What soap/cream did you use today?

Cold River Schapenmelk Shave Soap

GD Mallard Fougere

Noble Otter / Northern Elixir

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Ralph Lauren Safari shaving soap (tallow)

Eucris Cream v. (Geo. F. Trumper) cumin, black currants, oak moss

Unlike most other creams, Eucris finishes smooth and easy. But that’s not why I chose it. The main attraction, of course, is its powerful and otherworldly scent. Mercifully, there’s nothing else like it in all shaverdom. Eucris is a ten-tome treatise on the dark majesty of oak moss. Bitter, woody, and musty, moss gives deep down richness to chypres and fougères. On its own, it smells somber almost to the point of being sinister. Some say it reminds them of scrapings from a dank crypt. A heaping dose of oak moss, mixed with cumin and a few sprigs of black currant, makes Eucris a classic autumnal fragrance, and even though its lather isn’t the finest, I can’t let October go by without dipping a brush into its brooding abyss.
   

Cold River Soap Works Olfactory Hue

Havane v. (Le Père Lucien) timid tobacco

Pogonotomie, the French vendor that sells this soap, describes Havane as a “warm and woody fragrance with notes of sweet cigars and rum; an invitation to stroll the streets of Havana.” Sounds inviting and stirs up old recollections. Decades ago I worked in downtown Durham, North Carolina. At that time Durham billed itself the City of Medicine, but truth be told it was built entirely on tobacco. The streets near my office were lined with massive brick warehouses filled to the rafters with tobacco. In summer especially the whole city center seemed to ooze the sweet syrupy smell of curing Brightleaf. I hoped that today’s soap, Havane, would capture a bit of that olfactory memory. Alas, it doesn’t. I don’t smell tobacco, fresh or cured. I don’t pick up the promissed cigars or sweet rum or even much warm wood. Havane is very mild, bordering on feeble. In fact, when I first opened it, I thought I must have got an unscented tub by mistake. A couple latherings have brought up the fragrance, but it’s still just a faint whisper to those recollections of hot summer days in Durham.

The lather, on the other hand, is magnificent. Havane makes one of the thickest emulsions I’ve ever used. At the same time it’s remarkably slick. And the cushion, unlike earlier versions of the LPL soap base, is as deep and day is long. There’s no Shea butter in the mix, but I got a clean, perfectly plump finish right from the minute I put my razor down.

As a soap maker, I thoroughly enjoy your write-ups.


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