**June 1, 2024**
LG24 DAY 1 - A NUTCASE'S SUITCASE
photocontest
Fill the Frame (subject: the suitcase with its contents)
Prep: Shower with Oleo & Company Cedarwood Handmade Liquid Soap. Pre-shave beverage: Cedrata Tassoni (alcohol-free soda, embossed glass bottle)
* Brush: Black & Yellow Merit 99-5 by Heritage Collection Shaving / AP Shave Faux Boar Synthetic 24mm #FAUXFUR #FRANKENBRUSH
* Razor: EldrormR Industries MM24, Two-Toned Finish #FLIPTOP #MODERNGEM
* Blade: Personna GEM (1)
* Lather: AA Shaving - Wapiti
* Post Shave: Tallow + Steel - Himalaya - After Shave
* Fragrance: Hermès - Eau de Citron Noir (sample)
ACROSTIC OUVERTURE
“Begin your journey with an SE Blade
Oh, you shave nerd, on this first day”
“New all the things”, “Easy thing to say!”
“Jump on the chat, and we will give you aid!”
OnionMiasma sent a (AA) generous smush
u/EldrormR, his GEM fabulous, and in a rush!
Rookie as I am, I still lacked a faux boar brush
Lather then I made with all my brand-new goods:
AA’s soap scent kinda inspired by woods
TS put its mark on the world’s peak heights
Hermès a dark citrus from the city of lights
Exact match it isn’t, your cedar’s not citron
Riddled with false friends, this lifeboat I got on!
GEM blade: I was ready, u treat'd me like spaghetti
Acrostic rhymes or rap will not become my brand
My mic’s about to drop, my shave to reach its end
Experiment, I’ll keep to, and share it naming names
Such is my commitment, for this year’s lather games
ACT 1: NORTH BY NORTHWEST
AA shaving is a new-to-me lather brand (just like it’s my first time with an AP Shave Co brush). I read that Wapiti is inspired by a forest in Washington state’s Olympic Peninsula, a place that according to Google hosts the northernmost and northwesternmost points in the contiguous United States.
I wondered if there was a connection with Hitchock’s North by Northwest: I checked and there isn’t any. Nonetheless, take it as my MOTD recommendation, together with a cool quote that is likely unrelated, yet still somewhat meaningful:
“I am but mad north-north-west: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw”
William Shakespeare. Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2
AA's soap base has immediately proved to be very easy to lather: I was quite impressed, and I can't thank enough u/OnionMiasma for sending me a smush across the ocean.
As instructed by u/EldrormR, in preparation of the shave with my new MM24 I kept the lather as hydrated as possible, to the point that I accidentally projected a couple of lather splashes across the room.
However, testing the lather under the (figurative) pressure of the unfamiliar GEM made me wish for more slickness.
While I got a BBS on my face (after a slow shave during which I was entertained by the acoustic feedback of the blade), a small area of my neck - which had been heavily scrubbed by yesterday's experiment with a vintage boar - ended up getting a few annoying nicks. Technically, it could easily be my fault, as I might have fumbled the razor angle on the neck, but still I had the feeling that the lather was not as glide-friendly as some of the top performers such as DG Milksteak, B+M Ombnibus, MM Kodiak.
I was pleasantly surprised by AP's Faux Boar: I purchased it as a way to honor the first hardware sponsor on the list, and to try an example of boar replica, but I didn't really know what to expect. While it doesn't have the strong backbone of some actual boar knots, it does perform quite effectively and without too much of a "whiplash" effect. So far, I really like it.
I'm very happy about my new hardware, looking forward to using both razor and brush again!
ACT 2: CANADA’S STAKE ON THE HIMALAYAS
After a US brand for the lather, I wanted a Canadian one for the post-shave, as the exploration of North American artisans’ creations from both sides of the border has been the leading theme over the last few months of my wetshaving journey.
In our hyper-connected world, an Italian like me can get an AS splash crafted in Winnipeg, Canada, that uses Himalayan Cedarwood among its ingredients.
I had totally forgotten that Ryan from T+S in an email had advised me that Himalaya is "a warm / sweet amber type oriental scent".
I had purchased it last January and then put aside, so when I was looking for some Canadian cedarwood from an unusual provenance, I picked it without remembering that the woods were just one of the instruments in the symphony.
I actually like it, but it doesn't fit much with AA Wapiti (whose scent rapidly fainted), nor with my subsequent choice..
ACT 3: HAIL CEDAR!
A CAUTIONARY TALE ON PICKING A FALSE FRIEND AS YOUR TRUE LEADER
Upon embarking in a journey away from the comfort of your homeland, one must be ready to embrace chaos and confusion, to mistake a hawk for a handsaw, a Roger Thornhill for a George Kaplan, and then
live with the consequences, as bizarre as they can be.
Today my FOF semantically challenged challenge was: can we trust Cedar as our Leader?
Do we even all mean the same thing when we talk about Cedar?
Here in the Mediterranean, when you talk about a Cedar tree, people will likely think about the Cedar of Lebanon. However, the Italian word for the tree, Cedro, also refers to a citrus fruit, that in English is called Citron or Cedrate – a name that sounds like our popular soft drink Cedrata, a soda made with Citron fruit juice.
But Citron turns out to be yet another false friend when you speak with a French, to whom citron is a just a standard lemon.
There is no steady ground.
It all keeps shifting. Nothing is certain.
This is my Hail Cedar, a madcap story of woods and citrus, silver screen compass directions and misdirected investigations, a story that starts in a dupe place called “Olympic” even if it's half a world away from the original Mount Olympus, then goes to Himalaya to look for a mythical high-altitude Cedarwood note, but comes back jet-lagged with a boozy oriental drydown. A final detour brings us to a Paris fashion house, where we find out how they deem it elegant to spin the woody-citrus thread, in this mad mad world where Cedro is not the fruit of the Cedro tree, and your Citron is not the same as the Citroen’s workers Citron.
FOF
EDITED a couple of times right after posting to fix some bugging text editor issues
ROTY