Razor: Rockwell 6s on 2
Blade: Polsilver
Brush: Sloyd Silvertip
Soap: Robin Tauer Cernunnos
Aftershave: Highland Springs Silence Balm
Other: Thirsty Badger lather bowl
I love me some small business. I feel like they are at the heart of the community, have personality and they typically excel at customer service. Most treat their employees like family. That is why I always do my best to support small business when I can. Given the whole COVID situation, it can’t be understated how important this is right now. Walmart will survive, McDonalds will survive, your neighbourhood restaurants, barbershops, clothing boutiques and more will all need support to get over the hump and back to excelling. That is why yesterday, when a local salon, Salon Beau.ti.ful here in Warman, Saskatchewan posted that they brought in some shaving soaps, I jumped at the chance to try them. I messaged them, emailed payment and it was dropped off at my door within two hours, because that is how small businesses roll.
The soaps they added are Robin Tauer shaving soaps. This made-in-france soap is a hard puck in a vegan base. When I say puck, I literally mean that, it comes individually wrapped inside a tin. I’d guess it is triple milled given the extremely hard texture. I’d say similar hardness to MDC. I grabbed a couple of the available four scents. The one that really spoke to me is Cernunnos. No scent notes on this but the Robin Tauer website described it as “smoke flavoured”.
When you see the word smoke you might be thinking tobacco or something along those lines. That is not this scent at all. Smoke flavoured may be more accurate because I get really get that very warm mesquite type sent. It is on the lighter side of medium off the puck and lathers up to medium. I was happy to find out this is indeed a shave soap, it has enough strearic content to give a nice stable lather. I did lather it and work with it a few times before actually shaving with it. The lather is very similar to what you would expect from many common vegan bases, a very structured and higher volume lather. It took quite a bit of water to get it dialed in. I pushed it as far as it would go and broke it with water while testing. I’d say the sweet spot does feel like a bit of a compromise on the cushion to get slickness where it needed to me. As such, the cushion was about average but was surprised to get a slickness that was pretty decent. Residual stayed pretty true as well. Post shave wasn’t amazing but it was better than I was expecting, I could have even skipped a post shave today. Quite pleasantly surprised by the performance. No complaints on the soap and if I had to do it over, I’d pick it up again.
Expecting to have a sub par post shave feel (which luckily I didn’t) I came armed with the big guns. This unscented aftershave balm from Highland Springs is a new workhorse in my den. I love the texture, it is translucent and goes on more like a gel than a creamy balm. It absorbs quickly and very cleanly with skin left extremely hydrated and comfortable. If you are looking for something that performs very well but goes on feeling quite light, pick yourself up one of these, you won’t be disappointed.
An all around great shave today! All for now – J
