Razor: Karve CB C on CC
Blade: Gillette 7 O’Clock Green
Brush: Tournure de bois 26mm Cashmere
Soap: First Line Shave Dapper Man
Aftershave: First Line Shave Dapper Man Splash
Pretty excited about the shave today. I have wanted this Dapper Man set ever since I first saw it first posted on SOTD’s in early 2018. The scent on this is an homage to Amouage Beach Hut Man, but to be honest, I had no idea what that smelled like. This was 100% a blind buy off the fantastic label work by Xicano Design. The first release of this set was originally done in VERY small quantities (I believe 30) in a colab between Xicano Design and Oleo Soapworks. As you can imagine I thought I’d never be able to cross this off my bucket list. Luckily, It was recently redone by First Line Shave/Xicano Design in the new First Line Shave 3.0 soap base. I pounced.
I can say 100% this was a blind buy WIN. First, the scent. Based on the name I was kind of expecting that typical sweet coconut/rum/pineapple/banana type vibe. That is completely not the case here. While this does read as a summer scent it is completely off the beaten path when it comes to that genre. Scent notes are mint, orange blossom, galbanum, vetiver, moss, ivy, myrrh, patchouli and woody notes. This cologne scent reads as fresh, green, woody and slightly nutty. I could wear this scent every day in the warm weather. I’m not sure how the OG fragrance smells but if this is close, it would be a buy in my books. Luckily the scent strength on the tub is mid strong as well.
I can’t say I have a lot of experience with First Line Shave products so I don’t know how much 3.0 has improved over the previous bases (my only experience with 2.0 is the other soap I picked up and have only used once). I can say I’m a big fan of this soap base. I really like how it performed. Loading the soap was very simple and the wide hydration band made it very easy to lather. In the few times I’ve used this since acquiring it I’ve continued to push the water into it and it takes it without issue. And while it can take a lot of water, it still performed extremely well when I was on the lower end of the hydration point. With the water content I pushed into it today I’d say marks were excellent across the board. Cushion, Slickness, Post-Shave were all fantastic. The razor just glided across the skin.
And speaking of razor…. you may notice my Karve got a little bit of a clean up. Quite some time ago during travel my top cap on the Karve got some scratches from lazy travel packing on my part. I had always meant to clean it up and yesterday was that day. I did some polishing and buffing and not only did I remove the scratches, I took off the matte finish I always disliked. The shine also plays off the oxidised texture of the handle. I couldn’t be happier with how it turned out.
I finished up the shave with the matching after shave splash. This for sure had some alcohol in it. I did catch a bid of a burn, but it also had enough skin food to make up for that. There is a slight tackiness after the dry down but my skin is left feeling nice and hydrated. Scent on it was a perfect match and does carry up close for a couple hours. That does the job but honestly I may have to pick up a decant of the OG scent, it is that damn good.
A fantastic shave today. All for now – J
