RazoRock - The Dead Sea
Kent V8
RazoRock Black Mamba | Gillette 7 O'clock Black (1)
Folsom & Company - Black Powder
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This was my first time using
razorock 's The Dead Sea. It's packaged similarly to their popular Santa Maria Del Fiore with a thick, heavy glass jar and aluminum lid. The notable exception is that the label is water resistant instead of the ridiculously delicate craft paper found on SMdF. The consistency of TDS is also exactly like that of SMdF. This is where the similarities cease. Out of the jar, I had an initial impression of sharp lemon peel with a very familiar musky fragrance countering the sharpness of the lemon. Seriously, I worked on trying to identify this for a couple days. I don't know why I didn't just go the website and look up the scent notes. At either rate, I brought the jar to my wife and asked her to help me figure out the familiar scent. She noted the lemon as well, but like me was stymied as to the other familiar and dominant fragrance. So, I proceeded to lather up and shave with it, hoping it would come to me.
Like, SMdF, some will find the consistency of TDS awkward. If you've used SMdF, treat TDS the same, and you'll be golden. Since it's essentially a cream, but I still want to load from the jar, I use a barely damp knot. If I was using a boar or other knot with lots of backbone, I'd probably transfer a small dollop into a bowl before loading. If you're digging clumps of cream into your brush, you need to either back off the pressure, or just bowl load. Loading from the jar with a soft, damp knot yields very little protolather, but fills the knot rather quickly. You can see the knot swell and feel the weight increase.
Scalp lathering from this point is intuitive. Dribbling just a small amount of water into the knot, I got a creamy, paintable lather in short order. The lemon and mystery scent was very pleasant but mild. The scent sustained throughout the 3-pass shave without much transformation. The overall shave was outstanding. Interesting word that I overuse---outstanding. This would suggest that this soap stands out among the other soaps I use, and it's just not the case. The fact is, I have been fortunate enough to have been spared from bad soaps for years, given the information from this community. The Dead Sea performs on par with the majority of my soaps, and that's a very good thing. What does stand out, however, is the scent. I just gave up and went to Italian Barber's site (and yes, looking back, I now see it's denoted on the label). There it was, the elusive familiar fragrance, cannabis. When I read it to my wife, she agreed. The lemon compliments it such that it evaded us both. It is a very mildly scented soap, mind you. I could not detect it at all after stepping out of the bathroom.
I will note that the post-shave of TDS is remarkable. Frankly, I don't know how much role the salts play, but it does seem to be a step higher than what lanolin and aloe alone generally do for me. There's no question that a post product could be skipped with this soap. But it's Texas, and it's hot, and I wanted a little menthol, so the late Folsom & Company came through.
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