30 y. o. | M | he/him | Thuringia, Germany
Thank you very much. Fortunately I didn’t send the razor head you were asking for with the sample, as I really don’t want it to get lost in an uninsured and untracked letter. I hope everything will get easier soon, currently it’s just loads of stress in every aspect of my life. Nothing’s fun anymore and shaving has also turned into a chore again.
I’ll do my best
Thanks. I hope it’ll become less stressful soon.
It’s just a very unfortunate situation though - I guess if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s the unreliability of our postal services…
Thank you I didn’t want to spoil the fun, but currently it seems like everything I undertake turns into shit.
I am deeply sorry to everyone involved. I don’t know what kind of dumbfuckery is going on with DHL/Deutsche Post, I put the letters into one of their old yellow mailboxes near the end of February and it seems like no one received theirs yet, not even sahenders who’s residing in Germany. Even though it’s not my fault directly, I wish to apologize to you all for ruining BVWSC. 😥
As for my personal situation; I want to inform you that I had a massive load of shit happen to me recently and so, my depression is back at full force. Therefore I won’t be able to participate in any shave events in the foreseeable future - atm, it’s very hard to just get everything in my daily life under control and my final exams for the RN are coming up in early June. My appearances here will be sporadically at best during the whole spring and summer months, I hope everything will look better & brighter once September rolls around and I hopefully passed everything. Shit’s though.
Due to some technical problems with my smartphone and certain apps, I also lost my Lemmy login info around my birthday and was just recently able to retrieve it via Windows password manager. Thanks for those who inquired about me - I’m not dead (yet), but I’m seriously struggling mentally. (Proof being that writing this took me way longer than usual and tons of edits).
Again, sorry everyone for all this mess. I seriously hate how this turned out
Not in this contest, but this sounds very weird: so if the chosen soap would be something of the now-defunct Oleo Soapworks, you can’t use anything under Chicago Grooming Co. despite Vida being the artisan behind both names, just re-branded? Same with Scott and L&L/Declaration Grooming? IMHO, that sounds like BS to me. The rules don’t seem to mention the same brand name.
tbh, this can happen to anyone of us. I immediately recognised the handle and just zoomed in to see the little holes indicating what base plate it is that GreenCult uses. I always found this little detail very neat!
Not OP, but if I am not mistaken it’s a GreenCult 2.0 with adjustable base plates (similar to Karve/Rockwell), stainless steel safety razor made in Austria.
19.02.2025
-> 2-pass head shave, very smooth sailing all around.
Dragonsbeard is rather interesting. Warm oud meets florals is what my nose thought of it at first. However, this didn’t change much once it was lathered. I was really grateful that it’s not one of the very animalistic/barnyard ouds and the overall scent strength wasn’t very high - I suppose this is good for some use cases. Judging by the high price point of Ethos though (over here at least), this wouldn’t be a soap high on my buy list. However, I am really grateful for the opportunity to try it! Thanks gcgallant for the sample.
Btw, I kinda had trouble to get the lather right. First pass was very sloppy and wet, the second - after some new loading and starting from scratch - much better. The base has good glide and doesn’t irritate my skin, so bonus point for that. Not as great as a mutton tallow base or something by WK, B+M or ZM, but perfectly serviceable.
Now it’s time for bed for me since I have another early shift tomorrow. Last one this week though, on the weekend it’s late shifts!
17.02.2025
-> 1-pass WTG head shave to get back into the swing of things. I know I say this a lot, so you better take it with a grain of salt…
Anyways, this was a very relaxed shave with a very smooth and slick lather - mutton tallow bases seem to be universally loved and thanks to this soap, I understand why. The scent is a bit too sweet and powdery, so I use it rarely. But the lather is always cream of the crop. Of course it wasn’t close at all, but good enough for WTG.
I’m currently a very stressful time for my mental health. I notice I fall back into depressive thought patterns and all the stress also takes a toll on my body (reflux and other gastrointestinal disorders). My only day off after 5 early shifts was spent running errands and catching appointments, so not much rest. Problem is, now it’s another 3 early shifts starting tomorrow and they want us to get in even earlier… sometimes I hate my job, but then again I need to focus on the positive aspects harder. It’s just very hard atm.
I feel like the people around me at work would be even shorter-lived if I quit again 😂
No, in all seriousness: I have no desire to quit/stop vaping. Switching to that from cigs was a huge jump in life quality without sacrificing the tastes I enjoy (tobacco, menthol) so I see no reason. However, your recommendation is very good for anyone really set on quitting. 👍🏻
14.02.2025
• Brush: TGS Galaxy 26 mm
• Razor: RazoRock Cyber Medium w/ RR Superknurl handle
• Blade: Rapira Platinum Lux
• Lather: HAGS - Aftermath (old vegan base)
• Post-Shave: Moon Soaps - Old School “balm”
-> 1 pass head shave. The blade is slightly tugging, I suppose it’s at the end of its cycle.
This was just a quick shave after beard trimming. I’m tired AF from the early shifts, but still wanted a nice clean shave. Well, this isn’t a very close shave but it’ll do… Still have two early shifts on the weekend. Unfortunately I also deal with lots of reflux and nausea atm, but my decision to go cold turkey on nicotine during work wasn’t that good: it added the most awful headache and the shittiest mood swings ever on top. Gotta love withdrawal symptoms 🥴
At least the soap and brush worked together nicely and despite some slight tugging of the blade, everything went alright. This old vegan HAGS isn’t the slickest soap, but I really like this dupe of Interlude Man too much.
I’ll send it together with your sample 👍🏻
Thanks for the friendly offer, but I believe in synthetic superiority 😅
Tobacconist EdP must be awesome, greatest tobacco fragrance IMHO 🚬
12.02.2025
-> 1 pass head shave. Was the OC razor way more eager to cut than the Cyber? Yeah! Was it too eager? Unfortunately yeah too. Had a big weeper on the right side of my scalp, but alum and witch hazel fixed that.
I wanted to join in on the LGC fun, somehow this Citrus Cola scent wasn’t what I was expecting reading those scent notes, but it is a damn fine soap. It’s in Omnibus already, so this shave was ultra slick despite me overhydrating the lather yet again.
Two things that should probably go down the drain: today’s brush and the OC plate. While the handle is my all-time fav, I simply don’t like or need anything that aggressive anymore. Perhaps I can find a nice replacement head somewhere? The brush was used so much by me and it had a good run. Now, from all the swirling I do when lathering on my head, the inside fibers somehow developed splits and became tangled. Since I really love the Rubberset style handle, I should probably try to drill/steam the old knot out and replace it with something better. Also, I really want to get away from too much RazoRock stuff in my den. It’s very affordable at a good quality, but it sure has its shortcomings. Anyway, have a nice day/evening!
Thanks for the thorough explanation! It is really helpful. I always assumed it was due to the small size of our instance and that it might not be federated with every single server. What you wrote makes a lot more sense though!
Ah sorry, I misunderstood that. 😅 I can definitely see the point in that then, even though I myself am politically left-leaning; it’s a quite harsh/borderline extremist userbase on those servers.
(Side question: so it’s not a limitation of our server if some communities are displayed as “completely empty” despite having thousands of members and hundreds of posts?)
As much as they suck, please don’t add “.ml” to the block list. I’m following a few instances registered on there for FOSS apps, back when it was one of the only servers open for registration.
Thanks a lot DJ 🙏🏻 Unfortunately currently nothing is anywhere close to fun for me, everything feels like a chore and there’s quite a lot to get done. At least I don’t have any suicidal thoughts anymore so that’s a little better. Small steps.