Aye.

Oro Valley is based on Tom Ford Ombré Leather AFAIK, which is perfect for the colder months 👍🏻

53 is a very respectable number. I guess 30 from a sample puck could be very frugal loaders. Personally, I prefer heavy loading and if I recall correctly, you're in the same boat... While frugal feats sound impressive, there's no shame in loading like it's going out of style. After all, if there's one thing we all have enough of it is shaving soap.

Congrats on the kill! Especially since it's a huge Stirling tub.

I know of Haslinger, but Austria is it's own little cosmos - they mostly dislike us germans, except for Bavaria. I also don't really would call them an artisan, at least not in the traditional sense. There's also Klar Seifen and Mäurer & Wirtz in Germany, but like Haslinger they're traditional brands with a very old hard soap formula. Out of the Haslinger soaps I had so far, Honig was my favourite due to the nice honey scent, but in terms of slickness and skincare their formula is... lacking.
Once upon a time, there used to be a german woman who made soft shaving soap akin to american and italian soaps, but unfortunately she had to close up shop before I truly got into wetshaving as a hobby.

And yeah, the growing power of far-right/alt-right and normalised racism is quite worrying. 😕

It's unfortunate, but like always: something really positive also comes with a few negatives. As far as the political situation is considered, East Germany always had a problem with being right-leaning and in the last few years, some assholes really capitalized on that. At least we're still better off than the US with its two-party system.

03.10.2024 - Transition

• Prep: warm water
• Brush: RazoRock 400 Noir SE 24 mm
• Razor: Stando Perun
• Blade: Rapira Platinum Lux
• Lather: Wholly Kaw - Transition
• Post-Shave: Tüff sensitive AS; Phytorelax Aftershave scalp cream

-> 2-pass head shave. Originally I wanted to do a neck lineup as well, but didn't have enough soap left in my brush.

Transition is a WK soap I hadn't tried yet. It has a beautiful autumn landscape for its tub art, so it fits seasonally. The scent is on the lighter side of the spectrum but goes rather well with my Phytorelax balm. I'd say it's good for everyday wear based upon my first impression. Unfortunately I don't even own a single german soap - the only active german artisan I know of is Meißner Tremonia from Dortmund, but a lot of their products that'd interest me are currently unavailable. Mühle is from the former GDR and their stuff is solid. Of course there's still Tabac, but I am not sure if their soap is even made here anymore. Most german razor blade manufacturers were bought either by Gillette or Harry's, so they only produce cartridge BS these days. I still had an aftershave from East Germany around though, even one that's around since GDR times! Tüff used to be quite popular, mine is the green version without any fragrance/perfume added.

So today is German Reunification Day, but as @djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social has already mentioned, we're still not fully united. I live in East Germany, and while not everything sucks over here (e.g. our part of the Autobahn is better than most of it near Hamburg or Bochum) we are still at a economical and cultural disadvantage. From big corporations to little start-ups, most will settle in a big metropolis in West Germany. Bands rarely play in the East either, and so forth. Our last regional elections were all huge successes for the far right-wing party I despise deeply & refuse to name here, but one factor contributing to this is the sheer incompetence of our government. Many people here fear for their economic safety due to high unemployment and rising bankruptcies, so my hope is that a lot of voters are in fact not right-wing arseholes but generally unsatisfied with everything. Despite different opinions in the public, I'm still a firm believer in continuous dialogue and searching for compromises. It'll never do us any good to prohibit certain parties and dictate opinions - as we saw, this only strengthens right-wing extremists and their propaganda.

Now this turned out to be much more of a tirade than I anticipated, sorry for this wall of text... I'm currently in a bit of a transition period as well, as my RN retraining draws to a close and the exams are next year. Let's hope the best for the future.

Immanuel tried to say something to disapprove of this message too - but he Kant...

Bentley for Men Intense ++ 👍🏻

Even as a younger german, I definitely need to agree. We have this strange fixation on punctuality and efficiency (except for the Deutsche Bahn, the laughing stock of german public transport). If other schools of thought postulated that "form follows function", the german way is definitely "Function over Form!"
Made in Germany is still seen as a promise of good quality, but often at the expense of weird/ugly/boring design 😅

Nevertheless, congratulations on the new razor! Hope it'll give you many comfortable shaves.

Thanks, it fits even better than I expected 👌🏻

01.10.2024 - Happy October

• Prep: warm water
• Brush: AP Shave Co. 30 mm Tuxedo Fan w/ black & clear handle
• Razor: Ever-Ready 1912 SE
• Blade: GEM PTFE
• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Autumn Glory
• Post-Shave: Southern Witchcrafts - Pomona AS; Pacific Shaving Co. Caffeinated ASB
• Fragrance: Southern Witchcrafts - Pomona EdP

-> 2 pass head shave and 1 pass neck cleanup. Good shave.

A very late SOTN, but happy October to everyone! It's actually one of my favourite months, favourite season in general and also: the start of spooky season in preparation for Halloween.

Today's soap is one of my first autumnal soaps I ever got, and it smells very similar to a Yankee Candle of the same name (my mom and me are avid fans of scented candles). It's a Stirling soap, so it's kind of a neverending story (haven't used this one that much, but it still looks full!). It almost explodes with lather when a big brush is used and guarantees a good shave. Combined with an Ol' Reliable like the Ever-Ready, it's just relaxed and comfortable shaving. I still really like pairing Pomona with different scents, wore the EdP all day again and wanted to include it in my shave too.

If you think r/wetshaving is in a lul, dying, or threatened by some other website with 9 monthly users, etc... get your head out of your ass. We're not going to wait, so try and keep up.

👏🏻 Well said!
How sad that some people feel threatened by our small community with only a handful of members. The things about the IRC crowd sound so awful, like hating on Ben from HoM for talking about his creative process - do these people get mad when the Movie they love also has a "Making of..." or "Behind the scenes" segment on the DVD/Blu-ray?!?. How spiteful can people be? 🤦🏻‍♂️

Judging by the newest abhorrent change Reddit implemented to their ToS, I guess many more will leave sooner or later. Let's wait and see, we'll be here if they want a new home. Thanks for doing a great job managing this instance and standing up for us, walden ! 🤝🏻