Since we cannot trust postal services anymore: Nominate your soap for the October group shave!

This is the voting thread for the 2nd edition of the Buena Vista Wetshaving Social Club of September – which will take place on September 18. Please comment under each soap, just like last time.

The first edition stil has not taken place (maybe this Wednesday?), but given that even the Swiss postal service cannot be relied upon any more, we should get going for the preparation for September.

We could proceed like last time and everybody nominates a soap; we could also make it a turning presidency, and we simply decide who sends out the soap this time (and we let that person choose).

PS: Since I'm in Paris, and the Olympic (and Paralolympic) Games will be starting next Friday and last until September, I think it would be safer if this time, it isn't me who sends out samples.

You have spoken: the community shave will take place on July 17th (the 3rd Wednesday of July)!

But we still have to pick to soap. Every soap will get their own comment, and if you want to vote for this soap, please comment below the soap nomination with something indicating your approbation. You can vote for several soaps; in case of a tie, we will figure something out.

Hi everybody,

so we are planning to do a (monthly, but pausing in August) community shave! We collectively choose a soap, and on D-day, everybody uses the same soap for their SOTD.

We need to know several things:

• Who would be interested in participating? If you would like to join, respond to this message by including "I'm in!"
• When will we do it? It would be best to choose a Wednesday, Saturday, or Sunday, to avoid clashing with the reddit theme days, and it would be easier to organize if we could avoid the beginning of July. Furthermore, it would be probably best to fix it once and for all (something like third Wednesday or last Sunday of the month). Opinions?
• Finally, we need to agree on a soap. I don't know how to poll this (I know you can do a poll on Mastodon, not sure about lemmy). The idea would be: everybody who participates nominates a soap, and if that soap is picked, that person agrees to send out smushes to everyone who doesn't have the soap. In order to be on the safe side, we probably would want to have the soap picked three weeks before the chosen date.

There are surely things that I have forgotten. Any ideas, questions?

Inspired by the acquisitive prowess of our @[email protected], I also helped myself to a new straight razor. It arrived today: an Ertan Süer L'Ours Russe (Russian Bear), which is a 7/8th full hollow carbon steel razor with a barber's notch, and scales made out of black horn. The razor came with leather sleave, and the packaging looks very classy.

First impressions: shave-ready as announced, and gives a good shave. It is not as massive as the Koraat, but still well-sized.

So, I got excited, and didn't anticipate well how profound the knot would sit in the handle. The knot is glued in with silicone (maybe a little bit too much), and I would like to rescue both knot and handle without damage.

The general advice is: You can just pull it, but Nature has gifted me with the grip strength of a 5 year old child. I have tried it. It simply doesn't move. Since there are a few chemically and physically knowledgeable people here, my question is: how do I get the knot out, when (my) brute force just does not cut it?

Share your shave of the day!

Share your SOTD!

The bot is down, and everything is allowed.

I believe that it is more or less 2 years ago that I bought my first horse brush – encouraged by the advice of @sgrdddy. This is a Semogue C3 Galahad premium horse brush.

Now, at least at reddit, horse brushes suffer from a bad reputation. Stinky, scratchy, a tangled mess of bristles – the antihype is strong. I must say that I rather like my horse brushes (in the meantime, I purchased another one, a Zenith XS [Xtra-Soft] horse brush), and I consider the Semogue my primary brush. I cannot really count anymore how many uses I have, but I would guess that this brush has seen between 100 and 150 uses (yes, I know, @djundjila gets 100 shaves in less than a month, but for me, that's rather respectable.

So, here come my experiences with this horse brush.

General description

The handle is "imperial red", which looks brownish to me. The bristles were initially dark brown, but they are getting clearer with use (and splitting).

The Semogue C3 Galahad, slightly underfocused

The smell

The Semogue (just like the Zenith horse after it) came without any smell. I am strongly allergic to horses, which was the main reason why I hesitated to buy a horse hair brush in the first place, but I didn't feel anything with these brushes. Semogue (and Zenith) do a good job desinfecting and desodorizing their hair, and I never had the impression to wipe a horses ass over my face (as someone over at reddit described his experience).

Breaking in

The last brush I had bought before acquiring the Galahad was a SOC boar – a great brush, but a real pain to break in. Fortunately, I didn't experience any breaking in effect with this one. I could use it confortably out of the box, and I didn't have the impression that there was a noticeable break-in process. That being said, I would assume that there was a break in period, even though a very long and progressive one. After a year or so, some bristles started to split, and this is still an ongoing process (my macro photography skills are bad, but you can see the change in color on the photos: unsplit bristles are much darker than splitting bristles, which are light brown).

I don't really remember anymore whether there was any loss of hair; I would assume that I might have lost the occasional hair, but not more.

Tangling of the bristles

I've heard that there are issues with the bristles tangling in horse brushes. To be fair, there is some slight tangling, but at the same level I also get with a Yaqi synthetic knot. (On the other hand, I haven't seen any tangling on my Zenith XS horse, so this cannot be related to horse hair as such).

Overall evaluation

The Semogue C3 Galahad Premium Horse is a great little brush. I would recommend trying a horse brush to anybody, and this one is excellent.

This is the place to ask beginner and simple questions. Some examples include:

• Soap, scent, or gear recommendations
• Favorite scents, bases, etc
• Where to buy certain items
• Identification of a razor you just bought
• Troubleshooting shaving issues such as cuts, poor lather, and technique

Please note these are examples and any questions for the sub should be posted here.