2023-07-02 This is a ~~Cow~~ Bull-Man
- Brush: Omega 343178 Synthetic #FAUXFUR #OLDWORLD
- Razor: Micromatic Open Comb (MMOC) (1st Generation)
- Lather: Southern Witchcrafts - Labyrinth
- Post Shave: Southern Witchcrafts - Labyrinth
- Fragrance: Southern Witchcrafts - Labyrinth
Challenge Accepted: I've called the MMOC a gentle giant before, a label I
straight-up stole from u/EldrormR because it's accurate. I used this for last
year's August MMOC challenge, during which time it served me well, and
I am become fan.
I'm definitely out of practice, though; I think I can count on one hand, with
a few fingers left over, the number of times I've used it since.
At the very least my approach to today's shave was a bit cavalier.
I realized this during, but did not correct it either
enough or soon enough to save my skin.
Then again, the mystery blade that's been sitting in the razor—out in the open
for some indeterminate amount of time—probably didn't help.
Don't do that, kids; don't use a questionably-old blade.
Relevant Post Shave and Fragrance:
Trickhole, plus relevant brush and bowl!
I painted that bowl with a minotaur motif over 20 years ago,
and never has it been more apt!
Free disclaimer: This Labyrinth set was bestowed upon me by u/phteven_j
last year as a Lather Games reward.
The news that he would not be involved in the Games or podcast this year
was a surprise and disappointment to many, but I get it.
The Games are exhausting enough as a participant, I can't
imagine what orchestrating and running it would take.
Brush: I haven't been able to confirm whether that model number, 343178,
is right, but that is what it purported to be when I bought it,
and I haven't found any evidence to the contrary
(and not for a lack of searching), so that's what I'm calling it.
Also, I think I'm obligated to point out that I purchased it for the low price
of $0.00.
It wasn't gifted to me, it wasn't a PIF, it wasn't even a promo or freebie;
rather, I purchased it from an online store for that listed price.
Zero was the price that the brush cost, and the price of the payment was
zero.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But also, it is a synthetic brush, making it fit right at home for
today's theme!
#photocontest
Photo: Story/thematic
Okay, I gotta talk about the Minotaur for just a second.
We all know the story represented in the photo:
Theseus (pictured), with his boat of questionably-continuous indentity
(not pictured), heroically slew the fearsome,
half-man-half-bull~~-half-pig~~ Minotaur (pictured) in his labyrinth
(pictured separately, with the bowl).
But I recently came across this summary of the
myth, and it is... something else! Here's my further-condensed version:
Poseidon gave a fancy bull to Minos of Crete to help Minos become king,
under the condition that Minos would later sacrifice the bull back to him.
Minos reneged on sacrificing the bull, so Poseidon had Aphrodite make Minos'
wife, Pasiphaë, fall in love with the bull.
Right, so Pasiphaë is in love with a bull. That's weird, right?. What's weirder
is that Pasiphaë then had Daedalus (you know Daedalus, father of Icarus,
flying too close to the sun and all that)
fabricate a hollow cow suit that she could wear in order to....
And then she gave birth to the Minotaur!
What the fuck, right?
Then again, this is the same general body of mythology that brought us
Leda and the Swan, i.e. a popular subject of porny Renaissance art in which
Zeus and Leda conceive Castor and Pollux while Zeus is in the form of a swan.
Yup.
#FOF
Lather/Post Shave/Fragrance:
Where was I? Oh, Labyrinth.
Anyway, it was the description of "wet stone" that first piqued my interest in
Labyrinth. I'm kind of fascinated by those "non-scent" descriptions,
i.e. that refer to things that don't really have any true scent or don't
generally have a smell associated with them.
Granted, how well this falls into that category is dubious,
because wet stone may very well have a smell, depending on such things as may
be on the surface of the rock, or perhaps anything in the water.
It follows, too, that any generic wet stone in one's geographic area—say,
Tucker, GA—may be distinctly different than what I'm familiar with here
in hrmnhmrmgbrn...
I can't say whether it smells like any damp rocks of Georgia, but I can see it.
What it actually reminds me of, though, is Stirling's Ben Franklin.
Granted, I may be pretty far off because it's been a few years since my nose
has been exposed to that.
I feel like I might be grasping at straws to draw some kind of similarity from
the ingredients, but you've got the myrrh of Labyrinth and the
benzoin of Ben Franklin, both tree-based resins. There's a strong temptation
to relate myrrh to Ben Franklin's frankincese, but I can't tell you if those
have any olfactory similarities.
I never claimed to have a refined olfactory palate.
If it were a color, I'd say it would be a desaturated, medium-light brown.
Wait, that sounds like a bad thing; I don't mean it to be!
I struggle with thinking of the kind of ~~occastion~~ occasion for which this scent would
be well-suited. It is not a date scent. It does not strike me as something
to be worn to any kind of formal event, or even to work at an office job.
...
It does actually seem like it would be appropriate for an archaeologist.
Does that make sense? I don't know any archaeologists.
Or maybe in a dark library, or something like an alchemist's lab, perhaps some
tome of cryptozoological anatomy...
Actually, in my mind, that sort of image may fit right in with
Southern Witchcrafts' brand.