Razor: Blackland Vector
Blade: Feather Artist Club Professional Blade
Brush: Erebus and Terror 26mm Synbad Synthetic
Soap: Barrister and Mann Vespers
Other: Thirsty Badger lather bowl
Today’s shave is dedicated to my friend Jonathan, aka @latherhog. If you aren’t familiar with him, Jonathan has an awesome YouTube channel with a tonne of resources for us wet shavers, as well as being half of the duo behind the Lather Talk podcast. I highly suggest you check out his content. We had been discussing the Blackland Vector a short time ago on the Lather Talk discord channel and how interested in it I was. Jon reached out to me and offered to lend me his Vector to give it a try. Very generous and very much appreciated.
I have been using this razor now for several shaves with a couple different blades and I have to say I really enjoy it. While it does come at a premium price point, if you are looking for an excellent artist club style razor, this would be an obvious choice. The vector does have a nice weight and while a bit handle heavy, not as much as I was expecting for such a small profile head. The razor is a touch tricky to load with the small profile and small blades, and at first it is easy to screw up the orientation. After a few uses, you get used to that so it isn’t a big deal. The razor does have some blade feel but again, not as much as I was expecting. It was still really smooth and comfortable and the angle was very easy to find. The smaller profile head makes it very nimble and I really liked that aspect of it. It was also quite efficient. If I had one small knock on the razor, I’d say that on occasion a light touch at the end of the head would cause the head to loosen from the handle. I had it happen a couple times when I bumped the head when rinsing between passes. It might be due to the half screw post for the smaller artist club razors. It doesn’t happen on its own and I just need to be cognisant of it during the shave and it isn’t an issue. Other than that minor detail, the razor was a big win for me. As for the artist club blades, I’ve tied a couple different ones now and while I like how they shave, they do add an extra cost and I don’t find they perform better or last longer than my favourite DE blades. For that reason, I’m not sure I personally would add the vector to my den or not. I guess I will find out how much I miss it when I return it to Jon.
For the soap today, I am using one of Jon’s favourite scents, Vespers from Barrister and Mann. I’ve always been intrigued by this scent given how many people seem to enjoy it, but also very cautious having had WAY more misses than hits with Barrister and Mann. Finding it for a great price on our Canadian BST forum I pulled the trigger. Scent notes on this are Cranberry, Rose, Sandalwood, Patchouli, Geranium, Cardamom, Fir, Mousse de Saxe, Bergamot, Lavender, Oakmoss, and Coumarin. This is actually a seasonal scent that comes around late fall/early winter. I have to say it wasn’t what I was expecting when I smelled it. I was thinking with Cranberry it was going to be this sharp, spicy Christmas type of scent. That is not the case at all. This is a fougere through and through. I maybe pickup the slightest hint of cranberry… maybe. Other than that, I get that robust powdery fougere with a bit of sweet woodsy note from the MDS and balsam. The rest of the notes pretty much just blend and round out the scent. It very much reminds me of B&M Beaudelaire with a bit of balsam added in. Scent strength is on the stronger side of medium. Given my love for traditional fougere scents, I definitely like it, although I’m not as blown away by it as many others are. The base on this is B&M Excelsior which I found very easy to load, lather and dial in. It performed very well on all metrics. No post shave today and my skin still feels excellent. If I had more love for the B&M scent catalog I would be very happy adding more excelsior to the den.
I couldn’t finish the shave today without talking about the brush. This one is done by Erebus and Terror out of Winnipeg, MB Canada. They are a relatively new brush maker that is offering some pretty unique designs and shapes, leaning heavily on different exotic woods to create stunning handles. I’ve had this a while but it took some time to source and pick the knot to go in it. I opted for a 26mm synbad. This knot is super soft for a synthetic, and while it does read a bit floppy, it does work up a great lather in either a bowl or on the face. I look forward to showing off this beauty in future shaves. I highly recommend you check out their unique offerings.
A pretty stellar shave today. No complaints, all for now – J
