Pumpkin 3.14 & DE 89:

Today I needed a Phoenix Artisan Accoutrement's fix very badly and since it's kindly cold here today (upper 40's & low 50's) I went with a seasonal classic, Pumpkin 3.14 & Autumn Factory. It has a warm pumpkin pie scent with a few more fall elements added to the scent of the aftershave and it's one of my favorite scents from PAA:

In terms of post shave feel, my face is slick as an ice rink with no hair or stubble left behind. The Edwin Jagger DE 89 performed extremely well as usual and it was the 3rd and final shave on this specific Feather DE blade. I did try 4 multi pass shaves on a blade and my skin quickly determined that 3 shaves on a Feather Blade was the limit for me.

Fougere Santal, Coffee & The Jinhou:

This morning's shave was excellent. Reef Point's Fougere' Santal is awesome soap. I get nice floral top note with an earthy base of oakmoss and patchouli with a little hint of sandalwood. There must NOT be much sandalwood in it because I don't get any reaction from this soap. Brut goes extremely well with this soap:

The Gold Monkey performed extremely well this morning which resulted in a 2 pass BBS shave along with a touch up on my moustache and neck areas and I'm still using leather only when I strop. While I was blooming my soap and soaking my brush, I whipped out my brand new 8 cup Caribou pour over coffee brewer and brewed some of the best coffee I've ever had:

This method of coffee brewing wins hands down. It's clean, crisp, and packed full of flavor. Just make sure you rinse the filters before brewing and dump the rinse water out and yes this method does work for drip coffee pots.

It's Delicious:

I just did my first brew with my new coffee maker and I love it! It's clean, crisp and fresh and packed full of flavor. The Dunkin Donuts brand of coffee does extremely well in the pour over brewing method. I couldn't quite afford the Chemex brand of pour over coffee brewers so I went with a more affordable version instead. The carafe had the perfect amount of water and at the perfect brewing temperature for what I needed:

Basically what I did was start a carafe using the refillable K-Cup with no coffee in the K-Cup which basically turned my Kuerig coffee maker into a filtered water dispenser. While that was going on, I put 3 cone filters into the stainless steel filter and I pre-rinsed the filter with hot water and then I dumped that water out while my carafe was going. Next I poured just enough water from the carafe to bloom the coffee (just enough to cover the grounds) and let it sit for exactly 1 minute. Next I pretty much kept pouring until all of the carafe water was used.

New Coffee Brewer in the House:

One of the few things left that I can drink without having any issues is coffee. I suffer from chronic acid reflux and soda really sets it off. I also avoid things like various spicy and heavily acidic foods and the various kinds of fruit juice. But I've got to have caffeine, so that leaves coffee, tea and water. So today I went to Best Buy and picked up a brand new Caribou Pour Over 8 cup coffee brewer . It came with what looks like the #4 brown cone filters a 1 tablespoon scoop, a stainless steel cone filter and a nice bamboo looking wooden coaster:

It cost me $42.11 and on the packaging they mentioned that it's hand blown high temperature glass which is a good thing:

I didn't know that it came with filters, but there's not very many so I went ahead and bought some more while I was out today:

It also came with a little instruction booklet which I will keep, but it's really not needed because I've seen enough YouTube videos on using this brewing system:

I'll still be able to use my Kuerig as a filtered water dispenser for brewing along with my Carafe' to brew with in addition to keeping my coffee warm. My gut can't handle the Kuerig brewed coffee.

Don Marco & The 208:

This morning's shave (9:30 AM) was great. I went with an old classic, RazoRock soap and I went with the Don Marco scent which is a phenomenal orange creamsicle scent. I also went with the matching aftershave balm. This specific soap (NOT the brand) tends to dry me out a little bit due to the orange essential oils used in the soap and I also hit the ring of death in this and I don't have much left either. I will NOT be restocking this specific scent to my collection, but RazoRock will be in my shave cave and they have some new scents I want to try as well:

In terms of post shave, it was very clean but a little dry. It was also a 2 pass BBS shave with only 1 area (the bottom right side of my chin) that needed touching up. And I'm also NOT buying any shave gear this pay day. I went to pay my credit card bills and turns up one of them was over the limit and I'm wanting to save up my money for a brand new Above The Tie single edge razor. Plus I also want to buy a couple of brand new strops as well. So all mail calls are on hold for a couple of months and I've still got quite a bit soap to last me.

PAA's Mixed & The 66:

Even though it's been nearly 5 hours since I shaved now, this morning's shave was great. I went with Phoenix Artisan Accoutrement's mixed shave soap and the dominating scent is C.a.D which is my favorite of their scents. It's a 1980's Barbersol canned foam scent which is very nice. And I chose Pinaud's Clubman aftershave splash and PAA's Clubguy aftershave balm to pair with this mixed soap:

I managed to have enough time to use a straight razor this morning, but I didn't really have enough time to post it until now. This was one slick shave I got this morning and I hope I keep getting more like it as well. I'm also getting low on my shave soaps and since I'm on a tight budget, RazoRock is staying in my rotation which is a good thing because their performance is rock solid.

Kilted Tiki & The DE 89:

Today's shave was great and very refreshing. Tiki Bar's Kilted Tiki is one of my favorite soaps that they make which has a killer scotch whiskey and peat moss scent to it. Basically what they do to make it is they take scotch whiskey and boil the alcohol off of it and use that in place of distilled water to make the soap. I also paired it with Aqua Velva ice blue aftershave splash which adds a very refreshing and cool feel to the shave and surprisingly, this scent pairs perfectly with this soap:

In terms of post shave feel, you know you have an extremely good shave when you can run your fingers across your beard area and it literally squeaks. A fresh Feather DE blade in the Edwin Jagger DE 89 is an awesome shave.