Razor: J.A. Henckels Friodur 72 6/8
Brush: Copper Hat 24mm 2 Band Fan Knot (Oumo)
Soap: Van Yulay Kopenhagen
Other: Thirsty Badger 3D printed straight razor stand (v2)
Interesting shave today. I recently won an Amazon.com gift card so I took a browse thru the shave products to see what might be interesting. It has been a while since I have used a Van Yulay shave soap and they have a plethora of scents (in a few soap bases).
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mTUmczVdik&start=46s&end=84&rel=0]
I ended up picking a few options and added them to my cart. They arrived this week along with a few samples (yay!) This Kopenhagen soap caught my eye (actually it was on my list for quite some time). This to me is the smell of baseball. Back in my younger days when I used to play baseball, I remember a couple buddies that used to dip. I never took up the habit but I always remember the scent. Straight up tobacco and wintergreen. When I opened the lid I was instantly greeted with that memory.
Scent off the tub is strong and continues strong once lathered. Inside the tub you find a nice piped in croap. I didn’t see any tallow like items in the ingredient list so I’m guessing it is a vegan base. It loads very easily. Lathering, I had a bit of trouble dialing it in. It took a lot of water and give me a thick, creamy and lower volume lather. I then started my first pass with my straight. My initial impression is that the soap wasn’t very slick and residual was a step down from that. The razor felt like it was skipping a bit. I finished the first pass and aborted the mission. When I started the second (using a Rockwell 6s on 4) I painted in a bit more water. Second pass was fantastic, lathered soap was plenty slick. Residual slickness still was a bit on the low side so I wouldn’t do much buffing. I was able to finish off pass 2 and 3 with the Rockwell for a comfortable and near BBS shave. Post shave was about average, I still hit the face with a balm to add to the post shave feel. I feel like I will need to use this base several more times before I have that hydration dialed in, but I think it will be a decent performer when I get there.
A note about the brush today. It may look familiar to you from previous shaves. This is a Copper Hat brush I picked up in Victoria, BC when I visited the store. I loved the look of it but I constantly struggled with it. I’m not a huge fan of boar brushes and the knot was set a bit lower giving it extreme backbone. After trying for a while I finally gave up and re-knotted it…. twice. I grabbed a few knots from Oumo on Aliexpress as I wanted to give them a shot. The first knot I set was a horse hair. I HATED it. I’m officially done trying horse hair knots, I haven’t found one even close to decent. I then tried this 2 band fan knot and LOVE it. After I set it and lathered with it a couple times to clean the smell, the knot opened up to what you see here. It has a perfect balance of scritch and softness. I can’t wait to see how it gets once fully broken in.
And lastly, what you see pictured under the straight is my newest 3D print design. I never really loved my previous straight razor stand so I redesigned it. This is what came out and I’m happy with it. This is much more stable with a razor on it. I just need to try it on a few more sized straights. I’ll add to the website once I feel it works for a variety of sized straight razors.
