DOOD.CA: Guy Stuff

Origins Blade Runner Shave Cream
Product: Shaving Cream
Size: 150ml
Origin: Made in USA
Street Price: $16.00
Price Per ml: $0.11

Origins mid to high end cosmetics brand that is part of the Estee Lauder empire. Their products are known to use natural plant extracts and natural ingredients as opposed to the more synthetic ingredients of their competitors. Origins also has a decent Men’s line of products, which my wife introduced me to. One of the better products is the Origins Blade Runner Shaving Cream.. remember folks, this is a BRUSHLESS shaving cream! Not a lathering cream that most of us shaving enthusiasts are interested in. On the flip side, this stuff makes a GREAT pre-shave cream, which means it does double duty in my books.

Origins Blade Runner comes in a typical plastic tube that many similar products come in such as the creams from The Real Shaving Company, etc. No outer box with this one. I only use this product very occasionally while at home, because I, like the good shaving enthusiast I am, prefer lathering shaving creams and soaps. But on a recent one-week cruise vacation, I decided to give this stuff a whirl because the tiny bathrooms in a cruisehip stateroom might making bringing a brush and lathering more difficult. Turns out it was a great idea – I looked forward to my daily shave even without lather. The stuff has a great smell to it (at least to me!), a sort of medicinal peppermint smell, which might not be to everyone’s taste. Blade Runner is also very slick, and works well with a DE Safety Razor in addition to Cartridge Razors. I do not use a straight so I cannot comment on that.

Additionally, Origins Blade Runner works fantastic as a pre-shave cream so it is in my regular pre-shave rotation along with some great stuff like Edwin Jagger Preshave and Proraso White Pre-Shave. This stuff holds its own against some of the best pre-shave creams on the market.

Blade Runner is pretty concentrated feeling, meaning you don’t need to use that much. I generally use about half as much Blade Runner as I would use of a normal lathering Shaving Cream. That means that at $16 a tube, its actually a pretty good deal. The consistency is very much like that of regular shaving cream in a tube, maybe slightly thicker. It spreads easily onto a moist face and from there you can go straight to shave or starting lathering up your shaving cream. I love smelling the peppermint while I am prepping my cream.

Here’s a shot of the ingredient list. It was WAYYY too long so I wasn’t going to type it out – you’ll have to scan it for ingredients yourself! Sorry. At least I provided and ingredient list. I even googled for one, but couldn’t find one listed anywhere. You’ll notice that the list has plenty of chemical sounding stuff that really isn’t that good for you, so it makes you wonder how “natural” the stuff really is. I’m guessing all that stuff also helps make this cream last 24 months, double what most other creams are supposed to last! Well, at least they tell us its safe to use, right

Hope this was useful, and hope you guys enjoyed the review. Origins Blade Runner is a multi-purpose product that does what it does very well, so long as you’re not expecting lather. It outperforms other brushless shaving creams such as Kiehl’s and drugstore stuff that I have used, and as a Pre-Shave or a Shaving cream, the price is very good.

Scent: 7/10

Lather: 1/10

Cushion: 1/10

Glide: 8/10

Moisturizing: 6/10

Packaging: 7/10

Value: 8/10

Overall: 7/10

Taylor of Old Bonds Street Jerymn Street Shaving Cream
Product: Shaving Cream
Size: 150g
Origin: Made in England
Street Price: $15.99
Price Per g: $0.11

Taylor of Old Bonds Street, or TOBS, as it is endeariningly called on the online forums, is probably the most popular of the English shaving creams on the market. On Fendrihan’s, the Canadian men’s grooming goods e-tailer, listing shaving creams in order of the most popular reveals that four of the top eight best selling creams are from TOBS. Now, that might not be reflective of the entire world, but its certainly enough to get an idea of its popularity.

For this shave review shoot, I decided to whip up the cream with my Kimson Genuine Horn Handled Brush that I mounted a TGN Finest 24mm knot in. I used a Pottersong Shaving Scuttle, which I filled with hot water to get a nice warm lather. TOBS creams are so rich in lather that they work great in hot, warm or cold water. I’ll be using my Bluebeard’s Revenge Scimitar DE razor with this shave as well, which is identical to the Edwin Jagger DE98 razors.

The Jermyn Streetn Shaving Cream is one of the “sensitive skin” formulations of shaving cream from TOBS, and has a slightly different ingredient list. It has less chemicals in it, no coloring agents and also costs slightly more than their normal creams. It performs fantastic just like their regular creams do, though does have a slightly different feel to it. The 150g tub lasts quite a while because you really don’t need much cream to get a three-pass shave.

A quick, medium pressure swirl on the surface gets a good amount of cream on the brush, I think I took a little bit too much on this one, but the more the merrier. Like most of you, I have enough shaving cream to last me a decade and most of it will expire long before I finish using it. Speaking of expiry, the TOBS tubs all have the Good for 12 Months after opening labelling on it, which means that its should be used up within 12 months of opening.

The scent is hard to describe. Tobs calls it “bergamot, lemon, lime and lavender supported by a heart of geranium, neroli and amber resting on a substantive base of musk, patchouli and vanilla” I suppose that’s accurate, it is a complex cologne type of scent that’s quite rich and warm, without being too strong. I wouldn’t call it an everyday scent for myself, but its quite pleasant.

Jermyn Street from TOBS lathers like a champ, even in a hot shaving scuttle, and is possibly the easiest shaving cream I have ever lathered. The lather is rich, and creamy… possibly slightly too rich for my tastes and it actually interferes a bit with razor glide. This cream isn’t quite as thick as Proraso, but it lathers more easily and has more cushion. Also, the Tobs tub is an excellent vessel for dispensing cream.

There’s a nice lather shot of my brush, showing the nice rich lather achieved. Probably whipped up enough lather for four passes, thought I rarely do more than three passes. Overall this is an incredible shaving cream, and amongst the best. Its not the most moisturizing cream, but it has a great scent, and lathers like no other cream I have used. The cream is a bit thick for me, but it is easy to lather and quite effortless to use. Making it a good cream for those with difficult water conditions or those days when you just don’t want to try too hard!

Ingredients: Water, Stearic Acid, Myristic Acid, Potassium Hydroxide, Coconut Acid, Glycerin, Triethanolamine, Theobroma Cocoa Seed Butter, Parfum, Sodium Hrdoxide, Bisabolol

Scent: 8/10

Lather: 10/10

Cushion: 10/10

Glide: 6/10

Moisturizing: 6/10

Packaging: 7/10

Value: 9/10

Overall: 9/10

Associated Products Used in This Review: Kimson And TGN Finest Brush, Pottersong Shaving Scuttle, Bluebeards Revenge Scimitar Razor.

I had reviewed the Ace Shaving Extra Density Silvertip knot a couple months ago, and picked up a few of the Best Badgers in 21.5mm based on someone’s recommendation on a forum. Given that these knots are relatively inexpensive, I wasn’t expecting much, and to be honest, I didn’t get much. Yes, these are decent knots for the money, but are they giant-killers like the TGN Finest? Hardly. Since they only come in threes from Ace Shaving, I was stuck with three of them. I set one in a brush for myself, set another one in a Whipped Dog handle for a friend of mine, and have another one tucked away for a rainy day I guess.

Not saying that this is a bad knot at all, but when you’ve got as many brushes as I do, its hard to find a good, compelling reason to use this brush over most of my other brushes. It appears at first look to be similar to the TGN Best Badger hair, and similar to the Edwin Jagger Best Badger grade as well. However, in use, it feels quite different. This is one of the most prickly badger hair brushes I’ve ever used. It reminds me a bit of my Omega black badger hair brush, but with less backbone.

As you can see, the knot is a mix of banded and grey hairs, with some naturally terminating but mostly trimmed hairs. The trimmed hairs are the culprit here for creating such a prickly, scritchy brush. I personally don’t mind a little bit of scritch, but this brush is almost unusable for me unless I do nothing but paintbrush strokes. That’s unfortunate since I set the brush quite low for the purpose of face lathering. And even set that low, it doesn’t have too much backbone. I ended up setting a second one for my friend 2mm lower to around 41mm and its seems to have improved backbone. The brush shown in the photos is the aforementioned brush I made for my friend. I drilled out the Whipped Dog handle and got it set nice and low.

A top down shot to give you a sense of the density of the brush. Its sort of a medium density, or average density if you will. Certainly not as dense as the Extra Hair Silvertip from Ace Shaving or any of the TGN knots for that matter. This brush knot was a bit of a disappointment because I was expecting so much more given the large amount of praise from a couple of the members on the forum. Perhaps they like scritch more than I do. One thing this brush does a great job with is flow through. It paints the lather on no problem and gives it up if you need it. Overall I would considering it an acceptable knot and probably comparable to big name entry level badger brushes, but nothing special. If these were available as a single purchase for 1/3 the price, I would recommend for a casual shaver that just needs something that works. For enthusiasts, I think there are better options out there.

Ace Shaving Best Badger Knot Specs and Rating:

Softness: 4
Scratchy		Soft
Backbone: 5
Floppy		Strong
Scrub: 4
Gentle		Scrubby
Density: 4
Sparse		Dense
Hair Thickness: 6
Thin		Thick
Flow-Through: 8
Lather Hog		Lather Giver

Proraso Eucalyptus and Menthol Shaving Cream
Product: Shaving Cream
Size: 150ml
Origin: Made in Italy
Street Price: $9.99
Price Per ml: $0.07

Proraso Green Eucalyptus and Menthol Shaving Cream is probably one of the most iconic shaving creams in all of shavedom, not to mention one of the top Shaving Creams from Italy altogether. This shave cream has probably been reviewed a multitude of times, and I have tried not to read other Reviews prior to writing this in order to keep my thoughts my own and unaffected by others’ opinions. My experience is positive, and comes after using the shave cream about 50 times over the course of about six months. This review is of the new current formulation that is SLS and paraben free.

For the photo shoot shave, I decided to use my Simpson Chubby CH1 brush, along with a Pottersong Shaving Mug and the Bluebeards Revenge Scimitar DE Razor. I typically do an actual shave on my reviews, and this is what I used this time around. I don’t usually bowl lather my chubby, but for a shaving cream review photo shoot, its more effective at showing the lather generation. Proraso Shaving cream comes in a metal tube, resembling toothpaste, and holds 150ml in the full size tube.

Please excuse the dried up Proraso crud that built up along the edge of the tube, but it usually happens to most creams anyway. I just forgot to clean it up before the shoot! Its more authentic this way anyway, right? The scent of the Proraso Green is sort of a Menthol, mixed with a fresh clean smell. Its got a hint of Eucalyptus, but I wouldn’t say its pure menthol and eucalyptus scent. Its very refreshing and a fantastic summer scent and experience overall.

I used about a small almonds worth of shaving cream in this example, and that generated enough lather for two passes, even with this lather hogging Simpsons Chubby CH1. While the Proraso doesn’t generate quite as much lather as the popular English creams like the 3T’s (Trumpers, T&H and Tobs). It does lather up quickly, and creates a very slick lather. Its not quite as cushiony as the English stuff, but I find it plenty good for me.

While the scent and menthol kick is great to me, its probably not for everyone. Some people with very sensitive skin find the menthol a bit overwhelming, because the feeling after shaving with Proraso Green is often described as “Face Freeze”. I am a huge fan of menthol in general, even outside of the summer months. The tingling and refreshing feeling I get after a Proraso Green shave is awesome!

Here’s the Chubby loaded up with lather after working it for roughly 30 seconds in my Pottersong shaving mug. The mug helps greatly with speeding up lather production so my arms are less tired and I can spend more energy on actual shaving. Proraso Green has average moisturizing, nothing spectacular but my face doesn’t feel dry afterwards. It is just such a fantastic performer in so many ways that I find myself grabbing it when I want a satisfying shave quite often. The excellent lather production, refreshing scent and feel, great value and superb glide it gives really does make it a stand out product in the cluttered Shaving Cream space. I highly recommend it!

Here are the SLS and Paraben-Free ingredients, which still contain a fair bit of unpronounceables including some ingredients which are considered risky if you’re an all-natural kind of shaver.

Ingredients: Aqua, Stearic Acid, Cocos nucifera Oil, Potassium Hydroxide, Glycerin, Lactic Acid, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Lauroyl Sarcosinate, Menthol, Camphor, Eucalyptol, Eucalyptus globulus Leaf Oil, Pentaerythriytyl Tetra-di-t-butyl Hydroxyhydrocinnamate, Sodium Metasilicate, Tetrasodium EDTA, Hydorixyethylcellulose, Sodium Hyrdoxymethylglycinate, Geraniol, Parfum

Scent: 7/10

Lather: 8/10

Cushion: 9/10

Glide: 8/10

Moisturizing: 7/10

Packaging: 7/10

Value: 10/10

Overall: 9/10

Associated Products Used in This Review: Simpson Chubby CH1 Brush, Pottersong Shaving Mug, Bluebeards Revenge Scimitar Razor.

[EDIT: Updated 10/3/2014 to Add new knots and separate hair types]

Most shaving brush enthusiasts have heard of the (in)famous “TGN Finest” knot, and if they have not tried it, probably have some curiosity surrounding it since it is considered by many one of the best values in shaving brushes on the market. Given that the knots are value priced in the mid $20 range, a “great value” may not necessarily mean a great brush. However in this case, it is indeed a Great brush, and to be frank, compares with brushes costing several times its price. And before you all jump to conclusions, I do own Simpson, Shavemac, Rooney and other big name brushes – several that cost well over $100, so I am not making this statement without some experience and reference. I am just very enthusiastic about building my own brushes and setting my own knots. There’s something therapeutic about it for me.

Since all manufacturers have different ideas of what is a “best” or “finest” badger, keep in mind that TGN’s rating system only applies to their own brushes. I decided to break it down into individual reviews with a rating system that compares them with each other. Similar to the rating system that I use for all the other brushes I review, but with less categories since these are just knots. Hope you enjoy the reviews!

High Mountain White Badger
1. The Golden Nib TGN High Mountain White Badger Knot Review

Silvertip Badger
1. The Golden Nib TGN Silvertip STD XH Badger Knot Review
2. The Golden Nib TGN Super Badger Knot Review
3. The Golden Nib TGN Silvertip Badger Grade A Knot Review
4. The Golden Nib TGN Super Silvertip Badger Knot Review
5. The Golden Nib TGN Silvertip Premium Badger Knot Review

Finest Badger
1. The Golden Nib TGN Finest 2-Band Badger Knot Review
2. The Golden Nib TGN Super 3-Band Finest Badger Knot

Best Badger
1. The Golden Nib TGN Best Badger Shaving Brush Knot Review

TGN Badger Knots Macro Photo Analysis
1. The Golden Nib TGN Silvertip Badger Macro Photo Analysis