Saturday 3rd April
French Pink Clay & Charcoal Face Soap
Dalit Sandalwood Shaving Soap
hjm Professional (Boar)
Yaqi Katana w/Windrose Darwin Handle
Gillette Winner Stainless (1)
Pinaud Virgin Island Bay Rum
First, much thanks to
@Scorpio93 for spotting this shaving soap. You can read about the
dalit people and what the folks at dalit.co.uk are doing for them over at their website. Alas, not a great soap but we suspected as much. While I could produce a stable lather, it was thin and I did have to re-lather mid-shave of my single pass shave. That said, I got shaved and it provided some good slip ... just no cushion.
I like the scent very much! It's proper sandalwood and smells a lot like real attars that I have from India. What I'm going to do is cut the soap in half, use one half as bath soap and the other I'm going to grate together with some Vitos (Green) that has largely lost its scent in the hope that the scent from the Dalit is not killed off and that the Vitos brings some firmness and cushion to the lather.
With that in mind (the thin lather), the shave was very basic! The Gillette Winner Stainless blade is actually made by Vertice, who we know make the EuroMax Platinum but also the "One" blade under their own branding. The blade might have been thin as it was quite vocal and put me very much in mind of the Gillette 365. I say might, as a lather with more cushion might well have dulled that chatter.
It then occurred to me that the blade felt very much akin to the Vidyut/SuperMax Stainless in the burgundy/yellow packaging, an economy blade at the bottom of the heap for Indian Street Barbers. It's simple, clean, no-frills, good honest stainless, and delivers a super shave! One that I particularly like! I'm not surprised by this comparison as I've read that Vertice (well, EuroMax) was given a bit of a hand up by SuperMax, gearing up on their old equipment and with their guiding hand.
Given everything else was no-frills: the lather and the somewhat basic blade holder that we know and love as the Yaqi Katana, I think I got the real essence of this blade ... and I liked it!