Razor: Karve CB on B
Blade: Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge Yellows
Brush: Tournure de bois 26mm APShaveCo Gealousy
Soap: Highland Springs Forge
Aftershave: Highland Springs Forge Splash
Other: Thirsty Badger lather bowl
The last day of #CanadaWeek was always going to be a tough choice. I have enough Canadian made gear that I could easily do another week (more on that later). There were several Canadian artisans that I never even got to mentioning this week, so how do I narrow it down? Well choosing the last artisan wasn’t that hard, as I have yet to use something from Highland Springs Soap Company, easily one of my favourite artisans. The bigger challenge was what to use from their product line. I carry most of it in my den. I thought about using one of the older acquisitions in the vegan base. I LOVE their vegan offering and in my personal opinion it is the best vegan soap money can buy.
I could have done that, but instead I decided to feature their newest offering coming in their tallow base, Forge. Scent notes on this are Tobacco, Bergamot, Vetiver, Lemon, Citrus, Tonka Bean and Musk. While it is on the lighter side (3/10 maybe) this is the rare occasion for me that it just works. I love this scent. It is fresh and clean but each time you smell it you can pick up a pop of something different every time you smell. Sometimes it’s the tobacco, other times it is the lemon, or the vetiver. You can pull out any of these notes depending on what you pair with it and it would go along with a tonne of different frags. It is an easy pull for any occasion and any season.
Performance on this Tallow base is excellent. It is quite soft so the main challenge you might have is if you overload the brush. With a proper load it was quite easy to dial in to a lower volume/high sheen lather that is protective, extremely slick and has great post shave. Overloaded, you just need to spend sometime pushing in enough water to get the most out of it.
The brush today, I used the first Tournure de bois I acquired. This handle has that classic styling with a rich dark walnut (?) handle and a 26mm APShaveCo Gealousy knot. This knot blooms out very well and super soft and gelly. APShaveCo (Another Canadian company) has some great knots and this is no exception. Francis carries this knot as one of this defaults for his brushes and set it just right. I said it yesterday and I’ll say it again today, Francis makes some amazing brushes and his prices are more than reasonable. Make sure you check out his work.
I finished up the shave with the matching splash. Scent on this is a bit stronger but still on the lighter side. Performance is an excellent witch hazel base with no burn and some really nice skin food. My skin was left soft and hydrated.
All in all a great shave, but I was disappointed I didn’t get to all the great Canadian artisans this week and there are several of my favourite products in the den I never got a chance to highlight. I took a photo of a bunch of them here…. before Mel announced this week’s theme, #CanadaWeek Part 2. With that, I will be able to get to a few more of them after all. I may just do some Instagram photos of them this week as my schedule looks to be busy. I will try to get at least a couple more Canadian shaves posted though. I do hope you enjoyed the last 7 days and I hope I was able to enable a bunch of you.
All for now – J
