Proraso White Pre Shave Taylor of Old Bond Street Cedarwood Thayer’s Witch Hazel Lavender Rockwell 6S
Test run purchase trail worked out and I am happy with the online vendor (see previous post) so, I’ll be getting more from them at a later date. Today though is Cedarwood day.
The smells! The Smells! The smell of TOBS’s soaps are something that you can only appreciate if you use them yourself. Its like trying to tell people what Durian taste like.
Still, if anything, TOBS is one of the better brands of the more “atas” stuff you can get. Went wonderfully with Proraso White Pre Shave’s ginger and tea scent. Ended the scent layer with Hermes terre d’hermes.
Saw these guys, saw their prices and they had very (VERY) competitive shipping rates. So pulled the trigger on some items to give them a test run. I did do a little research and they are a huge online retailer group in the UK with several subsidiaries, so I know that they aren’t a fly by night or scam business.
And as they are essentially a Beauty and wellness shop they have lots of stuff for the ladies, and more important for me, very cheap way to get some UK specific items that local re-sellers will jack up prices up to really ridiculous amounts due to to shipping and tax.
They do have a “local” business online store page so prices are in SGD. Free delivery for standard shipping (which took 4 weeks +/-) Tracked delivery is $19.90 (I think they ship just as slow considering the price, just that you actually know where your package is at the moment) https://www.lookfantastic.com.sg/
Order date was on the 25th Feb, arrived today 26th Mar. Since it wasn’t on priority mail, it took about a month. I do already have a ton of shaving stuff, it wasn’t too bad a wait. Though I would feel more comfortable next time paying for priority mail with tracking, that way at least, you’ll know where the package is during its journey to your home. Also you’ll know if you need to contact the retailer to claim for a lost package if it happens.
Package was left in the mailbox, so either no one was home to collect it when it arrived, or it was as intended. Either way ….
I got my Taylor of Old Bond Street stuff. Wheeeeee! Prices were : $15.60 for the Cedar wood cream and $12.80 for the Sandalwood soap puck, which went into one of my soap bowls. (I used a discount…they have discounts every month it seems so that’s an even bigger plus.
Have to say, THEY SMELL GREAT! And the prices… seriously, have you seen the local prices for these? From Lazada…
And from Q0010, make sure you select local stock and not shipped from overseas …
and the same stuff from Lookfantasic’s price :
Prices are almost doubled or even tripled in some cases. So here’s a heads up if you want to get stuff from the UK. And if you don’t mind waiting, especially if you already have a bunch of soaps (or can make do and buy from Mustafa those Goorej creams for $2.2 or the Old Spice Shaving cream for $2.90!) and can wait for these to come in the mail.
And as far as I can tell, they are originals, the scent profiles on these soaps are good and my bathroom is now smelling of Sandal Wood and Cedar (I made a test lathering run with the soaps). Wife made a mention of “you been buying all these perfumes har?!” hahaha! I’ll buy more from them in the future. Not anytime soon but probably soon enough, I want TOOBs Jermyn street line, those smell really great from memory.
Yeah, felt like going shavette today and matching it with Bluebeard’s Revenge seems like a good idea to set today’s theme.
Kinda liking the scent now, its still very subtle and muted for me but liking it. I am still not digging the post shave oil, though since I was using the shavette, it did what it’s supposed to do. No nicks or cuts with the blade gliding smoothly though the cream was better then I remember when I first used it. More water on the brush till you see the sheen, its very slick and post shave slickness is there. Good stuff.
The post shave balm is definitely one of the better ones though. I chased the BBS and while the Alum didn’t indicate any burns, the witch hazel wash and this balm did. Skin did feel less burn after so that’s the aloe kicking in.Â
Home made Pre Shave with Tea Tree extract Heath’s Shaving Cream (Tea Tree and pepper) Heath’s Post Shave (Tea Tree and Pepper) Rockwell 6S
Face just kind of recovered from the overly enthusiastic BBS chase a few days ago (was still feeling a little burn yesterday) so I am going with the Tea Tree extracts this morning and going gentle with the razor. 6S is set to R2, gentle but good enough to still get that BBS 🙂
Proraso Cypress and Vetiver Pre Shave Fine Accouterment’s Green Vetiver Bodyshop’s Maca Root and Aloe Post Shave Guerlain’s Vetiver Rockwell 6S
What can I say, I love Vetiver. Besides Old Spice and Bay Rum, it’s one of the scents that take me back to the days of old growing up in the 70s. Fine’s Green Vetiver is very Guerlain, its a new puck, so its only fair to match it with my old bottle of (trying very hard not to use it too often) Guerlain. Like the Guerlain, Fine’s Green Vetiver is very earthy, a little darker than the newer Vetiver now out in the silver box. Guelain’s newer stuff has a different formula and the stuff inside look more greenish then the old gold yellow of the older better Vetiver, smells lighter and “fresher” but compared to the old Vetiver, the new stuff just somehow seems to lack that special something the old one has. Once this bottle is gone though, it’ll be a sad day.
If you read my previous post, you know I went to Mustafa’s with the intent to spend as little as possible to get into wet shaving.
Reason being that you might be on a tight budget, your reason going into wet shaving is to save money compared to using cartridge razors. Preferring to spend $9-$40 for a year’s supply of blades and around $2 – $25 for soaps (not counting Artisan soaps, those are a like the Ferraris of the shaving soaps compared to “regular” Hondas of wet shaving soaps and can cost anywhere from $25 to $50++ per tub) that last anywhere between 2 months to 3 months or even longer depending on your frequency of shaves.
Compared that to Gillette’s foam that cost from $6 to $12, comes in a can and last less than a month most times, usually 2 – 3 weeks. And for 8 Mach 3 cartridge blades that are supposed to last about a month costing around $25+/- Most people I know use Mach 3s blades way past their life span, as far as even when the blades are clogged and rusty because they don’t want to spend that much replacing the blades after every 3 -4 days of use.
So what lets go over what I got for $22.40 initial investment that should last at least a month of use.
THE BRUSH Holy crap. This brush. Pre-treatment is a MUST before using.
First off, they coated the fibers of the brush with some silicon coating. It will transfer to your hands / skin making it non slip or sticky. If you use this out of the package without treating it first, you are going to have this layer of substance on your face when a very sharp piece of metal is supposed to slide across. Your blade is going to resist and you’ll have a sliced up face.
How to treat it? Soaking won’t help as the substance seems to be water resistant, so you need to use detergent or a strong hand soap and lather up and let it preferably a few hours to let the soap loosen up whatever is coating all the fibers.
I had to do this 3 times before whatever was on the fibers was removed and when I brush my hand, it didn’t feel “non slip”. Now this part of what I usually do to prep a brush, use hair conditioner, is usually for animal hair brushes like the boar’s hair, horse hair or badger hair brushes.
Animal hair is just like ours, it’ll absorb water and using a conditioner usually soften them and of course condition them to be less brittle and stronger while being supple and soft. I normally don’t do this for synthetics, but in this case I am going to do so. The conditioner will at the very least get in between all the nylon fibers and make them slick. This brush by the way is one I will never normally use. Its crap. Especially if you just pay a little more and for around $6.00 – $12.00 you get the imitation badger synthetics.
I’ll get to where to get really good brushes at very reasonable prices another day. But for today, I’ll be using that cheap, crappy $2 synthetic. Don’t like it, but it’ll do the job. The key is to treat it before you use it and get the bristles to be able to spread your lather evenly and smoothly.
THE SHAVER Saying that the shaver looks cheap and feels cheap, is to be expected from a $2.60 razor. Heh!
Both top cap and bottom plate feels like its made thin pieces of tin. It’s probably zinc alloy with a chrome coating (not well done either) that you can spot blemishes around the edges (look the the top plate top left corner) which means that in time the chrome will flake off or rust will form. Going to use the Super-Max yellow blade.
Looking at the blade angle and aggressiveness, this is going to be interesting to use. Its quite aggressive and the curvature of the blade is not in line with curvature of the top cap and the safety bar. So you need to exercise care using this. Now, I know its not fair to compare this to a razor that cost $40++ to $120++ but….
This is the Rockwell on R4 setting you can see that the aggressiveness (gap of the razor and safety bar) of the cheap razor is more like R5 or R6. More importantly, look at the blade curvature. Its the same blade, I took it out of the cheap razor to use it in the Rockwell. Notice it is designed to curve along and in-line with the angle of the top cap and bottom plate.
Meaning that with the cheap razor you will need to exercise more care. At least this cheap razor still have the blade in a curve and not sticking out like that China made DE89 clone. Still, anyone using this need to be very gentle with it.
UPDATE: The razor surprised me. It gave a much smoother shave then I expected, probably due to the blade not being too sharp and smooth. Also the soap. Soap is definitely the MVP in this shave. This blade is in line with a Derby, it feels like a Derby. Not too sharp, but sharp enough to catch loose thin whiskers.
The aggressiveness is also the other factor, I don’t think you can hear it on the video, but you can feel and hear a loud audible feedback when the blade glides and cuts hair off. That *krraccckkk krrraccckk* sound most aggressive razors make. So you do have to take a little more care using it. But considering this razor cost $2.60, it performed far beyond what I expected and took quite a bit of hair and whiskers off in the first pass.
THE SOAP Goorej or Cotrej is as cheap as they come. But it surprised me. It lathered very well, had a really nice smell, like lime and mint, reminds me of some of the more expansive $30++ soaps. And more importantly, it was nice and slick with good lather to cushion your face against the blade. $2.20. A $2 soap that performed as good as some of my more expansive soaps. If I wasn’t addicted to some of my Artisan soaps, I won’t mind using this more often. 🙂 You really can’t diss on that $2 price and performance.
Gotta apologize for the position of the camera, wasn’t able to place it where I want since I don’t have a proper tripod and mount and the phone went out of focus for a bit with the hand blocking some of the more difficult shave areas.
So to finish up, go with your aftershave of choice, get dressed and get to work. Was a good, easy and fast shave. Easier then I expected considering the shaver, but it did admirably well.
FINAL THOUGHTS My guess is that with an inexperienced double edged safety razor user, he’d probably cut or nick himself a little because the tendency to press the razor into the face is a common mistake. Especially if he went in blind and don’t understand or at least have an idea how to shave with a DE razor. Lots of YouTube vids are out there, much better than mine, actually teaching you the hows and whys. But from my run with this razor and how it performed, if the user keep in mind that you just want a light touch, and not give in to putting more force and pressure then you need to to keep the blade just kissing your skin, you’d do fine.
“Steve! I want to start wet shaving but you are using too much “atas” stuff, all so expansive! Can be cheap cheap or not?! Supposed to save money wanann hoorrr!”
Sure. A trip to Mustafa’s and buying only what’s in the store and getting as cheap as possible stuff. I’ll even test these cheap stuff out first to see whether they can or not as we in Singapore say.
Lets start with Brush (and blades) The Super Max Kwik shaving brush with 5 Yellow Box blades cost $2.90 I have never used these blades before and I have seen these being sold in more than a few mama stores around Tekka Market area. Shouldn’t cost too much. If you want the Derbys that’s sold per 5 in a box, they are $0.80 each. Better to just buy the 100s box for $9.00 But since I am working to be as cheap as possible, we’ll go with 1x box of 5s for the moment. That along with the Super Max box of 5s will give you 10 blades and if you shave only once a day and use each blade 3 times, that’s about 30 days (a month’s worth) for now.
Shaving Cream Goorej or Cotrej depending on how you read that, is $2.20. Personally I would have gone for the Palmolive Shaving cream that only goes for $2.90 but we are going cheap and this is cheaper.
Razor
Picked up this razor for $2.60, to be honest, I am not too keen to use this but ..hey, gotta try it at least once and besides its either this or a $2.50 shavette … you know the type that the “pro barbers” use. I really won’t recommend someone new to shaving to use that.
Alum
One of the more expansive items on the list at $5.90. You are going to need this whether you think you are going to cut yourself. It’ll settle razor burn, nicks, cuts, give your fingers the ability to grip wet skin to stretch and of course stop bleeding. Using it also gives you feedback on your technique. If your face stings, its because you have either shaved too much, shaved one spot way too many times and caused razor burn or have nicked yourself.
Post Shaving : The Finishing Touch.
While I could have bought the cheap Denim, I choose this instead, Old Spice After Shave Lotion for $8.00 My philosophy to shaving is that you can skimp on many things, soap, blades, even the razors as long as they get the job done, but that “last touch”, the post shave is the most important at least to the man who wants a “happy ending”. So I chose Old Spice. Its scent is old fashioned but one that is timeless. And besides, its god damned Old Spice.
Total Spent : $22.40 Supplies that should last you a month. You might want to buy additional 10x blades for $1.60 to ensure that even if you use a blade for only 2 shaves each, you’ll still be sitting happy for a month and a half.
Tomorrow’s an off day so I can test these during the morning shave. We’ll see how things go and bump up prices / recommendations as I see fit.
So, my 6S arrived today. And after removing the padding in the box, this is what you get.
Brush, shaving cream and the box containing your Rockwell all stainless steel 6S.
The Brush Rockwell’s brush is a synthetic bristles brush and its a good one.
Its bristles are soft, it is meant to imitate badger hair brushes and does a good job of this minus the water retention that natural hair brushes have.
But, given that they are cheap, easy to whip up your lather, as well as do a great job of being able to evenly apply that lather in an even coating to your face, imitation badger synthetics are a favorite to many shavers on a budget.
The Shaving cream
Again you’ll notice the smell when you open the box, however, I must say that the cream itself while lathers very well, seems to not be as concentrated in its scent compared to the hard soap puck version.
As is, lathering with it is really good, just like the puck version. It is very rich, very smooth, as long as you make sure that you have enough water (wet the brush and re-lather your face if you need to) or lather in a bowl first to get the right texture.
The Shaver itself
They made buying the 6S and owning one, something that says “You spent a good deal of money on this”. Even the box containing the Shaver is something you won’t want to throw it away. It screams “HIGH QUALITY!!”, looks damn good and you can probably use it as a display. Cover is faux leather with metal sides, and within, you have a foam compartment to hold razor, plates and a box of blades.
When you finally take it out and handle the razor, you’ll immediately notice its heft and feel, it is definitely one of the heavier razors I have handled. It’s beautiful shaver and feels really good in your hands.
THE SHAVE This being the 6S, it came with all 3 base plates, the R1 / R3, the R2 / R4 and the R5 / R6 base plates. This time round I went with the R2 / R4 plate going with the R2 setting and yes, a fresh Feather blade.
Three passes later…
And we got a 99% BBS. The R2 setting is actually still very safe, no nicks, or cuts and while I now can actually feel the blade on the skin, its still a very mild shave. As long as you have the basics, and a fair technique, I’m pretty sure you won’t cut yourself. With a feather you might get a “weeper” (bleeding spot that you didn’t even feel or know you cut yourself) but it’ll be so light that you won’t feel any pain and it’ll go away with an application of Alum.
Running your fingers over shaved areas and at first you’d think its Baby Butt Smooth, but once you stretch the skin a little to make the hairs stand, you’ll probably be able to find around your “trouble areas”, that oh so light touch of stubble.
To be fair, this is by no means a bad shave, you’d be fine to go to work as is, and to be honest, this is what you’d usually get with multiple passes using a multi-blade Gillette shaver. You can go over the trouble areas a few more times with the R2 setting to clean it up and you should get a BBS.
I’d say that the R2 setting is the “true” newbie setting. Its not very likely that you cut yourself but since I can feel the blade this time, bets are that if you aren’t paying attention or have really bad technique (more then possible as a newbie) you might cut yourself.
The R1 setting however is really good for those with a phobia of cutting themselves, it’ll help you learn how to hold, how to glide the blade, how to find the right angle with an almost 0% chance of injury and gain confidence with practice.
You should be able to pick up those skills in a few days, less than a week even, before going onto R2 or if you bought the 2C, the R3 setting.
But since I wanted to test this out, I switched to the R4 by flipping the base plate to chase that smooth as glass, baby’s butt finish.
I will always say this when you are using the Feather, RESPECT THE BLADE. Just because you probably won’t get cut due to design or skill, razor blades are still very very sharp thin slices of metal you have in contact with your neck and face.
The 2C and especially the 6S, are heavy, weighty shavers. So you do not need to put any force, to press down onto your face to get the right pressure to get a good shave. Just let the weight of the head rest on you skin and let the blade do its job.
R4 Finishing touch So with the R4, I did one more pass against the grain and a clean up pass and got my BBS. With this shave I might not need to do anything in the morning and it’ll still be fine. But, I’ll probably do a 1 pass and clean up though.
Proraso Professional : Cypress and Vetiver pre-shave and cream.
Proraso Blue Post Shave
Parker SR1 shavette
Still missing the Cypress and Vetiver balm (its on the way) but Proraso’s Blue Balm works. 🙂
Made sure I gave myself extra time, I always take my time and not rush myself when using the shavette.
Pre-shave is Proraso Green, love that wake up call. Cream and Post Shave are Proraso Blue Rockwell 2C + Feathers
Really loving the Rockwell 2C, getting BBS shaves with it is ridiculous easy especially when you consider that this thing and Feather Blades are made to go together. I got minor weepers here and there but as a whole, no serious nicks or cuts. Really can’t wait for my 6S to arrive.
Steve's Wet Shaving in Singapore 