Tiki Bar is in Permanently:

Due to the fact that I've been using Tiki Bar's shaving soaps on a regular basis, I have decided to include them in my rotation on a permanent basis. I recently was able to obtain 2 of Tiki Bar's legendary shaving soaps that not only lived up to the hype, but they actually surpassed it which says a lot. People tend to over hype a lot of products out there in the wet shaving world and a lot of the times they're no where near to performing half as good as the hype claims that they do. In this particular case, the opposite effect has occurred. Unlike other soap makers, this one has a college degree in chemistry and understands better than most what occurs during the soap making process. That explains why Tiki Bar's products are top notch in terms of performance. Another thing that I like about Tiki Bar is the owner herself. Unfortunately for me and all of the other single guys out there, she's happily married and I can see why as well. She's one of the sweetest and best looking ladies you'll ever meet. So if you have not tried Tiki Bar's products yet, then you need to give them try.

A Legend Returns:

Today I got a legendary aftershave/cologne and it still smells exactly like it did when I was a kid many years ago. My dad use to wear this many years ago and there's only 1 place I can get it now:

This cologne smells awesome and I can't wait to try it with some of my leather and unscented soaps: 

The wooden lid was a little tough to remove from the bottle without spilling it, but I managed not to spill anything. If I remember correctly, this has an epic burn to it which is a good thing in terms astringent properties.

The Summer of Shaves 2015:

Pretty soon, summer time will be here and let me tell you, it gets extremely hot and humid here in Virginia. So next month, I deem it as the beginning of the "summer of shaves" and it does not end until September. So I plan on stocking up with menthol based soaps and aftershaves. I have to go online to get my subzero based shampoo unless this stuff here that I'm about to try works. Old Spice makes it and it's called "Polar". We will soon see if it's properly named because AXE's Freeze shampoo was epic. Once you apply AXE's freeze shampoo and let it sit for about 1 minute and rinse, you get an awesome chill. If you repeat this process again, it literally numbs your skin. I have to get some other products to go with it, but once I do get everything together I'll be fully eqiped for hot weather days. I did find a preshave soap that was epically good at one of my artisan soap makers.

RazoRocking Friday:

One of my all time favorite brands is RazoRock. They make a legendary soap for a rock bottom price. So since today is Friday, I have decided to deem today as RazoRocking Friday. For those wondering about RazoRock, the soap is extremely easy to load onto a brush. The cushioning ability is exceptional. You will always have plenty of protection during the shave. The slickness is perfect. Your razor will have no trouble gliding across the skin. The scent is also excellent. Price wise, you can't go wrong with RazoRock's products. I think the most expensive aftershave they have is around $13 U.S. Dollars and their soaps average around $8 U.S. Dollars. If you don't have RazoRock in your shaving arsenal, then shame on you. They're a legendary product line and should be in a collection:

The shaving soap you see in the photo smells exactly like an orange creamsicle and I do have the matching aftershave balm which is very soothing to freshly shaven skin.

My DE Blades Have Arrived:

Today my DE blades arrived in the mail from Amazon's website. I love Amazon and all, but they do take forever in terms of shipping compared to other retailers and suppliers. If I had used one of my usual shaving suppliers, I would've had these DE or double edge blades in 2 to 3 days. Amazon took nearly a week. Tomorrow would've made 7 days if they didn't arrive today. These blades in the Phoenix Double Open Comb DE safety razor, gave me a shave that rivals the post shave quality of the Gillette Fusion shaving system only for a fraction of the costs. My mother bought me a 4 pack of Gillette Fusion Proglide cartridges for $21.98 at a local super market. if you do the math which is real simple to do, the costs are miles apart. So let's do some simple math here and explain why I shave with a DE safety razor. $21.98 divided by 4 cartridges = $5.49 per cartridge and you might get 2 shaves out of them if you are lucky. My bulk blades cost me $22.47 which does include the shipping and I got 100 DE or double edge blades. So $22.47 divided by 100 = .22 cents per blade and I get 3 shaves per blade. So lets break it down even further with rounded up numbers. $5.50 per cartridge and you get 2 shaves out of them. So $5.50 divided by 2 shaves = $2.75 per shave. That is not cheap at all in my book and a 4 pack of those cartridges without doing any stropping will barely last you 2 weeks. Now lets look that the DE blades costs. 23 cents per blade and I get 3 shaves out of each blade. So that's .23 divided by 3 = .08 cents per shave and I can tell you from experience that a 100 pack of DE or double edge blades will last you nearly a year easy and that's shaving daily. So it's a no brainer which one I'm going for first isn't it?

I still have some of the Gillette Silver Blue DE blades left over from last year, but I'm afraid that I will be tossing the final 2 and a half packs that I have left mainly because my beard is just too tough for those paticular DE blades which is a pitty because they were pretty smooth.

Buying a Shave Scuttle:

Here lately I have been getting really good shaves but something has been missing from the equation, hot lather. There's 2 ways to get hot lather for a shave and I've used the first option for years. The first option is to go back to the canned goo and buy a Conair hot lather machine. The first option is out. The canned goo contains too many chemicals that cause damage to the skin and over time, that hot lather machine will quit heating the canned goo. I had this machine for years and in the end, it got to where I'd have to leave it on for epic amounts of time to get the canned goo to even get luke warm at best. The other option is a "double boiler" style shave scuttle which not only keeps your lather warm, it actually gets hotter between passes while the brush sits in the scuttle. Basically, all you need a kettle of hot water for this scuttle to work. So this next pay day, I will be getting a shave scuttle and a new hot water kettle. This whole plan came about when my mom seen how hard it was for me to get my electric kettle to work and this is the 3rd one of this paticular kettle that I've had problems with.

Gillette Silver Blues are Out:

Yesterday's shave wasn't too good at all and I know for a fact that is was definately not the soap. Today's shave was much better, but the razor still left a lot of hair and stubble behind. So between going through several packs of blades and 2 shaves that weren't that good, I have decided to call it quits with the Gillette Silver Blues. They simply don't work good enough for me and my tough beard anymore. I have got a bulk pack of Perma-Sharp blades coming in sometime this week from Amazon. If those don't work good enough, I'll wait until I get paid again and order me a bulk pack of Feather blades from one of my suppliers. So if you have an extremely tough and coarse beard, then I wouldn't recomend these blades. They simply aren't sharp enough for me and my beard anymore.