Mile High Menthol & The 207:

This morning's shave felt great. Today I decided to do a Cold Water shave. So after a nice hot shower, I went with Catie's Bubbles and their fabulous Mile High Menthol shaving soap which is their version of Proraso green only in the classic, slick formula that Catie's Bubbles has. To add even more refreshment, I went with a healthy dose of Osage Rub which adds even more menthol to the equation which I definitely needed to open up my sinuses this morning:

The 207 was perfect this morning. Nice comfortable 3 pass shave with a couple of touch ups and combined with the slick soap and cold water, I'm really slick this morning. Wow what a refreshing and eye opening shave. Shave videos are coming soon. I just need to get a miniature Joby magnetic gorilla pod and I'm all set to do shave videos.

Knee High to a Grape & The Griffon:

Today's shave was epic, wow. Today I went with an old favorite of mine which is Catie's Bubbles and their fabulous grape soda scented soap, "Knee High to a Grape" which is a seasonal scent so you might want to grab a puck of it before it's gone. And to finish off today's shave, I went with a nice healthy double dose of Aqua Velva classic ice blue aftershave splash:

Oh wow is all I can say about this razor and the Belgium Coticule edge that I put on it last night as you saw in my YouTube video. I now get why people choose these German made razors over the Gold Dollar razors and that is the fact that they are much easier to hone and take a wicked good edge. Don't get me wrong, I still like honing the gold dollars and I still plan on buying a couple more here pretty soon, but I will choose these German made razors over them anytime in terms of honing. In the end it's all about the edge you put on them. Wow what a shave.

Antique Store Score: Griffon Razor:

I got lucky today in a local antique store. While I was looking around I noticed a case and that usually gets my attention real quick and sure enough this monster was in the case. I can't believe we got it for a measly $20 U.S. Dollars :

The tang says "Griffon" which is clear on the razor. Unfortunately my camera didn't want to cooperate with me today and I was just barely able to get the logo:

Here's the Soligen, Germany crown stamp on the other side. This photo came out better than the other one did:

I already heard from my friend, Frank Misa over on Instagram and he said he just got through honing one up and said it takes a really beautiful edge so that's good news right there. Soligen steel is some what of a softer steel but it's an extremely good steel that will hold an edge. It's not stupid hard like the Swedish steel is so I more than likely will be honing this beast tonight. Right now I'm trying to figure out where to start my progression. You start too low and you will damage the razor but if you start too high, you will be there all night. They could have charged a lot more than $20 dollars for this razor easy. Its only drawback is the fact that it's only 4/8's wide. I have thick and tough beard and a wider blade makes beard removal much easier versus this 4/8's blade. I think I will start with my Suehiro 1K and progress up to my Naniwa 8K and switch to Dr. Matt's under running water technique afterward using both my ILR and Coticule.

C.a.D. & The 430:

Man I needed that. Today's shave felt extremely good and was very satisfying to say the least. Today I went with Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements and their modern day classic C.a.D. scent which has a canned Barbersol original shave foam scent only this one is 10 times stronger and is twice as slick. And I finished it off with a healthy dose of the matching aftershave splash which is good for about 18 hours and to put the icing on the cake, I also went with their matching aftershave jelly which is excellent. I like the aftershave jelly better than their balms and splashes:

The 430 started off rough so I stopped and stropped the razor which was better but still wasn't quite enough. So I broke out the ILR and did Dr. Matt's under running water technique and that fixed the razor. After I finished my shave, I went back and did the technique on both my 207 and the 430. So now I am more than confident that these razors are shave ready and both should be extremely comfortable because I shortened the technique and stropped both razors on my 3 inch mustang strop afterward. It's looking like I might be doing a honing video here pretty soon. I'm planning on getting a few Gold Dollar 66's off Amazon.

Atomic Bay Rum, The 42C & Edge Test:

Today's shave ended up being great. Unfortunately the edge test failed. More on that in a bit. Today I went with my newly acquired Phoenix Artisan Accoutrement's Atomic Bay Rum scented soap which is awesome. It's a Bay Rum that's been aged in a charred American White Oak whiskey barrel which adds a distinctive but subtle wood note that blends perfectly with the bay rum scent. Speaking of bay rum, I finished off today's shave with a splash of Clubman Virgin Island Bay Rum aftershave splash and I'm about to put on some of Soap Commander's "Purpose" aftershave balm which is also a bay rum scented soap:

Due to the edge test failing on me with both straight razors, I ended up finishing today's shave with the Merkur 42C and I did a total of 4.5 passes and now have some razor burn. I hate it when this happens. So later today, I will be doing a honing video using Anthony Esposito's honing method only with a different progression. I will using my Suehiro 5K Rika, Naniwa Snow White 8K and finishing on my Shoubandini Aswedo type 100.

The Comfort Knot Brush:

This brush has just became my all time favorite shave brush in my entire collection. The lather this beast builds is unreal and since it's a synthetic, it does not absorb your lather. I can personally guarantee that this will be the softest brush in your collection period. I've got a relatively expensive silver tipped badger brush here which is incredibly soft and this comfort knot blows it away in terms of softness. I've also got a RazoRock Plissoft synthetic and an Omega Synthetic Boar and neither one of them comes close to this brush:

The knot size is 33 millimeters and it cost me $39 U.S. Dollars shipped. It does NOT take much soap and you need to use a light touch when you bowl or face lather which will look like half melted ice cream and is one of the best type of lathers you can have for wet shaving in my humble opinion. To buy this brush you need to message Greg Wagner over on facebook and he will hook you up. Here's the link to his facebook page where you can get in touch with him: https://www.facebook.com/gregkw12 . The grip is also excellent and one of my favorite attributes that his brush has apart from the softness. You don't have to worry about dropping this brush even when the shifter handle is covered in soap which is equally awesome.

Vanilla Spice & The 207:

Today's shave was really good. The brush was epic and gets its own blog post here in a bit and for toady's soap, I went with Uncle Jon's Vanilla Spice. The scent is excellent you have vanilla, a hint of sugar with some spices and due to the vanilla content, the soap is almost black which can't be helped even with stabilizers. The vanilla fragrance turns any soap brown or black. It does NOT stain anything so you don't have to worry about that. I use white wash cloth to rinse with and it did not stain it. And to finish off today's shave, I went with the matching witch hazel based aftershave which smells so good and delicious:

The 207 was good but not great. So I will have to take it to the stones and get it back up to snuff which shouldn't take long at all. I will probably start at the Suehiro Rika 5K and progress from there. There's no need to drop down to 1K because this razor is in excellent shape and doesn't need any major repair work. I've also been looking at Japanese made Swedish steel razors which are excellent but the steel is stupid hard in terms of honing. It takes twice as long to hone Swedish steel than it does to hone the usual stainless steel.