July 8, 2023 – Small Business Saturday… but in july

• Brush: Paladin Chief 26mm Satin Juma Smoke
• Razor: Blackland Blackbird Ti
• Blade: Astra SP (3)
• Lather: Maggard – Tobacco and Leather
• Post Shave: Arianna and Evans – Vanille de Tabac

Small business Saturday holds a special place in my heart. I work in a family run small business and intricately understand some of the added difficulties small businesses face. Especially when Covid hit. Unfortunately a lot of good mom and pop businesses didn’t make it. I was glad to see many of the artisans and vendors were able to whether the storm. Enough about that though as today is all about Maggard.

The Shave: This being my first time trying a Maggard branded soap I was actually pleasantly surprised. The scent was good, not great though. I get the tobacco and leather scents, but for some reason I pick up an almond-like scent as well that is slightly irritating to my nose. Scent aside, the lathering process went quite well as the soap was easy to form a nice fluffy lather and provided reasonable slickness and cushion.

Post Shave: I didn’t find the post shave feel of the soap to be particularly great. Certainly not when compared to some of the top bases (Tusk, omnibus, NO). I found my face to be less happy after shaving. Now that is about what I expected as those 3 in particular are hard to beat. For aftershave I decided to match the Tobacco and Leather with the second most hated artisan (at least from what I read) of the sub Arriana and Evans’ Vanille de Tabac. The vanilla tobacco scent blended beautifully with the leather and tobacco notes of the soap and helped smooth out the overall smell for the day.

Theme: Maggard soap is of course on theme, but what about the Vanille de Tabac. I purchased Vanille de Tabac from Maggards when I was first getting into using soaps. So while it might not be Maggard brand, I still supported their business through the purchase. Moreover, it paired beautifully with the Maggard soap scent wise.

Challenge: I, like many others, have found the Daily Questions piece of the sub to be extremely useful. Over the last year or so of being active in this sub it has been an incredible source of information and learning. I did of course post both questions(1 and 2) and an answer today in accordance with the challenge requirements. There may be more posts as well, but hopefully those suffice.

#ROTY