SOTD 2024-06-05 Guardian Pharmacy is a Canadian Heritage
- Brush: Man'Stuff - Vegan #RUNT
- Razor: Wilkinson Sword - Classic
- Blade: Gillette Platinum
- Lather: Man'Stuff - Black Pepper cream
- Post Shave: Man'Stuff - Black Pepper balm
Today's bonus special challenge: Reverse Lather Routine. Normally I bowl lather so today I'll face lather. But how about we do everything a little differently today.
You can't go on for a penny without going in for a pound in this rabbithole, so of course if I was going to use a soap from a local pharmacy (which also happens to be a Canadian pharmacy) then I should also use a local pharmacy brush and razor and blade and aftershave balm and it just so happens that all of this gear was acquired at the same pharmacy, a pharmacy that just happens to perhaps be the greatest pharmacy in all the land and impresses me every time I go; though this time the gear I got was a bit of a different story, but enough of that story for now until I come back to that story in a few minutes while I chase this train of thought down what seems like a proverbial rabbithole, you’re probably thinking that there’s no way that I could have gotten all this gear from a single pharmacy; well you’d be wrong, I did, and I’ve got proof as I was told by the honourable (spelled the Canadian way because this is Canada Day; actually it’s not Canada Day because that’s July 1st, but it’s basically Canada Day: The Prequel) OnionMiasma “if the local store also sell Crest or condoms, you’re good”; so yup, I brought it home; though since we’re going on trial here I’ll throw this in too since the razor, while purchased from the same pharmacy, it seems they didn’t have any more of them in stock at the time, and since I didn’t really want to use the Bic Metal, even though I did buy them at the time, I had previously purchased the visible in picture Wilkinson Sword razor so without further ado, this is me at that same store, which is evidenced here and you can even see that “Man’Stuff” branded stuff below it, as if I needed more proof, but onward, upward, twirling, twirling towards lather we go, and so I opened up the package and was impressed (if that was really my reaction, I guess I was more taken aback) by how SMOL this brush was; it’s tiny and deformed from being in that package, which seemingly is vegan since it’s got a PETA logo on the back of the box, but vegan can be good (more on that later) as evidenced by wonderful soaps made by Southern Witchcrafts and others, but I would save my judgment for when I actually used the brush; so next on the list was the soap, which allegedly is supposed to smell like “black pepper”, but I’ll talk more about that later, first was the packaging which was hilariously cheap – even the threading was stripped due to the way it was sealed; talk about quality control, but I can forgive that, if it was a quality product and they simply cheaped out on the packaging, but alas that was not to be, and I will start with the scent, which reminded me of Gillette Foamy that had simply been sprayed into a tub; if only it was Gillette Foamy sprayed into a tub it would not have been so terrible, but it had all of the faults of canned foam as well as all of the faults of a hard soap, yet it was as soft as a cream, it boggles the mind, but I would try it, as I must for the purposes of shaving with it, so on I went and wet the brush which was also horribly bad, stiffer than a brand new boar brush, with zero splay, and more like a spatula than a brush, which is probably why the package also suggests that I could use my fingers rather than the brush if I wanted, but I needed to use the brush because I needed to use the brush because I said that I would use the brush since I’m reviewing the brush and that’s what the brush is for and I already wrote above that I used the brush and otherwise I’d be lying and lying is bad I guess and I’ve lost track of the train that was my thought but anyway the brush is bad, but somehow not as bad as the soap which has both the chemical smell of canned foam but doesn’t lather, but rather than not even lathering like a brushless cream it somehow is just I can’t even describe how terrible this stuff is because I can barely understand how they managed to create a cream that is almost as soft as canned foam and smells like canned foam that you found at your parent’s house after your dad switched to an electric razor in the 1980s and can’t lather for its life and clogs up the razor, yes I’ll get more on that, more than any other product you’ve ever tried, and you wish that you just used the bar of soap by the sink instead because I’ve never had to clean out a razor after a SINGLE PASS before, this is by far the absolute worst shaving kit and worst soap I can possibly imagine please don’t ever buy it I’m serious this is as bad as I’m describing it and even worse this is cursed beyond cursed this is run on sentence levels of bad where the writer goes on for pages and even passes one thousand words without using proper punctuation in their sentence to the point where you wonder if they even know what a period is, but somehow they must since there are periods in the URLs that they used to link the images, but back onto the subject at hand where we were talking about the soap, but I don’t want to talk about the soap anymore and how I had to disassemble the razor after doing a single pass and the brush that was worse at lathering than a spatula and they all are going into the garbage after this because I can’t possibly think of any enemy that I have that is deserving of such terrible punishment, even worse than having to read this huge wall of unbroken text (be happy that I at least remember how to use the spacebar) and I’ve forgotten what I’m talking about oh yes on to the ~~spatula~~ brush but yes it’s terrible and I hate it but at least it’s a tiny knot so it qualifies for the #RUNT hastag so I get some points for it and anyway there seems to be a theme with this kit and it’s that it’s absolutely horrendous but maybe the balm is alright because it’s a balm and it also says that it smells like black pepper which honestly if you know what black pepper smells like it’s not something that you’d think “yes this is what I’d want to smell like because it makes people sneeze” but maybe that’s just how delusional these people making these products are because they decided to call their product “Man’Stuff” without even using proper punctuation or even spacing (maybe my anger at that is why I’ve remembered how to use spaces) but still on the topic of the balm it smells EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE SOAP and so I proceed to put it on my face because I must for stience (the sacrifices we make) and somehow this balm is worse than if I didn’t use anything at all as my face is even drier than if I covered it in a paste of alum and left it all day not to mention that my face is now itchy and still scruffy since that single pass was also probably the worst single pass since the razor was totally clogged and probably didn’t cut anything at all but no fault of the razor it performed admirably and my face at least didn’t end up raw and cut up though it’s not exactly a fair test of blade since it’s the first time using it in this razor and I’m not even certain if it even had a chance to cut any hair because my face still feels like I haven’t shaven yet but now it’s itchy and also dry as a bone I see flaking how did it dry my skin out so much well I wasn’t wasting any more time thinking about it and I’m washing this horrible smelling stuff off my face and wishing that I had Midnight Stag to spread all over my face to cover it up and not to mention my bathroom now smells like this horrid chemical smell stronger than you’d normally get from that canned foam from the 80s but the same sort of smell and it did only so much but didn’t do anything for my now super dry skin so for the first time in possibly ever I spread hand cream on my face to deal with the dryness and thankfully I’ve got some good stuff so It’s not so bad but then I needed to go to work and spent the day debating whether or not I could use something different since it still would be Canadian Pharmacy shave day and I did still need to shave because this morning’s shave did nothing but alas I’m not sure if it would be breaking the rules but perhaps if someone has actually kept reading this far they could tell me though perhaps it would be the sort of Air Bud type ruling that is disallowed except when it is allowed but I thank you all for your attention because I know that every single person read all 1600 words of this because who knows if your future may depend on it because if you ever pick that soap up (at least it was only $13 Canadian dollars) and here I was thinking I was getting a bargain but no I was very very wrong and horribly wrong and terribly wrong and regretting my decision but it was for Stience and for the Lathergames and for the community that I have done this great sacrifice of my face and I’ll need to leave the review of the Gillette Platinum blade in the Wilkinson Sword Classic razor for another day since I’ve not passed 1700 words and I think I’ve remembered how to punctuate.