DOOD.CA: Guy Stuff

Queen Charlotte Soaps Esquire Pre-Shave Lotion
Product: Pre-Shave Lotion
Size: 30ml/1oz
Origin: Handmade in USA
Price: $10.00

Queen Charlotte Soaps (QCS) is an ‘artisan’ soapmaker based in Queen City, Charlotte, North Carolina which is also their namesake. Owned and operated buy a mother and son – Petra and Matt, they produce some of the most fantastic Shave Creams available. One of the things I like the best about QCS is their scents. I have tried several, and Esquire is my favourite of the ones I’ve tried, especially for Winter or colder days.

I’m not reviewing their shaving cream here, but the scents are available in Pre-Shave lotions and Aftershave balms as well, and have a consistent scent throughout. I have the whole line of Esquire, and it is fantastic. The Shaving cream has a top note of Lime that is quite noticeable especially when you start lather, but it is much more subtle in the Pre-Shave lotion.

The smell is a very professional blend of earthy essential oils along with sandalwood (no fragrance oils used). Esquire’s scent is done very well, and doesn’t suffer from the often amateur smelling essential oil blends that plague many artisan products. QCS did a good job blending this one. I’ve tried many handmade artisan products and quite often they smell like someone just took a handful of essential oils and just mixed them until it seemed acceptable.

That’s about one pump, and about half of what I use each time.

I guess my biggest complaint is that the bottle is very small, and does not last long. I use two squirts, one for each cheek, every time I use it. I don’t think it really adds much slickness to my shave, but it moisturizes my face and absorbs very quickly, much quicker than Aftershave balm and also provides a nice whiff of scent while I am lathering my shaving cream of choice for the morning. I really enjoy this aspect of my shaving routine and so moisturization and scent are very important. I do find that my skin feels more moisturized after my shave when I use this Pre-Shave lotion, however, and that’s a big plus for me especially in the colder, dryer months.

In general, this QCS Pre-Shave is an excellent product that adds a lot of enjoyment to my daily shaving experience, and I will continue to buy it. The options out there for Pre-Shave products is limited, and consists mostly of oils which I find messy and awkward to use. Queen Charlotte Soaps Esquire Pre-Shave Lotion is a great alternative to those looking for a non-oily pre-shave.

Here are the ingredients:
Water (Aqua), Aloe Barbadensis (Aloe Vera) Leaf Juice, Emulsifying Wax NF, Persea Gratissima (Avocado) Oil, Simmondsia Chinensis (Jojoba) Seed Oil, Hydrolyzed Oats, Hydroxypropyltrimonium Honey, Panthenol, Cetyl Alcohol, Fragrance (Essential Oil), Phenoxyethanol (and) Caprylyl Glycol, Silk, Tocopherol (Vitamin E), Chamomilla Recutita (Matricaria) Extract.

Scent: 10/10
Performance: 8/10
Packaging: 5/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Edwin Jagger Aloe Vera Shaving Cream Tube
Product: Shaving Cream
Size: 75ml/2.5oz
Origin: Made in EU
Street Price: $16.00
Price Per ml: $0.21

My second shaving product review comes in the form of a Edwin Jagger Aloe Vera Shaving Cream review. I received this as a Christmas present from my wife, when she happened upon an Edwin Jagger dealer in a mall we don’t visit often. She bought me several items, and this was one of them. Edwin Jagger products are among the better stuff I have tried, and gives a luxurious feel. The creams are on the pricier side because for $16 you only get half of what most other brands give you, similar to a travel size. The price per ml is $0.21, which I will use for comparison on later shaving creams.

While I have used my Vie-Long Horse and Badger mixed brush for these photos, my review will take into account all the brushes I own and have used with the Edwin Jagger Aloe Shaving Cream. It was just the Vie-Long I happen to be using the morning when I decided to write the review and take the photos. I soaked my Vie-Long for a couple of minutes while I washed my face and applied some pre-shave, which is how I usually prep my brushes. Excuse the funny sideways directioning of the brush, it was wetted and I gave it two decent shakes giving it the funny look in the following photos.

My guess is that the tube would probably last about 30-40 uses, but that’s just a guess. I haven’t used up my tube yet, but I do have a backup tube already! That’s just a hint about how much I like this stuff. The scent is very fresh and non-descript, just an overall pleasant and non-lingering scent.

I use the proverbial “almond-sized” amount with the Edwin Jagger shaving cream, as it seems to work well. The cream has that iridescent sheen to it that a lot of shaving creams seem to have. Not sure what ingredient causes this sheen, but maybe Glycerin. The Edwin Jagger Aloe Vera cream lathers quite easily and I tend to prefer this cream with less water as it has a nice rich and very slick feel to it – pure luxury. The cream lathers very quickly too – about 45-60 seconds in the bowl is good for bowl lathering and on the face its pretty immediate.

For those that don’t know, the Edwin Jagger creams and soaps are exactly the same as the Muhle Creams and Soaps of the same scent.

There’s my loaded Vie-Long, this one I whipped for about 40 seconds, and it is a badger/horse mix. I really like the Edwin Jagger Aloe cream because it goes on really nice and thick with tons of cushion and slickness, and leaves my skin feeling VERY moisturized. It is one of the most moisturizing creams that I have used, and does so without the use of parabens. The packaging claims 99% natural ingredients which is nice.

Here is the Ingredients:
Aqua (Water), Potassium Stearate, Potassium Palmitate, Potassium Cocoate, Glycerin, Sodium Stearate, Aloe Barbadensis Leaf Juice, Sodium Palmitate, Sodium Cocoate, Cera Alba (Beeswax), Potassium Myristate, Cetyl Palmitate, Parfum (Fragrance), Potassium Laurate, Sodium Myristate, Sodium Silicate, Sodium Thiosulfate, Benzyl Benzoate, Butylphenyl Methylpropional, Linalool

Overall a fantastic cream that I will buy more of (I already have a backup tube). I have also tried the sandalwood which I really like but haven’t tried the sea buckthorn cream yet. The Aloe is very moisturizing and has a great scent that doesn’t interfere with any Aftershave or Cologne/EOT that you might be using either. Here is my rating below, but as usual, YMMV.

Scent: 7/10
Lather: 8/10
Cushion: 9/10
Glide: 9/10
Moisturizing: 10/10
Packaging: 8/10
Value: 7/10
Overall: 8/10

Associated Products Used in This Review: Vie-Long Horse and Badger Mixed Brush, Apothecary Shaving Mug.

Proraso White Pre-Shave Sensitive Skin
Product: Pre-Shave Cream
Size: 100ml/3.6oz
Origin: Made in Italy
Street Price: $13.00

This is my first in what I hope to be a long series of shaving product reviews and articles as I have really grown a fondness for wet shaving, especially using different creams, pre-shaves, aftershaves and shaving brushes. The first product I have decided to review is the Proraso White Pre-Shave for Sensitive Skin. Proraso makes many shaving products including pre-shave creams, shaving creams and aftershave balms and splashes. The White Pre-Shave with Green Tea and Oat is one of the “burning bush” products I tried that fueled my interest in shaving and really started a big acquisition disorder for me of buying all sorts of shaving products that I want more than I need – which is why I have chosen this product as my first review.

There she is, in very nice glass jar with a white plastic lid. The product also comes in a cardboard box that contains the ingredient list which is shown below. While its not an especially fancy packaging, the glass jar has a nice feel to it and gives it a nice rigid feeling container that feels nice when you’re scooping out your pre-shave cream. All the labeling is waterproof plastic type stickers, so they won’t get all wrinkly. Like all Proraso products, it is made in Italy.

Here’s a shot of the product, which has a metallic sheen to it like most shaving creams do. This is not something I have noticed with most pre shave creams, however. This is the new formula, which has no parabens in it, and is now marketed as a Pre-Shave only, but many people still use this as a Pre and Post shave cream. The old formula was actually labelled as a Pre/Post Shaving Cream. Proraso now has a dedicated White Post Shaving Balm which I also enjoy.

This pre-shave has an awesome feel on the face once applied. It has a bit of menthol on it, so you get a bit of that face-freeze effect that Proraso products are famous for, but not as much as the shaving cream. The white sensitive skin line is a bit lighter on the menthol than the green line, if you are familiar with that. I really feel like its prepping my skin for the shave and has a nice soothing effect. It doesn’t really improve razor glide that I have noticed, but I like how it gives my skin a nice feeling while I am working my lather.

The texture of the pre-shave cream kind of feels like a very thick shaving cream. It is thicker than most pre-shaves and kind of feels a bit greasy when you are scooping it out, but doesn’t really feel that way once you apply it. The smell is the same as the rest of the White Line of Proraso products, which is a nice subtle menthol smell combined with a clean, fresh smell that is hard to describe. Some people have described it as “pumpkin guts” smell, but I personally find the scent very masculine and clean. In fact, one of my favourite scents – not too strong but still pleasing for the shave. Here is the ingredient list:

This is one fantastic product and I encourage anyone that likes the Proraso products to give this one a shot. It is a unique pre-shave and might even work for you as a post-shave. I’ve rated the product based on several factors and given it an overall rating that of course is personal to me – YMMV (Your Milleage May Vary).

Scent: 8/10
Performance: 8/10
Packaging: 9/10
Value: 10/10
Overall: 9/10

I picked up the Jasmine Audio Performance 6 Bookshelf Speakers since they were on sale from Canadian Hifi during their Boxing Week sale. They were a REALLY good price and I just couldn’t pass it up. These speakers regularly sell for $1199, and occasionally go on sale for around $900. I got them for a much better price than that even! Something to note is that Jasmine Audio is actually known as Jinyon Audio and market their products under the “Elite” Label. Webspage for the product is here: http://www.hifi-elite.com/Performance.htm. The name Jasmine is for English distributors, but the speakers are labelled “Jinyon” and “Elite”.

The speakers are the largest of the bookshelf speakers that they make with a smaller Performance 5 as well as a large two-box solution that includes a passive subwoofer base called the Performance 10. I would LOVE to have a Performance 10 in my listening room, but unfortunately the $3580 price tag is a bit more than I want to spend.

Components
The speakers feature a Morel MDT29 Soft Dome tweeter, which lists for $70 but generally sells for just over $50 each. The Morel MDT29 is a well-known and popular tweeter, featuring a 1 1/8″ soft textile dome and 8ohm impedance along with 92dB sensitivity. They have coupled this tweeter with their own composite beehive-style cone 6 1/2″ woofer, and I have to say the results are stunning. Speaker connectors are chunky satin finished Gold plated variety and are are quite nice to use.

Cabinet Finishing
I purchased the Galaxy Grey version of these speakers instead of the premium high gloss finish, mostly because the Galaxy Grey was the only one available to me. I already have alot of High Gloss Speakers so the Grey appealed more to me anyway. The Cabinet was a bit lighter than I thought it would be, since I was replacing a pair of Aurum Cantus Leisure 2 SE, which have a very heavy cabinet for their size. There are very few right angles if any on the exterior of the Performance 6’s cabinets, giving it a very unique and high-end look to it that few North American and European speaker manufacturers can match for the money.

Sound
I won’t wax poetic about the imaging, soundstage and decay of these speakers, but lets say that it has all that in spades. I ran the speakers through the usual Classical, Jazz and Pop music which include both audiophile and mass market albums and they performed very respectably. The first thing I noticed when I replaced the Leisure 2SE’s with the Performance 6’s is that the sudden increase in midrange detail and emphasis. It is well-known that the Leisure 2SE’s have a bit of a weaker midrange and tend to excel in the highs and bass.

The Jasmine Performance 6’s just blew me away once I had them running for a while. They have a fantastic midrange detail to them and really open up the music, yet are less fatiguing than the Leisure 2SE. Often speakers with good midrange can end up sounding “Shouty”, not the case with these ones. Totally non-fatiguing and smooth female vocals.

The one weakness that these speakers have is the lack of bass. What bass they do have is tight and punchy, but it doesn’t go as low as I would have expected at the 48Hz spec. My Reference 3a De Capo MM-i is rated down to 42Hz, and sounds much stronger, and the Leisure 2SE’s are rated down to 52Hz and sound punchier, but that might just be mid-bass. Either way.. when listening to Jack Johnson the bass guitar just doesn’t hit the spot quite as well.

Value & Comparison
The price of the Jasmine Audio puts it against some stiff competition like the Totem Rainmaker, B&W 685, Paradigm Studio 10, and many many others. These are VERY good speakers that it will have to go up against at their retail pricing. Given their weak market penetration outside of Asia, they will not retain their value at resale and will likely have to be discounted heavily in order to sell well. I’ve heard many speakers in this price range including the three speakers mentioned above, and while they all do things well, the Jasmine Audio Performance 6 really does the Midrange better than any of them an has an air of transparency that I have not heard in many speakers at this price range.

Where the Totems and Paradigms truly have the Performance 6 beat is in the area of bass punch and extension, while the B&W probably have good brand recognition and nice fancy enclosures as opposed to actual sound quality. Either way, I personally think that at anywhere from $600-700 that the Jasmine Performance 6 is a very good value and probably beats out most of its competitors if you appreciate the type of sound they produce.

Specs:
Enclosure: 2-ways vented box system
Frequency Response: 48-20,000Hz
Sensitivity: 88dB/1M/2.83v
Impedance: 6 ohms
Size: 426mm x 295mm x 228mm (H x D x W)
Net weight: 8.7Kg / Each
Color: Galaxy Gray (Also available in Gloss Black)

Components Used for Testing:
Source: Bel Canto CD-1
Preamp: Linar Audio Pre-2
Amplification: Odyssey Stratos Extreme Monoblocks
Power Conditioner: Furutech e-TP60, Monster Power HTS7000
Cables: Nordost Blue Heaven, Virtual Dynamics David

I could watch this video over and over again.. LOVE IT!!!