location, and eponymous soap sample, I have actually lathered with a sample of Fu Dao which I had hidden under a China tree during last Chinese New Year celebrations.
No one saw me digging it up, as I am still wearing my Cap of Shadows.

What a pleasure to shave with u/mammothben’s base while on the run! After yesterday’s quickie under the rain, I enjoyed today’s so much that I got distracted and ended up doing a full three-pass, which also allowed me to mix with the olfactory environment here on the hills. The smell of firecrackers blends in with the scent of exhausted fireworks from last night’s pyrotechnic show. If Their hounds were on my tracks already, this should throw them off.

But I wanted to make extra sure, so generously splashed with my bottle of Santał Noir AS, which - having read u/J33pGuy13’s piss-pourri comment months ago - I had saved just for this kind of emergency. 

While I can’t feel any urinal scent, I have to remember that America films and series postulate tracking dogs have uncanny special powers, and I must trust my fellow wetshavers when they call "piss" what I would just consider as a nice cassis / fresh coniferous accord.

In any case, there’s no way Their hounds can trace me from now on.
The smell identical to u/J33pGuy13's piss is going to create some funny confusion...

My next destination is an old palace with a large ballroom, and an adjacent wardrobe made with hardwood. The wardrobe has a false back, behind which lies a secret room used to hide male members of the family during the hunt for forced workers by the occupying soldiers during WWII.

To perfectly blend into the scent of the wardrobe, I sprayed myself with Meleg’s Honey Deer Musk. As they say in their official materials:

“Imagine the heart of a Parisian winter. Aristocrats would infuse the suede lining of their fur coats with resins and musks before attending an elegant ballroom dance. The heat of the dance would arouse the notes of civet, deer musk, beeswax, suede, and fur”

Even hours late, Meleg fragrance’s sillage keeps projecting a sweet note of beeswax-polished wood. No one will be able to discern my scent from the furniture.

FOF

I am sending this from a different location, using a VPN. I should be fine, at least until tomorrow.

TODAY'S THEME: all scents make reference to winter (Chinese New Year, Christmas, Parisian Winter).

TODAY'S CHALLENGE: I shaved wearing my Cap of Shadows, also the primary cloaking device I am using while on the run

ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 26 2024 - Wild CARB Wednesday

photocontest

Theme: Bird (egg-laying chicken, deceitful chicken)

• Brush: Coop D'Osa - Pennello da cucina in silicone
• Razor: Bic - Single blade - Disposable
• Blade: Bic - Single blade - Disposable [1]
• Lather: u/MudAccording - Home made carbonara cream sauce
• Post Shave: Braulio - Amaro Riserva 2008
• Fragrance: Providence - Haitian Rum Blanc

additional post shave: Saponificio Varesino - Pro Victis - Skin Repair Cream
additional fragrance: Haitian Vetiver EO blended with Providence - Haitian Rum Blanc

ON THE RUN WITH CHICKEN, EGGS AND PIGS

Yesterday’s photocontest theme, Do It Yourself, has become today’s necessity.

My escape brought me to a remote place in the countryside.
I have to admit I was too optimistic.
No shaving soap available today. The closest stash is hours away.

“Work with what you got”, they say.
Here, in this farm, I only have access to some of humankind’s oldest options in terms of animal resources: chicken, pork, and some dairy products.

I wonder if karma brought me here: after all these posts of Americans using shaving products that smell like food, and sometimes even eating their lather, I am forced to do the opposite. 

Use food as lather. Not junk food, but something home-cooked.

NOT MY MOM’S SPAGHETTI
(Sorry u/Enndeegee )

I was born in Tuscany. Carbonara is a recipe from a different region, so it did not belong to my mother’s range of spaghetti options. But it became an affordable and essential survival option during my uni years, thanks to the mentorship of some fellow students from Rome, the homeland of carbonara.

Today I prepared my most updated version of a carbonara sauce base (eggs yolk, low-temperature melted pork jowl fat, grated cheese) and then used it as condiment for my spaghetti dinner, as a well as a pseudo-lather for my shave.

This is not a re-hash of the glorious Yard Raised Fresh Chicken Egg story.

I did use free range chicken eggs, but I did not make a soap out of them. Just a Mac-Gyver'd shaving cream.

Now, I don’t believe in evangelizing recipes as if they were a dogma written in stone. Non-gourmet household cuisine always needed to adapt to the ingredients available at hand.
It’s all about making it work for you, using what you have.

For carbonara, in addition to the flavor variants (you can even make a veggie alternative with zucchini, asparagus or other crispy greens), a big factor that somewhat reminds me of shaving is the importance of a slick texture.

ON THE RUNNY

If you don’t want the sauce to overheat and turn into scrambled eggs, then you need to work on the elements that contribute to slickness/creaminess, and ensure a timely application of sauce onto the pasta when the temperature lowers just enough so that it does not make the eggs proteins overheat and become too dry.

For ideal creaminess, I follow the practice of making a bain-marie savoury zabaione (if you insist, look at this reference recipe here, but take it with the proverbial grain of salt). I mix it with a considerable amount of melted fat from the pork jowl (alternative: bacon), which adds taste to the pasta, and thickness / slickness to the shaving cream.
Every cured pork has different fat characteristics. Today I had good results heating the fat at 125°C, so that it melted without getting any burnt note. Melted fat on the bottom of the pan, crispy sticks of cured meat ready to be added when you put together the sauce+pasta.

The history of carbonara is still debated and most Italians will claim it's related to local traditions, but recent research points to a strong dependance on the food supplies - dehydrated eggs and bacon - brought to Italy from US GIs at the end of WWII.

Once again, as in previous entries this month, I am confused and inspired by the complex, paradoxical history of Euro-Atlantic exchanges.

SHAVE AND SCENTS

As I have no shaving brush at hand, I had to make do with a kitchen brush, which actually worked quite effectively in covering my face and neck with the dense carbonara cream.

For FOF, the scent notes are: egg yolk, cured pork (including the accompanying aromatic pepper notes), seasoned cheese (tastes umami, don’t know how to translate it into a scent).

I shaved with a Bic disposable. My previous shaves with this gentle single-blade product were all very superficial. Today, I got an impressive and unexpected BBS.

I was astonished by the slickness of the thick cream that I made out of egg yolk and melted pork jowl fat (with the addition of some cheese fat and proteins heated at bain marie at 60°).

I then splashed some Amaro Braulio Riserva: it’s an alcohol based solution of herbs distillates, on paper so not so different from many “natural” EO-based AS. The bitter and fresh herbs contrast very nicely with the greasy scent of the carbonara cream. The sugar present in the recipe is not immediately perceivable, but after a few minutes it contributes to a slightly sticky drydown feel.

After a while, my super-smooth skin felt bizarrely dry, so I decided to apply some Pro Victis from Saponificio Varesino, to balance any shortcoming of the carbonara and amaro with respect to post-shave properties.

As a fragrance, I used a 58% alc Haitian Rum Blanc.
I recently wondered: why looking for fragrance reconstructions of boozy scents that are already available as strong alcohol solutions?
Well, I now have an answer: the funky and original "agricole" scent profile of the rum was very vibrant during the first minute, then the evaporation of the alcohol basically stopped it from continuing being perceivable.

On the other hand, I am surprised by the long-lasting sillage of the "rooty" scent of the herbal accord from my Amaro AS.

For fragrance longevity, I did a second attempt with a small rollerball of the same rum that had been macerated since over the last six weeks with a few drops of Haitian Vetiver EO,. The persistence of the EO has remained perceivable for a much longer time compared to just the rum scent.

While I remain skeptical with respect to boozy fragrances, I guess there is an actual point to the art and craft of perfumery, after all.

FOF

Today's Challenge: I use mostly synthetic brushes, and I don't feel the need to clean them with a water / vinegar solution. I once used soap dish to clean one that kept smelling like a particularly strong-scented soap, but other than that my brushes are still waiting for me to learn how to properly take care of them.

ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 27, 2024 - MEASURING UP WITH THE BEAR NECESSITIES

#photocontest

Theme Steampunk (Vintage brass telephone speaker. Retro-computer console from Terry Gilliam's Brazil, a masterwork of retro-futuristic overload)

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm #TOLL
• Razor: Muhle - Hexagon - R41 head #CNC
• Blade: Muhle - Stainless Razor Blade [3]
• Lather: Murphy and McNeil / Black Mountain Shaving - DFS Horizons - Shaving soap - Kodiak base
• Post Shave: First Line Shave / Black Mountain Shaving - Crossroads - Aftershave
• Fragrance: Givenchy - Xeryus - vintage

Today’s singalong:

https://youtu.be/6BH-Rxd-NBo?feature=shared

WY?

One of the first English language sentences that I learnt as a teenager was from a joke based on a white man who compares his penis tattoo to that of a tall Jamaican.

The joke is rooted in a racial stereotype that is at the center of this interesting NYT op-ed from almost two decades ago.

I wonder if the Wendy joke contributed to making my brain forge some association between a thoroughly-unraveled body of information and the value of one’s masculinity.

Maybe this is the secret origin of my wordiness. 

Could the dick-measurement social instinct be the reason why some of you are uncomfortable with my posts being “too long”?

Are scent notes lists some kind of dick measuring contest?

THANKS FOR BEARING WITH ME

Before the end of the LG, I really wanted to shave with a bear tallow soap, also to homage u/enndeegee and his choice of prize for the Scruba Awards.

Murphy and McNeil’s Kodiak base is excellent, especially in terms of post-shave feel. I find it very interesting that someone ended up trying to saponify tallow sourced not from a yard animal, or edible game, but from a predator whose population is thinned down within the narrow boundaries of local regulations.

Bears have a strong symbolic presence in the world's cultures since the dawn of humankind, when our ancestors depicted them on the walls of caves.

When I shave with a soap that I know contains bear tallow, my mind is pervaded by a sense of awe that I haven't felt, for example, at the idea of shaving with a bison tallow soap. The symbolic power of certain animals is extremely intriguing to my skeptic mind.

WELCOME TO OUR LISTS OF SCENT NOTES AND HAVE A NICE DAY

For my lather and AS I picked two scents formulated by Joseph Katon of Black Mountain Shaving.
He definitely seems to have fun with long lists of notes:

HORIZONS features 18 notes, divided in:
Top: Lavender, bergamot, lemon, ginger, mandarin orange, tangerine, basil, rosew**d
Middle: Honey, Cinnamon (synthetic), cashmere, jasmine sambac, Haitian vetiver, sandalwood, iris, carnation, patchouli, cedar
Base: Leather, amber, labdanum, benzoin, oak moss, musk, tobacco, tonka, bourbon vanilla

CROSSROADS also features 18 notes:
Apple, Bergamot, Orange, Grapefruit, Oakmoss, Basil, Rosemary, Juniper, Carnation, Jasmine, Freesia, Cypress, Vetiver, Cashmeran, Patchouli, Vanilla, Amboxan, Sandalwood

A XERYUS OVERLOAD

I completed my shave with this monumental 1980s fougère by Alberto Morillas.
According to Fragrantica, it counts TWENTY NINE NOTES:
Top notes: Lavender, Jasmine, Green Notes, Lemon, Violet, Bergamot, Nutmeg Flower, Mandarin Orange, Lily-of-the-Valley, Ylang-Ylang and Rose
Middle notes: Cypress, Juniper Berries, Carnation, Geranium, Tarragon, Coriander, Petitgrain, Sandalwood, Cyclamen and Cinnamon.
Base notes: Oakmoss, Balsam Fir, Leather, Vetiver, Amber, Cedar, Incense and Musk.

My scent writeup today is much shorter: Horizons is nice but a bit "heavy" on the long run, I am happy I did not get the complementary postshave or EDP, it would've been too much.

Crossroads is nicely contrasted and flows well into Xeryus' big Cinemascope and Technicolor spectacle.

FOF

A SINISTER SHAVE

My razor was chosen before I found out about the daily challenge.
As I have "franken'd" my Hexagon by replacing its DE89 head with an open comb, this has been a very slow shave with the "devil's hand". Managed not to get nicked, but I realized how hard it is to focus on a non-dominant hand, and how terrible it must've been up to the generation of my parents, when left-handed students were forced to become right-handed.

ROTY

LG SOTD Jun 28, 2024 - Frugal Friday

• Brush: Proraso (Omega rebranded) - Professional Brush - Boar #OLDWORLD
• Razor: Bic single blade - disposable
• Blade: Bic single blade - disposable [1]
• Lather: Proraso - Sapone da barba barbe dure - (Red cream soap)
• Post Shave: Proraso - Crema liquida dopobarba Anti irritazione - (White balm)
• Fragrance: 4711 - Original Eau de Cologne

Here in Italy, Proraso shines a success story that has been continuing for over a century. Its parent company, Ludovico Martelli, takes the name from the Martelli family, who started the company in 1908 and are still in charge of it (currently at the 4th generation, I believe).

After their recent acquisition of the Floid brand, historically associated to "the" aftershave product used by Italian barbers, the company is (today more than ever) a living monument to the Italian contribution to professional shaving.

At the same time, the products they supply to professional barbers are also available to the general consumers, not only through professional vendors, but also through super-accessible channels like supermarket and skincare/household products chains, and for very sustainable prices. Class, elegance and professional quality made accessible to the everyman. To me, this is the best expression of Italian values.

PROFESSIONAL, INDEED

I stepped into a barbershop of the Blues Barber mini-chain (three addresses in Florence, only use Proraso shaving products), and inquired about shaving options.

My first idea was to use the same cheapest products I own, but applied from the hand of a professional barber. I wasn't sure it would've qualified with respect to the LG rules, but ended up not needing to bring up the question to the judges. The barbershop was fully booked until next week.

One day, I will try one of their shaving options: Italian shave (Eur 20), American shave (Eur 30). Differences are related to the number of warm towels used during the prep phase, and inclination of the chair during the shave. But today's not that day.

A CLOSE SHAVE COMPANY

"Hi, my name is MudAccording, I am participating to the Lather Games. As I realized your HQ are less than 30minutes from where I am, can I come take pictures for my SOTD?"

For brevity, I will spare you of my subsequent explanation of what the Lather Games are.

"Dear Mr. MudAccording, unfortunately our company policy does not allow for outside persons to come and take pictures inside our premises".

Really gracious answer, considering that I was a random unknown dude pestering them with the request to get last minute access to their manufacturing building, so as to snap some pictures and then post them anonymously in a Reddit sub. I wouldn't have let me access the building!

Even more graciously, to answer my curiosity about visuals that could remind the historical roots of the company, they sent me digital pictures of two of their vintage ad campaigns, that I am sharing here and here.

SHORT CHRONOLOGY

They also helped me put together a basic chronology of their products:

• 1948: pre-shave cream
• 1960s: shave soap
• 1970s-1980s: canned shave foam, Colonia, postshave lotion
• early 2000s: postshave balm
• from 2014: beard care products

PRORASO PRODUCTS, PRORASO BUILDING

On top of all this graciousness, they also told me I was welcome to pick up a little something they left for me at the entrance of their building.

This is where the energy of all the LG contestants entered my conscience. I was no longer MudAccording, I was just a vessel for the whole r/Wetshaving community, and I was called to act by its highest standards. A sudden thought: lathering inside the Proraso premises, with my own Proraso products. Backup: lathering in front of the building, outside the gates.

I packed my shaving gear in an inconspicuous bag and got to the Sacred Source of Italian shaving products.

The address points to a group of factory buildings. After trying to get into the wrong building, owned by a luxury fashion brand, getting stopped by security and rerouted to the correct entrance, I was THERE.

I went to desk at the entrance, introduced myself and said I was there to pick up something.
"Sure, there it is"
"Oh, just a sec. Can you keep it for a few more minutes? Is there a restroom I could use before I leave?"
"Sure, over there"

TODAY'S CHALLENGE

As requested, I took a photo of my money-saving SOTD.

I don't really care about how much money I saved today. Money is important, but once one has secured the means to survive, other values are worth being considered as a priority.

I was happy to shave with Proraso, because they are classy yet accessible, and therefore inclusive. Their scents are great. They have been my first wetshaving products, and while some artisan soaps are better performing on the technical level (and at a much higher price point), Proraso always gave me a sense of non-snobbish homely comfort.

Similarly, 4711 is an unparallaled cologne for its price point, and resonates with memories of my childhood.

#ROTY

ROTY

SOTD Jun 29 2024 - Limits, Control, Will

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm #TOLL
• Razor: Henson - Al 13
• Blade: Gillette - Nacet [1]
• Lather: Grooming Dept - Sandalo Nobile - sample
• Post Shave: Catie's Bubbles - Retreat - Aftershave
• Fragrance: Acqua di Parma - Sandalo

More often that I'd like, I am quasi-anosmic to (the various reconstructions of) the scent of sandalwood.

I wish it wasn't like this, but it's the way my brain is wired.

More often that I'd like, while trying to tackle an issue I do not understand (but wish to sort out), I am not able to communicate effectively, and the void of misunderstanding becomes filled with fear and anger from people I have no beef with.

I wish it wasn't like this, but it's the way my brain is wired.

We are all wired a little differently.

I have been happy to participate to the Lather Games because I am usually not a daily shaver.

Also, I do not usually have the habit of trying to connect my shave to some broader themes.
I tried to have fun thinking and writing my posts. Some people liked them, some others didn't, and that's life. Judges complained about posts length. I replied that I didn't mind being DQ for length: I am who I am, and overall I can't claim that I managed to express myself in a more judge-pleasing way. That's on me, and I will live with the consequences.
For me, it was important to discipline myself to go all in, every day. Not to win against other people, not to please everyone, but to work towards a purpose that was meaningful to me, sharing posts that I was hoping could've been meaningful also to some others.

I guess it's like when you go jogging: some people (myself included) do it to improve themselves, not to win competitively against others.

On the latest Air Bud Rule Podcast, I understood that also u/airbudruler promotes the enjoyment of doing things for ourselves.

TODAY'S CHALLENGE: GIMME THE PRIZE

I cannot claim to know better than the judges who's most deserving of the various prizes.

What I can do is mentioning who I think has been most thorough in their determination to will their award into existence, writing in their posts about the moment they will receive the prize:

Main LG2024: Priusaurus

ROTY: Bacconchop

They will both have my applause.

Side category: #ROTY

LG 2024 Goodbye

• Brush: Alpha Brush & Shaving Co. - Bully Boy 28mm - CHINA
• Razor: Henson AL-13 Medium - Blue - CANADA
• Blade: Feather [1] - JAPAN
• Lather: Eufros - Atlantico - SPAIN
• Post Shave: HAGS for Yourshaving – Apocalypse - GREECE
• Fragrance: House of Mammoth – Embrace (sample) - US

Me: Italy

THE LATHER: ATLANTIC STORIES

Like many other things in my life, my adventures in the wetshaving world have been strongly connected to the ties that bind the two sides of the Atlantic together, in a relationship where differences are more of a value than a limit.

More than one of my LG posts this month have been related to this teme.

One of the cultural values I most appreciate from the Anglo-Saxon world is the idea of a social contract that allows different individuals to come together within a shared system of values. It's this contract among willing individuals that creates the institutional authority. It works much better than the passive-aggressive power relations among individuals that have no shared trust system. Especially in hi-stress situations, it's only human to regress to our core instincts, like fight or flight, control or submit, etc.

THE POST-SHAVE: APOCALYPSE

HAGS is a Greek brand.

While in modern culture we associate Apocalypse with a global catastrophe, the original Greek meaning of the word is "revelation".

I had initially planned to touch other topics, but I have to be honest and share what has been the most impactful revelation of the last month.

Trust me that if we wanted to find posts containing the string "roty", we would. However, we are looking for posts containing the string "#roty", and we do find them all. Those 14 remaining roty participants are welcome to appeal their cases like you are. J33p will decide about their cases, or not, as he pleases.

This is what u/djundjila replied to me in this post, after I offered in good faith to personally help with the hashtag problem that was affecting 10 out of the 15 ROTY players this year, for a total of 63 posts.

My posts about the systemic hashtag issue have been mocked as whingeing by u/enndeegee, and whining by u/djundjila. The latter clarified that he remains persuaded that if I can't fix my hashtags,

I have to conclude that people who mess up their hashtags consistently simply didn't care enough to double check

I have been struggling with similar previous answers for some time, then I had my own revelation: while I tried to put the utmost care in my entries, I really don’t care to comply to the sadistic requests of paranoid people who would rather mock me than contribute to help me understand, and constructively address an issue that has affected many users. When I volunteered to help, I was further called out as a whiner, and many people downvoted me.

I thought the Air Bud Rule was some kind of paradoxical joke, but I was faced with a harsh reality: there seem to be a tremendous and purulent wound that infects the relationship between the judges and the players. I was not there in previous years, and I don't know what happened.

While I remain sympathetic towards the judges for all the effort they have been volunteering, I take issue with the sense of entitlement, the downtalking, the mockery of requests or even offers for help.

One judgment that judges already shared with me about my persona is that I am a whiner.

Maybe I am.

And you know what? It's perfectly legitimate.

If you use your authority as a judge to publicly mock people, and leave actual hate speech float around without even replying to preserve the safety of the sub, well, there's a chance you may hurt people.

And hurt people may whine. You are free to downvote me, DQ me, ban me, do whatever you think will make you feel better than you are behaving. It won't help.

REVEALING THE BURDEN OF EXPERIENCE

I think I am older than most of the people who are writing here, old enough to own the fact that we are all more vulnerable than we would like to show.

As adults, we are always responsible for our behavior, even when it doesn't reflect the nice and easy-going image that we or our friends tend to keep. We can be good people overall, and still make horrible mistakes.

I have been online since the 1990s, I have seen the birth of the idea of flame wars, and I have developed enough antibodies to survive this shit. Possibly because I have around the internet for three decades, I will never downplay how easy it is to write aggressive posts that seem all fun and games, until the person on the other side, frequently a perfect unknown, gets hurt. It seems absurd to have to remind that online posts have real life consequences.

Beyond my personal misadventures with the stressed-out judges, the concern I'd like to share here is about the state of TRUST within this community. It's obvious that there have been serious trust issues floating around this sub well before I set foot here. Nervous and overwhelmed people can humanly become petty. I suggest to tackle the problem at its root, because my situation is just a symptom. The issues will keep hovering around even after I'll no long be here.

Another collective concern: in addition to the problems for "innocent" players that were not involved in any previous shenanigans, I point out the reputational damage to the sponsors.

If anyone asked me about the opportunity for a brand to be associated to the Lather Games, I would strongly discourage them, as it would mean to be in the hands of folks who volunteered for something that stresses them so much they become aggressive towards the players.

THE FRAGRANCE: EMBRACE

I committed to these LG to have a practical equivalent to one of life's biggest challenges: looking at yourself in the mirror, everyday, accept who you are, and try to improve on that.

I have been around long enough to know that sooner or later in life everyone feels the pressure of this challenge, and we all make mistakes. It's ok to be vulnerable and ask for help. It's only human to want to be surrounded by loving people, especially when others are channeling hate.

I would really like to thank u/mammothben for creating a fragrance that reminds us of the importance of showing connectedness and hugging each other, even in the worst circumstances.

A big hug to all.