Razor: Gem Micromatic
Blade: Personna PTFE
Brush: Wildwest Brushworks Bobcat
Soap: Oleo Soapworks FOMO
Aftershave: Oleo Soapworks FOMO
Other: Hugo Boss Hugo EDT
This was a bit of a puzzling shave today. Nothing seemed to work out as expected. First off, I’ve been on the hunt for a while for a Hugo Boss scented shaving soap and aftershave to compliment this EDT. I love this EDT, I’ve had it a while, I’m pretty sure it helped me win my wife 🙂 So when I heard about this limited edition set called FOMO (fear of missing out) from Oleo Soapworks, I wanted to get my hands on a set. This will also be my first use of an Oleo product so that was a great coincidence.
My first impression of the FOMO set were OK. I had used it a couple times already before posting this shave as I wanted to be sure my thoughts prior to putting them down. The soap smells nice, medium strength off the puck, but, it doesn’t smell like the Hugo Boss EDT I own. I can pick out some similar notes but the body of the scent just isnt there. I don’t get the crisp apple, the grapefruit, the pine, all that the original has. If I was a betting man, I’d say this is a dupe of a different Boss scent, possibly Boss Number 1. Disappointment set in. Not to say it isn’t a nice scent, it really is. This is a nice cologne scent, just not what I was hoping to pick up.
As for the performance, the base is quite good, my previous shaves were all fantastic. Nice density and slickness. A nice sheen. A really well made base, but today I didn’t get the greatest shave. I used this Micromatic and today it felt very aggressive for me. The soap wasn’t doing it for me today as I got a fair bit of irritation and a few nicks. I also struggled with the brush today too. I love the look of this Wild West brush but I have used it enough now to know the knot is set way too low. Backbone feels way too much and it doesnt splay like a 24mm knot should. It is definitely a candidate for a re-knot. I just need to figure out how without damaging the handle. I’m chalking up the problems today with the combo of brush and razor and not the soap itself, since I had a wonderful irritation free BBS shave with it earlier in the week.
The matching aftershave it nice. I knew the shave was rough when I hit the face with this alcohol base because the burn damn near dropped me. Luckily it was only a second or so. Scent strength was ok, it will carry a little while, but I ended up spraying my HUGU EDT cologne which gladly took over. Not the greatest shave today, but hey, that can’t all be big wins. I look forward to giving this set another go in a future SOTD with a more tried and true hardware setup.
