Sotd - Wednesday - 24/1/18
Razor - Slim Aristocrat G4 (3)
blade - Lodz Polsilver (2)
brush - Vie Long Anniversary 2 band
soap - MT Mint Ice Mental
post - witch hazel
a/s - Alcolado Glacial
balm - Vifrex gel.
Result - great - in a sort of eye watering and drippy nose way.
Shaving two days in a row - highly unusual for me. There was next to nothing to take off but I wanted the full menthol to clear my head. I mistakenly described my Aristocrat last night in a post as a 63 model but it's not - I checked the date code on the razor and it is G4 - so it is last quarter 61 - probably from the first production run as Gillette shifted from the Fatboy to the Slim. It was gifted to me from a former work colleague - it was his father in law's daily shaver - he owned it from new and used it every day pretty much until he died 30 odd years later. He obviously looked after it very well - there are a couple of tiny scuff marks on the 'bomb doors' - just from wear. The rest of it is pristine - I've toyed with the idea of having it re-plated but I just can't bring myself to do it. It would seem disrespectful somehow. So - the Simpsons P8 brush wasn't properly dry from yesterday so it had to be the Vie Long 2 band today - no point in slumming it, is there - life is a bitch isn't it? What a brush, what a knot. So - job done - bbs albeit I couldn't feel the bottom half of my face - and off out round the corner to my local Turkish barbers to get my head shaved for the full effect. Amusingly enough he is actually Turkish - he was born and grew up in Izmir but now lives in a village called Plains near Airdrie, south of Glasgow. Now, I have been in both these places - the former continuously occupied for 4000 years by the Lydians, Greeks, Romans and Ottomans, a beautiful port city - home to a couple of the finest mosques ever designed by Sinan - the greatest of Ottoman architects - great climate and fantastic food. The latter a former mining village where - frankly - not even darkness ever leaves. I should ask him why - it must have been for love - there can be no other reason. As Turkish barbers do - he does the full hot towel wet shave for clients - which I thought about - until I saw the tub of brushless shaving cream on the counter. No - just - no. Where's the lemon cologne? I had a wet shave in Istanbul - okay they used Arko - but it was almost a theatrical event. Fantastic. He did offer though that I could bring my Feather AC razor and he would shave me with it - which frankly I'm too incompetent to do myself. So you never know - enjoy your shaves gentlemen - yours - I.
P.
