u/Mister_Normal42

I’ve been figuring out what I like these last couple months and come to the conclusion that I’m more of a sweet aromatics kinda guy. I can do a non-aromatic smokey/mesquite kind of tobacco but I have to be in a certain mood but most of the time what I want is the sweet stuff. So I went to the tobacconist today with every intention of just expanding my selection of sweet aromatic varieties to have on hand at home and I saw these beautiful Hanseatic red stained pipes they had just gotten in yesterday and for only $60 I couldn’t help myself. Absolutely wonderful pipe! Clenches nicely in the teeth, nice hand feel and smokes like a dream. Highly recommend if you see these in the wild!

Paid about $70 for all 3. Probably overpaid but oh well. The little travel Gillette and the Gem Micromatic are easy enough to find info about but does anyone recognize the other regular-size Gillette?

My mother got me a Viking Shaving Revolution kit several years ago and it’s what got me into DE shaving to begin with. Bit by bit I’ve been swapping out each part of the kit as I come to understand how awful everything in this kit was compared to the real stuff. The pre-shave oil and post shave balm were both just ok bit kinda meh compared to other products I’ve found. And the "premium japanese stainless" blades that came with the kit must have just been rebranded generic dollar-store blades because the were just terrible compared to the Gillette Silver Blues I use now. The soap puck that came with it just produced crappy lather no matter what I did, but I came to find out about Sterling Soap company’s tallow/lanolin pucks which I love, the brush that came with it was scratchy and shed a lot of fibers every time I shaved and was just all around bad, but I found some silver tip badger hair brushes I really like. I still have the lathering bowl that came with the kit but it’s tiny and I’ll be replacing it with a bigger one soon. I’ve kept the handle around because I do like the weight, feel and grip… but it’s just awful when it comes to actual shaving. I feel like I’ve tried every combination of soaps, blades, techniques, pre-shave oils and no matter what, I always end up with nicks and skin burn with this handle. I get great results from my King C. Gillette handle and from a cheap no-name handle I got from CVS, but this one… is just… bad. And I know if I keep it around I’ll occasionally try to give it another shot and just end up with a sore face again for a couple days. Once I get rid of this handle and the lathering bowl, the stand that holds handles and brushes will be the only thing I actually kept from the Viking Revolution kit.

I guess what I’m saying is… While I appreciate the introduction to DE wet-shaving, if this kit is representative of what to expect from the brand as a whole, I’d suggest staying far away from Viking Revolution shaving products

I was told this stuff would be similar to the old formulation of Mitchell's... It is not. It doesn't even hold a candle to the Taylor of Old Bond Street cream I've been using. I was sorely disappointed at how thin and anemic it went onto the skin and how grabby my blade was with it, no mater how much I tried to work up the lather. I gave this stuff a try and after the 3rd time nicking myself I washed off my face, bowl, brush and razor, threw this stuff in the trash and started over again with my TOBS. I'd advise avoiding this stuff if you like a think cushiony luxurious lather. Got some samples coming from Sterling Soap Company tho. Looking forward to that.

EDIT: I pulled it back out of the trash (thankfully nothing else was in the trash yet lol) and at the recommendation of a few here, I'll try it again on my next shave and just load the brush up with an obscene amount of it and see what happens. I thought I was already loading up a pretty hefty amount but I'll just dissolve a huge chunk of the puck into the brush and bowl and see.

Seriously WTF is wrong with some people. If this is you, just hand your kids over to the state. You’re clearly unequipped to show another human how to live.

EDIT: Some of you are nasty AF trying to downplay sh!t like this. I will not be gaslit into the BS notion that there is anything even remotely normal or acceptable about this. "Oh it's not that big a deal! Everyone's left a bag of feces on top of bathroom fixtures in public places where there's multiple non-full trash cans in clear line of sight!" No this is not okay at all, you nasty... NASTY bastards.