Razor: Tatara Masamune
Blade: Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge Yellows
Brush: Tournure de bois 26mm APShaveCo Gealousy
Soap: Ariana & Evans SoCal Hipster
Aftershave: Ariana & Evans SoCal Hipster
Other: Thirsty Badger lather week
The gents over at BBS.Live run a weekly Theme Week where they pick a theme and you shave with an item or items inspired by the theme. Previously I participated pretty heavily in the #CanadaWeek. For this particular week the theme is #SummerWeek, chosen as a way to warm up their friends living in the frigid climates. Given the weather we’ve been having of late, you can say I need some warming up as well. With that in mind, I pulled this summer scent from Ariana & Evans, SoCal Hipster.
SoCal Hipster is in the Kaizen base and really evokes the thoughts of summer with its notes of Pink peppercorn, pineapple, banana, passion fruit, mango, cade, oakmoss, sandalwood, cedarwood and musk. Off the puck this is quite heavy banana and pineapple. Once you begin to lather the other fruity notes and the pink peppercorn come out. Scent strength on this is the stronger side of medium. The praises of Kaizen have been sung many times here so I won’t go into the performance other than to say it is worthy of all the praises. Just be sure not to overload and add plenty of water. Oh ya, and when this scent dries down, the undertones of cade, oakmoss, sandalwood, cedarwood and musk start to really come out, making sure you aren’t left smelling like a summer fruit bomb.
I finished up with the matching splash today. Scent was nice and dialled up strength wise and smelled just like it should. The base on this splash is strange compared to other A&E products I have. It was extremely thick, almost like a gel, causing it to not flow very well from the restrictor. Several shakes and I was able to get loaded up for the post. Performance was more than fine, my skin was left feeling nice and hydrated with no tacky face feel after application. I enjoyed it very much, but it did leave the question if this was be design. I did reach out to them just to see if this is how it is to be presented.
Fantastic shave this morning, great way to kick off this cold winter day. All for now – J
