Razor: ALE 9/8″
Brush: Tournure de bois 26mm Cashmere Synthetic
Soap: Moon Soaps Old School
Aftershave: Moon Soaps Old School
Weekend is here, no plans for the day, a perfect recipe for a Saturday straight shave. It has been a while so I’m starting to feel a bit out of practice. I have to make more time for straight shaves in the morning, especially since I’m now working from home and don’t have the morning commute.
Today I grabbed Old School from Moon Soaps. This is the second offering of their original 3 that I picked up. Moon is unique in that each of those original three soaps had a different soap base. The Amaretto is a favourite of mine but it is a very softy scoop-able cream (well, not what I consider a cream, but you get the idea). This offering is in a much more firm tallow/shea/mango butter formula. Scent notes on Old School are tobacco, vetiver, leather, mahogany and leather. It is a really nice, masculine scent. I find the scent strength is a bit weak for my liking on the soap. For me, off the top I get that rich mahogany and leather that has a touch of sharp vetiver cutting through. Underneath it all is the traditional tobacco note and a quite present creamy vanilla. If the scent strength was dialled up it would have been a much bigger win for me.
Performance on this soap is excellent. It loads very easily and you get a rich creamy lather with little effort. I didn’t find it overly thirsty and had no trouble dialling it in. Slickness was excellent, residual very good. Cushion was also excellent. This worked really well for the straight razor. Post shave also was a bright point, my skin was left feeling nice and hydrated. Moon makes a quality product and has great value with 6oz tub of soap.
For the post, I used their matching balm. They don’t offer a traditional splash, but that is ok, this balm is actually quite thin. Scent strength on the balm is definitely increased from the soap and surprisingly for a balm, projected well enough that I got noticed by the wife and it actually has lasted for over an hour already.
I can’t complete this SOTD without at least mentioning the new brush, a 26mm Cashmere Synthetic from Tournure de bois. I now have 3 of his brushes and this one is my favourite. I picked it up without a knot and wasn’t sure if I should badger it or use synthetic. I tend to reach for the synthetics more often but I had a hard time putting a synthetic in a natural olive wood handle. When it arrived and I had a 26mm Cashmere on hand, things just fell into place. It looks great and I love this cashmere style knot. I couldn’t be happier with this brush.
Fantastic shave today. All for now – J
