Wednesday, 11 April, 2018
Declaration Grooming Santal Auster | C.V. Heljestrand No. 7
Currently on Shave #483 | Straight shave #290
This was one of the blades that was in need of a refresh after about 10 shaves on it or so. So, I found a little bit of time in the day to do the needed work on the blade. I decided against tape since I was only doing a refresh and would not be causing undo spine wear on the razor. I took it down to a Mejiro Nagura slurry first, doing 25 laps, medium-light to very light pressure, 20 very light laps with a diluted slurry. Cleaned off the stone, worked up a Tomo Nagura slurry and did 40 light-medium-light to very light pressure laps, diluted the slurry and did another light 30 laps. Finally I did 40 very light pressure laps on water only, followed by 15 laps on glycerine/water, and 10 spine leading laps. 50/125 on the firehose and leather and the blade was hitting a very comfortable HHT4/5 across the entirety of the blade. Not bad for 20 minutes of effort. Just based off of the HHT, this is one of the more successful honing sessions I’ve had…now let’s see how that translates to the true test, the shave.
The soap for the day was Declaration Grooming’s Santal Auster. This is their experimental soap base, named Project Icarus. I’ve done one test lather with this against one of their normal bison tallow bases and the result was pretty astonishing…to the point where I had to actually downgrade DG’s normal base scores for moisturizing. (it only lost ½ a point) One thing I will say about this soap base is that it is the thirstiest soap I’ve ever encountered, by a wide margin. The resulting lather, however, is the best soap base I’ve used to date. So, from a performance standpoint, it can’t be beat. However, and they warned about this, the addition of another type of tallow gives the soap a very pronounced anamalic smell, which cuts through the subtle sandalwood scent pretty dramatically. The resulting scent is not the most pleasing…which is a shame, because the scent off of the AS salve that matches it is simply SUBLIME. I did let the soap sit out for 2 days uncovered to try and diffuse the smell, but it didn’t work all that well. Lathered up, the anamalic smell dissipates a bit leaving the sandalwood to shine through more, so is not as pronounced, but it’s still there.
So, the shave…it was most excellent! Three passes with the No. 7, clean-up handled by the ‘Jectah, left me DSBBS(G). The alum barely registered anywhere, just letting me know that I did shave, but really no sting at all. The Fine aftershave, normally pretty biting, was absolutely silent. Topped off with the matching salve and some Creed Santal Original, it was a top 5 shave for sure.
A couple of final notes from the shave:
- I love the ergonomics of this brush, but the knot is definitely a lather flinger. I had suds everywhere. Slightly more scrub than the blackwolf, cashmere and Boss knots, but still nice and soft.
- In regards to the soap, I’m pretty conflicted. I really want to dislike this soap due to the anamalic scent and pricing. But on the flip side, it gave me one of the better shaves I’ve ever had, and I did pay a pretty penny for it. My spreadsheets are pretty telling on this soap. From a performance only standpoint, it’s top in the den, 55/55. Taking preference into account, and it falls to number 37 (65/75), on par with La Quatrieme Ville. Add the cost factor in, and it falls even further to number 62 (68/85). By that measure, it’s not worth the extra money spent. But, it is the best performing soap I’ve ever used. I just wish they had tried this soap base with a different scent profile, something not so subtle as sandalwood.
- The edge on this blade after its refresh is an B+/A-. I think I can get it even keener while maintaining the smoothness. But it was definitely in fine form, one of the better refreshes I’ve done in a while.
Have a great weekend everyone!
Declaration Grooming Santal Auster | C.V. Heljestrand No. 7
Currently on Shave #483 | Straight shave #290
This was one of the blades that was in need of a refresh after about 10 shaves on it or so. So, I found a little bit of time in the day to do the needed work on the blade. I decided against tape since I was only doing a refresh and would not be causing undo spine wear on the razor. I took it down to a Mejiro Nagura slurry first, doing 25 laps, medium-light to very light pressure, 20 very light laps with a diluted slurry. Cleaned off the stone, worked up a Tomo Nagura slurry and did 40 light-medium-light to very light pressure laps, diluted the slurry and did another light 30 laps. Finally I did 40 very light pressure laps on water only, followed by 15 laps on glycerine/water, and 10 spine leading laps. 50/125 on the firehose and leather and the blade was hitting a very comfortable HHT4/5 across the entirety of the blade. Not bad for 20 minutes of effort. Just based off of the HHT, this is one of the more successful honing sessions I’ve had…now let’s see how that translates to the true test, the shave.
The soap for the day was Declaration Grooming’s Santal Auster. This is their experimental soap base, named Project Icarus. I’ve done one test lather with this against one of their normal bison tallow bases and the result was pretty astonishing…to the point where I had to actually downgrade DG’s normal base scores for moisturizing. (it only lost ½ a point) One thing I will say about this soap base is that it is the thirstiest soap I’ve ever encountered, by a wide margin. The resulting lather, however, is the best soap base I’ve used to date. So, from a performance standpoint, it can’t be beat. However, and they warned about this, the addition of another type of tallow gives the soap a very pronounced anamalic smell, which cuts through the subtle sandalwood scent pretty dramatically. The resulting scent is not the most pleasing…which is a shame, because the scent off of the AS salve that matches it is simply SUBLIME. I did let the soap sit out for 2 days uncovered to try and diffuse the smell, but it didn’t work all that well. Lathered up, the anamalic smell dissipates a bit leaving the sandalwood to shine through more, so is not as pronounced, but it’s still there.
So, the shave…it was most excellent! Three passes with the No. 7, clean-up handled by the ‘Jectah, left me DSBBS(G). The alum barely registered anywhere, just letting me know that I did shave, but really no sting at all. The Fine aftershave, normally pretty biting, was absolutely silent. Topped off with the matching salve and some Creed Santal Original, it was a top 5 shave for sure.
A couple of final notes from the shave:
- I love the ergonomics of this brush, but the knot is definitely a lather flinger. I had suds everywhere. Slightly more scrub than the blackwolf, cashmere and Boss knots, but still nice and soft.
- In regards to the soap, I’m pretty conflicted. I really want to dislike this soap due to the anamalic scent and pricing. But on the flip side, it gave me one of the better shaves I’ve ever had, and I did pay a pretty penny for it. My spreadsheets are pretty telling on this soap. From a performance only standpoint, it’s top in the den, 55/55. Taking preference into account, and it falls to number 37 (65/75), on par with La Quatrieme Ville. Add the cost factor in, and it falls even further to number 62 (68/85). By that measure, it’s not worth the extra money spent. But, it is the best performing soap I’ve ever used. I just wish they had tried this soap base with a different scent profile, something not so subtle as sandalwood.
- The edge on this blade after its refresh is an B+/A-. I think I can get it even keener while maintaining the smoothness. But it was definitely in fine form, one of the better refreshes I’ve done in a while.
Have a great weekend everyone!
