Ok, so I did end up going with a night shave after work on Wednesday, and just haven't really had time to write it up until now. I used my favorite DE for the first use of this soap/AS, the Feather SS for the second, and will use a traditional straight for the third, which will gradually ramp up the slickness requirements.
Razor: Rockwell 6c
Blade: Wizamet
Brush: Semogue 830
First off, the scent is outstanding. I loved it from the first lid removal and sniff. Masculine with a bit of animalic(from the oud I expect), no one will be mistaking this for unisex. There is something really familiar about the scent, but I can't seem to place it. I didn't notice the vanilla directly from the tub, but it started to come out as the shave progressed.
I scooped an almond sized dollop from the tub, put it in my preferred sample bowl, and got to it. I added a bit more water while face lathering than intended and ended up over hydrating, and by the time I got to the third pass the lather was pretty watery. The extra hydration of the soap didn't detract from the shave, though I did skip a clean up pass because of it. There was more than enough slickness for the 6c to skate across, and enough residual slickness to do some moderate blade buffing where needed in the trouble areas. Three passes netted me a DFS+ that was a barely-there scritch in the trouble spots from being BBS. I held off on using the aftershave for a few minutes to see how my skin felt from just the soap, and I was impressed. It's really hard to describe, but my skin felt really clean. I did notice some slight discomfort during and for a little while after the shave, but there was no accompanying redness. Based on responses to previous posts I expect this was the skin goodies in the soap and aftershave doing their work.
As mentioned before, the vanilla didn't really start to come out until during the shave and it seemed to increase a bit as the shave went on. The aftershave seemed almost opposite of the soap, as there was very little oud and a lot of vanilla. It smelled even better than the soap. I used a hefty splash(or glug as
@dangerousdon would say), and even considering how many posts have mentioned it I was still surprised by how fast it soaked in. It was like my skin could breathe and was inhaling it almost as fast as it was applied. My face felt great for some time after, though there was a bit of dryness after 40 minutes or so and I had to use my usual moisturizer. I remember now reading about using a second application of the aftershave, but didn't think about it at the time.
I'll hold off on an final conclusions until after the last shave with these products, but I'm impressed so far and glad I got a chance to be in this pass around. I like to play around with photo filters, so I added a trippy effect on the second one.
