Wednesday SOTD Thread, April 23rd, 2025 (#680)

2025-04-23

• Pre Shave: American Crew Ultra Gliding Shave Oil
• Brush: Sir Marlon Grant - Amazons finest /s, my first brush that I return to from time to time
• Razor: Merkur 25C
• Lather: Taylor of Old Bond Street - Lime Zest
• Post Shave: Alaun & Nivea Men After Shave Protect & Care

Just a quick and standard post shower shave with no obligations afterwards so no fancy after shave or fragrance post shave.

• Brush: Zenith r/wetshaving Moar Boar w/ 31mm Boar
• Razor: Koraat Knives Moarteen straight razor
• Blade: n/a
• Lather: Australian Private Reserve - Fougere Trois
• Post Shave: Australian Private Reserve - Fougere Trois
• Fragrance: Australian Private Reserve - Fougere Trois

Day 23 of APRil, yolo'd my very first straight razor shave ever with the moarteen. 2 slices and 1 chunk cut, gonna youtube how to do this before I try again. I miss modern soaps, a month of APR soap is wearing me down

Quartidi 4 Floréal an 233 de la Révolution, jour d'Aubépine

• Brush: Muninn Woodworks Gloire de France with Zenith 505BC Boar 🐗
• Razor: Koraat 14.2 Straight Razor
• Lather: Mäurer & Wirtz Tabac
• Postshave: Naissance 702 Witch Hazel
• Postshave: Tabac Original After Shave Lotion
• Postshave: Nivea After Shave Balm

I tried again Tabac, this time with a boar – which worked well enough. I went in rather dry, maybe that helped. In any case, I don't have any talk based Tabac around, and I believe what I'm using is the OG vegan base (though I through away the packaging, so I cannot be sure).

Have a good evening!

_{Shared via [emacs](https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/) & [sotd.el](https://gitlab.com/shavin1/sotd.el)}

Southern Farewell Wed 23 Apr 2025

• Brush: Dogwood Handcrafts Tabak Oridjinal, now with 28 mm Gelousy knot
• Razor: Koraat – r/Wetshaving exclusive Moarteen (15/16", full hollow, carbon steel)
• Lather: Chiseled Face Groomatorium – Midnight Stag
• Post Shave: Southern Witchcrafts and Chatillon Lux – La Forêt de Analingus for Excellence in Shitposting
• Fragrance: Southern Witchcrafts – Autumn Ash

Tonight, I'm paying tribute to Southern Witchcrafts and Dogwood, and particularly to u/phteven_j and u/kenzykat who have been an enormous positive force in our community. When I joined the sub back in 2020, Dogwood and SW were all over the sub; in the SOTDs, the side bar, the new products, the mail calls, the reviews. I was fascinated by the SW scents, tried tons of samples, marvelled at their bold weirdness and found favourites of mine like Autumn Ash (the first SW scent I tried IIRC), Pomona, and Carpathia (and some I couldn't get behind, but that's baked in the concept). Phteven was also all over the sub with his endearingly unhinged but insightful comments, in the summer of 2021 his portal made the Lather Games sustainable, and the podcast made them a truly unique community event like I've never seen in any online group. u/kenzykat's 2021 .rip day video with Splendamommy is one of the funniest shit posts I know. To a new sub member, it seemed like they were involved in everything fun happening in the sub, from the order of the stag to crazy Lather Games prizes like La Forêt de Analingus. Dogwood brushes are among the prettiest I know and the Tabac themed custom handle Ptheven made for me is still my favourite splurge in this hobby. I always thought that someday, I'd also have a hybrid one made, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards anymore.

I'm truly grateful that I was around during Southern Witchcraft's and Dogwood's heyday and I cherish my software sets and brushes.

In today's shave, I'm using my all-time favourite brush, the Tabak Oridjinal, and this is the first time ever it's being used to lather anything other than Tabac Original. I wanted a simple handle that immediately evokes the design of the Stank Tank® and the iconic Stank splash bottles, and phteven absolutely nailed it. The colours match perfectly, the resin layers are clean, crisp, and precise, the proportions are perfect (to me) in their simplicity.

The soap, Midnight Stag is famously his favourite scent, so much so that he created The Ancient and Noble Order of Stag which was completed by 14 people each of which received a phandle for their effort. The intensity of the stag craze may have relented a bit in recent years in the sub, but it remained the second-most used soap in 2024, in large parts due to the Order.

The post is a one-off Lather Games prize that SW and CL made for the 2021 games, and the fact that it exists blows my mind every time I think about it. It's a gigantic effort in terms of work and coordination to create such a set for a silly internet challenge, and I love everyone involved for making it happen. It's people with this kind of commitment and creativity to "our" weird little thing here that makes this such a special place to me.

The frag, Autumn Ash was the first SW scent I ever tried and I loved it. Today I learned that Autumn Ash is also the first scent that SW worked on so that's weirdly fitting.

I hesitated about the razor. First I thought I'd use a Red Tip to commemorate Phteven's first SOTD, then a WR1 for his last (NSFW) SOTD, but in the end, SW and DW are about software and brushes, so I decided to keep at it with the Moarteen instead.

Lovely shave this, albeit with a slightly uncoordinated scentscape. Thanks SW/DW! I appreciate what you've done, and wish you all the best going forward ♥♥