SOTD by u/curbside_champ

June 30, 2024 – Bon Voyage, Lather Games!

• Brush: Semogue – 2000 (Portugal)
• Razor: Merkur – 34C (Germany)
• Blade: Gillette – Silver Blue (Russia)
• Lather: The Handmade Soap Company – Basil, Lime & Sweet Neroli (Ireland)
• Post Shave: Tallow + Steel – Cognac (Canada)
• Fragrance: HAGS – Barberwood roll on EDP (Greece)
• Bowl: Chantal (China)
• Water: Fiji – Natural Artesian Water (Fiji)
• Me: USA

Now that all thats established, heres a short rundown.

• The Lather: This soap is easily the hardest in my den, but boy does it later up with a little water. No real complaints with the soap though as it smells pretty good too. My bowl eft a little to be desired in the amount it could hold though. Perhaps it helped that I used Fiji bottled water to add to the lather, or not. I don’t plan to test any theories on this one.
• The Shave: Simple smooth shave with nothing special.
• Aftershave/Frag: I followed the shave up with a little Cognac after shave and some Barberwood. They are a terrible matchup, but they do all fit the theme of being from a country other than my own.
• Theme/Challenge: Today’s theme and challenge are using things from other countries than your own. To that end, each part of my shave came from a different country and no part came from my home country USA.
• Analytics: Since today left little for antics to fit the bill I decided I would do some analytics. I do not have an army of bots to scrape that data so I did it the old fashioned way to come up with some charts for everyone to be able to see. Since I have to have this posted before the day is up I pulled all the data in up until u/sandmanct1 (54 SOTDs). Also please note if the shaver did not indicate a country of origin, I did not go searching it out. I also did not combine United Kingdom, England, and Scotland into one location. Without further ado here’s what I found, with charts…
• Shaver Origin: This was rather unsurprising as most of us knew most of the shavers competing originate in the USA (80%).
• Lather: Lather was surprising to me in the number of different countries chosen. I expected a more complete European dominance.
• Hardware: Hardware is the one place China and Russia begin to shine (19 uses each), but still cannot overtake the Italian brush usage (21).
• Hardware & Software: Combing both hardware and software usage we see a huge Italian dominance of 42 uses with Canada a distant second at 28 uses.
• Acknowledgment: Thank you to the judges for another interesting year of the games. I can’t imagine how much work must go on to keep them running, but it is appreciated.

[June 30, 2024 – Bon Voyage, Lather Games!](https://imgur.com/a/6-30-24-bon-voyage-lather-games-Ek1aq0U)

* **Brush:** Semogue – 2000 (Portugal)
* **Razor:** Merkur – 34C (Germany)
* **Blade:** Gillette – Silver Blue (Russia)
* **Lather:** The Handmade Soap Company – Basil, Lime & Sweet Neroli (Ireland)
* **Post Shave:** Tallow + Steel – Cognac (Canada)
* **Fragrance:** HAGS – Barberwood roll on EDP (Greece)
* **Bowl:** Chantal (China)
* **Water:** Fiji – Natural Artesian Water (Fiji)
* **Me:** USA

Now that all thats established, heres a short rundown.

* **The Lather:** This soap is easily the hardest in my den, but boy does it later up with a little water. No real complaints with the soap though as it smells pretty good too. My bowl eft a little to be desired in the amount it could hold though. Perhaps it helped that I used Fiji bottled water to add to the lather, or not. I don’t plan to test any theories on this one.
* **The Shave:** Simple smooth shave with nothing special.
* **Aftershave/Frag:** I followed the shave up with a little Cognac after shave and some Barberwood. They are a terrible matchup, but they do all fit the theme of being from a country other than my own.
* **Theme/Challenge:** Today’s theme and challenge are using things from other countries than your own. To that end, each part of my shave came from a different country and no part came from my home country USA.
* **Analytics:** Since today left little for antics to fit the bill I decided I would do some analytics. I do not have an army of bots to scrape that data so I did it the old fashioned way to come up with some charts for everyone to be able to see. Since I have to have this posted before the day is up I pulled all the data in up until u/sandmanct1 (54 SOTDs). Also please note if the shaver did not indicate a country of origin, I did not go searching it out. I also did not combine United Kingdom, England, and Scotland into one location. Without further ado here’s what I found, with charts…
* [Shaver Origin](https://imgur.com/a/shavers-tLKR51Y)**:** This was rather unsurprising as most of us knew most of the shavers competing originate in the USA (80%).
* [Lather](https://imgur.com/a/lather-usage-F7IZMLo)**:** Lather was surprising to me in the number of different countries chosen. I expected a more complete European dominance.
* [Hardware](https://imgur.com/a/hardware-usage-0cIHNWk)**:** Hardware is the one place China and Russia begin to shine (19 uses each), but still cannot overtake the Italian brush usage (21).
* [Hardware & Software](https://imgur.com/a/hardware-software-combined-usage-y1DR4tf)**:** Combing both hardware and software usage we see a huge Italian dominance of 42 uses with Canada a distant second at 28 uses.
* **Acknowledgment:** Thank you to the judges for another interesting year of the games. I can’t imagine how much work must go on to keep them running, but it is appreciated.