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Open blade shave #164:

Gear: Feather AC SS, Feather Pro blade (7), RR Big Bruce, Proraso Green soap, Alum block, generic witch hazel, vintage Avon Bravo sample, and vintage Avon Spicy sample to close!

I decided to start putting in everything I use during the shave. Mostly it’s extraneous post shave stuff, but I hope it helps.

It has been ages since I tried a full 3 pass Feather shave, so after a lazy morning and some yard work, I decided to give it a go. Trying to stick to mostly neutral/lightl scented soaps unless I’m absolutely sure of the profile of the Avon frag I’m trying.

The shave came out decent for being out of practice and for the blade having reached a shave count where it should only really be doing WTG and XTG. I took my time, focused, did everything properly, and I’m sitting at about 50/50 BBS/DFS.

The vintage Avon Bravo AS. Both Bravo and Blend 7 smelled very similar upon first opening the package. Bravo though opened up to a more powdery note with a tad of florals. It wasn’t quite feminine, but edging neutral ground. The alcohol hit was pretty nice.

Then to top off the shave I used Avon Spicy. When I opened up the packet I thought something was terribly wrong. It smelled just like the others, but with a hit of spice. Upon a few minutes of cooldown...OH MAN! Very close to the Old Spice of my youth, a tad powder, great spice mix - instant time warp! It might be a little weaker overall in comparison to what I remember of the real thing, but still pretty nice. The Bravo skewed it a bit more toward the powerful side today. This is my favorite Avon so far though!

Rankings of samples so far:
1) Spicy
2) Excalibur
3) Blend 7
4) Bravo

As I’ve mentioned here and there, I have a ton of stuff making its way slowly but surely toward my den. One I’m most excited about is the Fine Platinum EdT I was finally able to get. I’ve also got Lucky Tiger and Speick AS products on the way as well as two lots of classic AS products like Master, Pinaud, Osage, Superior 70, and more.

It should be a fun month!

Happy Saturday all!
 
Haven't worked thru any samples yet but surprised the Bravo was so low based on reading others thoughts. Glad the spicy is a win for you as it's an easy one to find cheap. Nice shave Chris !!
 
Ditto on the Bravo, Dave. I love it! And find it nowhere near the scent of Blend 7.
 
Haven't worked thru any samples yet but surprised the Bravo was so low based on reading others thoughts. Glad the spicy is a win for you as it's an easy one to find cheap. Nice shave Chris !!
Ditto on the Bravo, Dave. I love it! And find it nowhere near the scent of Blend 7.

Thanks!

Let me ask then, what scents do you get off of it? The Bravo that is. Maybe between the Green and the Spicy something got lost or covered over.
 
Thanks!

Let me ask then, what scents do you get off of it? The Bravo that is. Maybe between the Green and the Spicy something got lost or covered over.

Sweet. That’s all I get. I can’t figure that one out.
 
Open blade shave #165:

Gear: Feather AC SS, Feather Pro blade (8), Gillette Fatboy, Super-Max Platinum blade (1), RR Big Bruce, Grooming Dept Absinthe & Leather, Alum block, generic witch hazel, Captain’s Choice Venture, and vintage Avon Leather frag to finish!

On-call Church Chaplain duty today (tomorrow too)! That means we have to make it to church a bit early, so the goal for today’s shave was 1) Get a good one in 2) Get an Avon frag tried out. I try to make my Sunday shaves the “fanciest” for the week, so today’s choices were pretty much a no-brainer. Yet, there is also the very real possibly I could be called on, at least one of our parishioners is in the hospital and not doing very well at all; so I needed to not overdo the smelly stuff either.

Post-refreshing shower and prep, the Feather AC SS took the first to passes, gliding along a luxuriously scented, snot slick lather from the GD. Let me just say that in some places I didn’t really have that much to work with. Anyone who has even dreamed of a long lasting BBS, it is very possible with shavettes and SRs. So if you’re on the fence, don’t be. From the Feather shave yesterday, the easier parts of my face (cheeks and whatnot) were just barely coming out of BBS and into DFS this morning. That is well over 12 hours of smoothness, no lie!

The last pass was taken by the Fatboy, setting 3, with a brand new Super-Max Platinum blade from KJ’s car/blade PIF. This is another new blade for me - super mellow edge, but still smooth and efficient in the Fatboy.

I’m sitting at 99%+ BBS, just a few individual bits of stubble that escaped the ladykiller Fatboy.

Yesterday turned out really nicely, we spent most of the afternoon and evening together as a family after chores and errands were run. The day finished with an easy dinner, The Avengers Infinity War, and home movie snacks.

Today after church we may go out and do some local things (since I’m on call for 2 days). One thing we want to get to is a local artistry festival downtown where folks do sidewalk chalk art and there are a good number of other vendors and food trucks, it’s a fun time when it’s not blazing hot outside. We’ll see!

Happy Sunday all!
 
Derp:

Totally forgot to comment on the Avon Leather...which was awesome! After cool down it was a very muted and subtle scent, it felt like an aged leather to me, not a new leather, with a tad of spice. It paired very well with the GD A&L I used for the shave. It’s a little weird that all the Avon scents so far have a similar out-of-the-packet scent. This one was very nice though.

Vintage Avon frag sample rankings:

1) Spicy
2) Leather
3) Excalibur
4) Blend 7
5) Bravo AS
 
Good stuff Chris! I have tried the Avon Spice and Oland. I’m sure I’m in the minority, but Spice seemed really powdery.
 
Good stuff Chris! I have tried the Avon Spice and Oland. I’m sure I’m in the minority, but Spice seemed really powdery.

I only picked up a slight powder myself. Definitely not as much as the Bravo was putting out. The Spice actually lasted quite a while and toward the end was giving me almost a root beer-like sweetness. I think the first couple of hours though give a very nice Old Spice riff.

Haven’t tried Oland.
 
I’m sure I’m in the minority, but Spice seemed really powdery.
I don’t get any powder really from it, but I’m weird, so there’s that...

I only picked up a slight powder myself. Definitely not as much as the Bravo was putting out.

Now that’s crazy, because I get no powder from Bravo at all....

that said, I have no idea what is going on on these sample packs. I tried one, just to make sure it wasn’t dried out before sending them out. But I have no idea if over time, these are still true to what you will experience from the bottle.
 
Now that’s crazy, because I get no powder from Bravo at all....

that said, I have no idea what is going on on these sample packs. I tried one, just to make sure it wasn’t dried out before sending them out. But I have no idea if over time, these are still true to what you will experience from the bottle.

No excuses...I am holding you responsible!



Really I’m just appreciative of the opportunity to try these at all. I’d not pick up (nor likely find) a bottle myself.
 
Catching up again Chris!

Great reads, shaves, and reviews!

So have you decided on a car yet?
 
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