Monsta_AU
...can I interest you in some vintage blades?
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Forum Administrator
Grand Society
After the few mentions on here lately, I realised that I had yet to use my La Toja Jabón de afeitar (Shaving Soap) stick purchased from Vintage Scent along with my Semogue 830 & 730HD.
The stick comes in an interesting package. The base of the stick is quite small, so the stick is partially wrapped with foil so that you can also use the stick as part of your grip. The stick cover fits neatly to the base, and has 4 holes in the top to help release excess moisture. This is important when you realise that it is a tallow-based stick (listed as Potassium Stearate and Sodium Stearate on the ingredients). It also contains Coconut and Palm oil based fats.
EDIT: I am probably going to be hassled by many saying this is not a tallow-based stick. And while it technically does not have any tallow in it directly, major ingredients come as product of tallow - Stearic Acid is produced by treating animal fat (tallow) at high temperature and pressure with water. Stearic acid is then treated with glycerol, and then either sodium hydroxide (aka Lye, and also a major ingredient in 'Draino') or potassium hydroxide, and you get Sodium/Potassium Stearate. And according to Wikipedia, Stearic Acid gets its name from the Greek word stéar (genitive: stéatos), which means tallow.
One of the big marketing points of La Toja is Con Sales Minerales or Mineral salts. These are added to a number of the La Toja products. My Spanish/Portuguese is nowhere good enough to translate why, but I have found out that the formulation is 0.25% mineral salts. I guess they must be seen to be beneficial to the skin, much like how people go to those mineral hot springs and soak in them for a week.
Scent is a very much a personal preference, and the scent of the stick itself is strong. Not competing with the strength of a freshly unwrapped Arko stick, but still altogether strong but like most soaps it dies down considerably once lathered. Very hard to describe the scent for me, other than being a clean and soapy scent, I can also detect Leathery and Mossy tones in there. As far as I am concerned it is a good blokey smell, If you like your florals and citrus you may not like it but I don't believe you would find it disagreeable.
Actually, come to think of it, if you took a stick of Tabac and melted it down 25:75 with unscented soap, and added some woody/moss scent then that about explains it.
Lather. Well, this stuff lathers awesomely. I have never had a soap that performs like this. But there is a story to it.
Being the first use, there was very little moisture in the stick so I dipped it and waited 30 seconds before starting to rub it over my wet face. Seemed very thin, just like soapy water.... was getting concerned as most sticks start to explode on your face. It was not until I got onto my sideburns that the soap started to lather from the stick. I was a little more pleased but was kind of worried. Got everything covered with a watery, slippery mess and grabbed my Kent VS80 out of the sink, gave it a good shakeout and a quick 2 second rub on the stick to start it off. Soon as it hit my face, the lather just exploded. Now many of us say this and it is very true, but this was in another league all together and just saying 'it exploded' does not do it justice. It was like a nuke going off.
Now I love my VS80 for face lathering, especially with sticks or hard soaps. The backbone of this little boar is amazing, and although it is quite a small bulb-shaped knot of the Drubbing-worshipped Hog it whips up an amazing lather when it comes to MWF. The Semogue 830 doesn't even come close to this cheap and unassuming shaving brush.
Back to the stick. I found it hard to get the water content correct. I usually run my soaps drier than most, mainly as if I add too much water then the hardness in it tends to start killing off that lather. I prefer a nice, creamy covering anyway! Finally got enough water into it and all of a sudden I was wanting a bowl as the lather was DRIPPING OFF MY FACE. There was literally so much it was falling off my face. :blink:
For the shave, I loaded a fresh Medical Personna (first time with this blade) into my DE86. I found while the blade was well lubricated, there was a tendency for the razor head to 'stick' to my face during the stroke. The actual shave was very comfortable however not as close as I am used to, and there was a couple of spots on the neck that I was required to 'have another pass' on.
After washing down, my skin felt firm - almost like the minerals had performed some facelift-like tightening work. The remaining scent in my pores was also quite agreeable. I rubbed down with an Alum block and found very little irritation. Dried off and applied the old standby - Nivea Sensitive ASB. I find that soaps dry my skin a little too much and the ASB has just enough moisturising to keep my pores from going into sebum-production overdrive.
Overall rating on the stick? If you have ever shaved with a stick and was disappointed, then you need to try this. I'm going to rate it 9/10.
The Medical Personnas also performed well, near zero irritation and were quite sharp. Smoothness while shaving was a bit average, however they were certainly not rough. Blade feedback was very good. Going to be interesting to see how they go in the adjustable Gillettes.
The stick comes in an interesting package. The base of the stick is quite small, so the stick is partially wrapped with foil so that you can also use the stick as part of your grip. The stick cover fits neatly to the base, and has 4 holes in the top to help release excess moisture. This is important when you realise that it is a tallow-based stick (listed as Potassium Stearate and Sodium Stearate on the ingredients). It also contains Coconut and Palm oil based fats.
EDIT: I am probably going to be hassled by many saying this is not a tallow-based stick. And while it technically does not have any tallow in it directly, major ingredients come as product of tallow - Stearic Acid is produced by treating animal fat (tallow) at high temperature and pressure with water. Stearic acid is then treated with glycerol, and then either sodium hydroxide (aka Lye, and also a major ingredient in 'Draino') or potassium hydroxide, and you get Sodium/Potassium Stearate. And according to Wikipedia, Stearic Acid gets its name from the Greek word stéar (genitive: stéatos), which means tallow.
One of the big marketing points of La Toja is Con Sales Minerales or Mineral salts. These are added to a number of the La Toja products. My Spanish/Portuguese is nowhere good enough to translate why, but I have found out that the formulation is 0.25% mineral salts. I guess they must be seen to be beneficial to the skin, much like how people go to those mineral hot springs and soak in them for a week.
Scent is a very much a personal preference, and the scent of the stick itself is strong. Not competing with the strength of a freshly unwrapped Arko stick, but still altogether strong but like most soaps it dies down considerably once lathered. Very hard to describe the scent for me, other than being a clean and soapy scent, I can also detect Leathery and Mossy tones in there. As far as I am concerned it is a good blokey smell, If you like your florals and citrus you may not like it but I don't believe you would find it disagreeable.
Actually, come to think of it, if you took a stick of Tabac and melted it down 25:75 with unscented soap, and added some woody/moss scent then that about explains it.
Lather. Well, this stuff lathers awesomely. I have never had a soap that performs like this. But there is a story to it.
Being the first use, there was very little moisture in the stick so I dipped it and waited 30 seconds before starting to rub it over my wet face. Seemed very thin, just like soapy water.... was getting concerned as most sticks start to explode on your face. It was not until I got onto my sideburns that the soap started to lather from the stick. I was a little more pleased but was kind of worried. Got everything covered with a watery, slippery mess and grabbed my Kent VS80 out of the sink, gave it a good shakeout and a quick 2 second rub on the stick to start it off. Soon as it hit my face, the lather just exploded. Now many of us say this and it is very true, but this was in another league all together and just saying 'it exploded' does not do it justice. It was like a nuke going off.
Now I love my VS80 for face lathering, especially with sticks or hard soaps. The backbone of this little boar is amazing, and although it is quite a small bulb-shaped knot of the Drubbing-worshipped Hog it whips up an amazing lather when it comes to MWF. The Semogue 830 doesn't even come close to this cheap and unassuming shaving brush.
Back to the stick. I found it hard to get the water content correct. I usually run my soaps drier than most, mainly as if I add too much water then the hardness in it tends to start killing off that lather. I prefer a nice, creamy covering anyway! Finally got enough water into it and all of a sudden I was wanting a bowl as the lather was DRIPPING OFF MY FACE. There was literally so much it was falling off my face. :blink:
For the shave, I loaded a fresh Medical Personna (first time with this blade) into my DE86. I found while the blade was well lubricated, there was a tendency for the razor head to 'stick' to my face during the stroke. The actual shave was very comfortable however not as close as I am used to, and there was a couple of spots on the neck that I was required to 'have another pass' on.
After washing down, my skin felt firm - almost like the minerals had performed some facelift-like tightening work. The remaining scent in my pores was also quite agreeable. I rubbed down with an Alum block and found very little irritation. Dried off and applied the old standby - Nivea Sensitive ASB. I find that soaps dry my skin a little too much and the ASB has just enough moisturising to keep my pores from going into sebum-production overdrive.
Overall rating on the stick? If you have ever shaved with a stick and was disappointed, then you need to try this. I'm going to rate it 9/10.
The Medical Personnas also performed well, near zero irritation and were quite sharp. Smoothness while shaving was a bit average, however they were certainly not rough. Blade feedback was very good. Going to be interesting to see how they go in the adjustable Gillettes.
mg: