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