Razor: Wade & Butcher 13/16 near wedge
Brush: Tournure de bois 26mm APShaveCo Gealousy
Soap: Chicago Grooming Company (formerly Oleo) Isidro
Aftershave: Chicago Grooming Company (formerly Oleo) Isidro Splash
Other: Zoha Aroma Agar Precieux II
A dreary and cool fall day outside today. Perfect for some Oud. Up today is Isidro from Chicago Grooming Co (formerly Oleo Soapworks). This particular scent is based off of Tom Ford Oud Wood. Scent notes on this are Oud, rosewood, sandalwood, peppercorn, patchouli, vetiver, smoke. This is a wonderfully blended cologne dupe that has that resinous smokey/earthy vibe with just a hint of sweet freshness. I really dig the scent. I’ve never smelled the OG but this smells wonderful to me. So much so I grabbed a (somewhat) matching dupe scent from Zoha Aroma.
Chicago Grooming Co is the new re-branded shaving side of Oleo. They still make one of my favourite soap bases and this is no exception. Very easy to lather and you get a rich, creamy and dense result. Cushion and Slickness are elite level good. Post shave isn’t quite at the elite level of some of the newer bases but I still prefer this to man. It is extremely slick and is just so easy to use. Scent strength is on the stronger side of medium. I’d prefer it dialled up a touch, but it does the job and then some.
For the razor today I’m running a Wade & Butcher 13/16 near wedge. I always wanted to add a W&B to the den and this landed in my lap. It is exactly what I was looking for. Wedge straights are so different than the hollow straights. They are pretty intuitive to find the angle and are very efficient when properly honed. The trick for me is they have almost no audible feedback, I’m not quite used to that. A quick 2 pass shave today and I was pretty clean. No one to see today so I called it at that. You don’t need BBS everyday.
I followed up with the Skin Food formulation aftershave. My knock on Oleo splashes in the past is that they are weaker on scent strength and are a pretty basic formulation. I was pretty excited to try this skin food formula out. Scent strength is about a medium, nothing that will carry the day on its own. The splash still has an alcohol base but you can tell there is a little more love in the bottle. This still won’t compete with most of the skin food post shave formulations out there in terms of post shave feel but it is for sure a step up from the previous iterations.
Since the splash doesn’t have a lot of carry and since I love the scent, I followed it up with a scent dupe from Zoha Aroma called Agar Precieux II. This spray is their EDT take on Tom Ford Oud Wood Intense. Think of this as Oud Wood’s older more masculine big brother. This punches up all the masculine notes in Oud Wood and brings a bit more spice to the party. Again, I’ve never had the original frag to compare but I’ve been quite impressed with the Zoha dupes I’ve bought in terms of quality and presentation. Hours later and I’m still smelling like a boss.
An awesome Saturday shave. All for now – J
