Razor: Boker 4/8 Straight
Brush: Fuller synthetic
Soap: Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements John Frum
Aftershave: Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements John Frum
I have been looking forward to this #samplesaturday since I received this sample from my friend Ken @ Kal Shaves. John Frum is a throw back musk inspired scent. It is described as being on the brighter side of musk, which I would agree with. Scent notes are Sicilian Cedrat, Black Pepper, Sea Salt, Ambergris, Royal Hawaiian Sandalwood, Vetiver, White Musk & Animalic Musk. The scent is fantastic, it has that vintage throwback vibe without being your daddies musk.
The formula on this soap is the new CK6 formula. This is the PAA attemtp to show a vegan soap can compete with the elite tallow bases. It is a really good soap base, but honestly, I find their normal Crown King formula to be darn good as well. This soft soap/croap loads and lathers easily (careful not to overload). It is definitely thirsty but if you dial in the water you not only get a high structure lather, but you get that glossy/creamy lather as well. Slickness (lathered and residual) are both damn good and post shave felt great as well. I do want to play with the base a few more times before I hold this up against other soaps in my den, but my initial impressions are quite good…. but for the price point I’d more than happy to stick with the current Crown King base.
The razor today I started out with the Boker 4/8 pictured, but I had to switch that up quickly. That razor is definitely in need of a honing as a bunch of stropping with my new strop couldn’t smooth it out. It was very tuggy and I knew it would result in a bad shave. I quickly switched it out to another straight I had on hand and finished up with a nice 2 pass shave.
As I sometimes find with PAA, the aftershave is a bit of a shell of the scent on the soap. It pairs well and the dry down carries the scent you want for sure (oh musky goodness) but I find it to be a bit shallow in complexity compared to the soap. I think that just says something of the quality of the scent in the soap more than anything. A great finish to the shave and an hour later I’m still rocking the scent. I will have to find a way to add this to the den.
