June 23, 2024 – LG Day 23 – Sugar, Spice, & Everything Nice
- Brush: Stirling Synthetic Li’l Brudder
- Razor: Hitohira – Futana – Super Blue – Kurouchi Nashiji – 170mm Santoku – Cherry Wood Handle #KAMISORI #RUSTYBUTTRUSTY #STR8SNOB
- Razor: 十八子作 Chinese Cleaver #KAMISORI #STR8SNOB
- Razor: Karve CB SB-C
- Blade: Treet Classic (3)
- Lather: Talent Soap Factory – Cakehole
- Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Co. – Seaforth! 3 Scots
- Fragrance: Imaginary Authors – A Whiff of Wafflecone
Are you ready for some nonsense?
How about a face reveal?!?
The KitchenAid lather has been perfected; I believed this even before Prius posted his SOTD today, and as it turns out, the bar of “perfection” can raise when 3D printing gets involved. As such, I didn’t breakout the mixer today. Instead, we went low-fi with my immersion blender whisk attachment. To try to save myself a step, I first checked to see if I could do this without tape. Alas, that wasn’t going to work. However, a single layer of duct tape was all it needed to stay put. I then lathered the traditional way – on high speed, with a mug of water nearby for reinforcement. This took a couple tries, and ultimately was easier without holding my phone for video, but the final result turned out a-okay.
Even though we have some good lather in this bowl (better than I often have the patience to do by hand), I’m a ~~face~~ head latherer at heart. This immediately made a mess, all over my shirt as you can see, and also on nearly every surface of my kitchen. As to not give myself a massive cleaning chore, I resorted to painting the lather on, which was somewhat difficult with the blender attachment still taped on. Then the real work began – seeing if the sharpest knives in my kitchen are razor-sharp. First came the Hitohira Santoku, which is apparently not as sharp as when I bought it last year. I don’t think it took off any hair. So I tried what I’m confident is the sharpest non-serrated blade in my kitchen, my Chinese cleaver. Alas, again, no hair shaven, as you can see from my look of disappointment at the end. With some forethought, I could have had them sharpened at my local shop, but even then I’m not sure how good of a shave I would have gotten. So I lathered up again and had to grab a real razor. I was bummed that this was necessary, so I made sure to at least choose one with a patina to match the carbon steel of my first knife choice. I also realized that my videos don’t show the whole shaving-in-the-kitchen thing as much as I would have liked, so here’s one more shot.
Cakehole is advertised as a “perfect blend of moist white cake and hurt-your-teeth sweet butter cream vanilla frosting.” I don’t get this as much as I was hoping; to my nose, this is cake batter. Straight up box mix, add a couple pantry staples and, like magic, you’re an hour away from a cake-smelling cake batter. It certainly hits the theme, but is not the most exciting gourmand when it comes to fragrance-land. So, I decided to follow up with 3 Scots. Now, this is not advertised as a gourmand, but I think it’s highly relevant to today’s theme. Something about Shawn’s blend of warming spices and citrus smells positively delectable to me. It doesn’t literally taste good enough to eat – but rather, smells like the feeling of digging into a spice cake with an orange-scented cream cheese frosting. It’s joyful and comforting all at the same time. Finally, IA’s wildly simple vanilla/maple fragrance. It’s not trying to be subtle. In their effort to remind me of fond college memories going to the Ben & Jerry’s on Church Street, I instead get punched in the face my maple syrup spiked with vanilla. It’s unapologetic while also not quite harnessing its intended inspiration. #FOF