Razor: Rockwell 6c on 3
Blade: Astra Green
Brush: Sloyd 22mm Synthetic on a walnut handle
Soap: Highland Springs Eclipse
Aftershave: Highland Springs Eclipse
Sorry folks, I’m a bit late getting this in. My day turned into a gong show yesterday (don’t ask) so I never got back to posting this. I received this new set, a collaboration between Highland Springs (soap and aftershave) and Australian Private Reserve (scent). This is Highland’s brand new tallow base and given the perfuming reputation of APR I was really excited to try this out. I’m sure Jonathan at Stonefield Shaving lost sleep from all the IMs with “Is it time yet?” I’m sure he will get over it.
First off the scent. The scent notes on this are Russian leather, dark musk, blond tobacco, dried fig, bourbon, carnation, geranium and lavender. I can say, off the puck, this is strong…. like an assault on your senses strong. I can’t get my nose closer than about 6 inches to the puck. Right up front you get a sharp scent of russian leather and carnation. The musk is there as well. Off the puck, I’m very unsure of the scent. Once lathered, it does soften a touch but is still very strong. I’d say after the dry down I was able to get a more rounded/less aggressive scent. This one will be polarising and honestly, I’m still very unsure here. I have decided to leave the lid off and let the soap mellow for a few days. Being so new, it is possible this will resolve itself a bit once it airs out. It will be something I’ll report back on.
Scent aside, the shave was fantastic. This new base is very good. It is a very soft soap so caution must be exercised to not overload your brush. Once loaded, it lathered easily. It very very thirsty. I kept pushing water into it and it kept getting better. I didn’t have a huge amount of time to play with lather so once it got to a point that looks quite good I proceeded with the shave. Cushion was great, Slickness (lathered and residual) were also great. I could tell during the shave I could have pushed more water into this and it would have gotten even better, I think once I have this dialled in, this will be competing with the heavy hitters in the tallow market. Post shave was excellent. I was a bit concerned the strong scent might lead to some irritation but no issues there. I look forward to seeing where I can push this lather…. assuming the scent mellows a bit for me.
Post shave, their splash is fantastic. I didn’t find the splash as strong but given the scent strength I could have been a bit nose blind by then. Their splash is great and my skin was left feeling fantastic.
The brush today was another offering from the local brush maker that I got started with some knots. I love this walnut handle. He really does some different things with the shapes and the stunning natural wood just speaks for itself. I wish I had some bigger knots for him as the 22mm is on the small side, but when it looks this good…. I can get over it 🙂
All in all, a damn good shave. I’ll be coming back to this one at a later date to see how the scent works for me.
