While I was in Alabama for work my son texted me about a find he made at some home store in Utah . . .
"Want one?" he asks. I have enough shave soaps and creams and have been (surprisingly) slowly using some up so I can feel better about not having so many; I know, I know, a good part of our 'thing' is about the experience, which I value . . . but somehow having so many seems to me to be an embarrassment of shaving riches. And yet, who among us wouldn’t at least be curious?
I add this here because all the typos drive me crazy: "Nah. If it was like $4 I'd go for it, but I could spend $15 on something else." He can't give me a scent profile, only offering "It smells really good." Well, that's helpful, even enabling for someone with SAD.
I get the impression he senses a weakness in the armor.
Despite my protestations to the contrary, who am I to turn down a birthday gift of shave goods. Just to mollify my retentive side I rationalize about creams being used faster. A truism, to be sure--in the last four months I've polished off two tubs of cream, Cremo Reserve Blend and Col. Conk Rio Grande Lavender, and am about 2 shaves away from finishing my TOBS Cedarwood. Ignoring the fact that I have many other soaps to use I lean back and bask in the simple math before me: 3 creams down--surely replacing one of them with another cream is a lesser evil. He asks if I want cream or the soap in a tin. "Yeah, the cream" I tell him.
Now, I figured the cream was simply a softer soap packaged in a tub or tin. Never having used shave cream from a tube it never occurred to me that might be the case. Which is exactly what I got yesterday when I picked it up from him.
I was excited to try Pre de Provence, having seen the name used here in (typically) glowing terms. So this morning I eagerly uncapped the tube and squeezed about a two inch snurdle into my scuttle. I thought I might have put too much in, but didn't sweat it. I added just a few drops of water and started swirling with my PAA Starcraft synthetic brush. It smeared but not much more than that. I kept at it for a solid 3-4 minutes with precious little improvement.
Maybe it's better to face lather I considered. So I began doing that. All I got was a very thin layer of paintable cream--I couldn't get this stuff to lather much at all. So I added another roughly 1.5" bit of product to the scuttle and whipped it about for a couple minutes. Between my face and the scuttle I got a little . . . and I do mean a little . . . lather.
The scent was indeed nice, not heavy or strong, but very pleasant. I couldn't come close to yogurt consistency, much less whipped cream. I will say, however, that at least it didn't evaporate off my face.
Performance was fine I guess. I wasn't bowled over but I've used lesser soaps to be sure. I asked my son yesterday how he liked it and he said he, too, couldn't get it to lather, and he got the soap in a tin.
So I'm a little baffled. I've never read anything bad about PdP, accordingly I was expecting a terrific experience. Based on this morning's performance I'm not inclined to use the cream much at all, although the scent is nice.
Bad batch, perhaps? An outside chance of a knockoff? I can't really imagine the latter, the former seems more likely.
Your thoughts?
"Want one?" he asks. I have enough shave soaps and creams and have been (surprisingly) slowly using some up so I can feel better about not having so many; I know, I know, a good part of our 'thing' is about the experience, which I value . . . but somehow having so many seems to me to be an embarrassment of shaving riches. And yet, who among us wouldn’t at least be curious?
I add this here because all the typos drive me crazy: "Nah. If it was like $4 I'd go for it, but I could spend $15 on something else." He can't give me a scent profile, only offering "It smells really good." Well, that's helpful, even enabling for someone with SAD.
I get the impression he senses a weakness in the armor.
Despite my protestations to the contrary, who am I to turn down a birthday gift of shave goods. Just to mollify my retentive side I rationalize about creams being used faster. A truism, to be sure--in the last four months I've polished off two tubs of cream, Cremo Reserve Blend and Col. Conk Rio Grande Lavender, and am about 2 shaves away from finishing my TOBS Cedarwood. Ignoring the fact that I have many other soaps to use I lean back and bask in the simple math before me: 3 creams down--surely replacing one of them with another cream is a lesser evil. He asks if I want cream or the soap in a tin. "Yeah, the cream" I tell him.
Now, I figured the cream was simply a softer soap packaged in a tub or tin. Never having used shave cream from a tube it never occurred to me that might be the case. Which is exactly what I got yesterday when I picked it up from him.
I was excited to try Pre de Provence, having seen the name used here in (typically) glowing terms. So this morning I eagerly uncapped the tube and squeezed about a two inch snurdle into my scuttle. I thought I might have put too much in, but didn't sweat it. I added just a few drops of water and started swirling with my PAA Starcraft synthetic brush. It smeared but not much more than that. I kept at it for a solid 3-4 minutes with precious little improvement.
Maybe it's better to face lather I considered. So I began doing that. All I got was a very thin layer of paintable cream--I couldn't get this stuff to lather much at all. So I added another roughly 1.5" bit of product to the scuttle and whipped it about for a couple minutes. Between my face and the scuttle I got a little . . . and I do mean a little . . . lather.
The scent was indeed nice, not heavy or strong, but very pleasant. I couldn't come close to yogurt consistency, much less whipped cream. I will say, however, that at least it didn't evaporate off my face.
Performance was fine I guess. I wasn't bowled over but I've used lesser soaps to be sure. I asked my son yesterday how he liked it and he said he, too, couldn't get it to lather, and he got the soap in a tin.
So I'm a little baffled. I've never read anything bad about PdP, accordingly I was expecting a terrific experience. Based on this morning's performance I'm not inclined to use the cream much at all, although the scent is nice.
Bad batch, perhaps? An outside chance of a knockoff? I can't really imagine the latter, the former seems more likely.
Your thoughts?
