Excellent packaging; simple, functional, and with a label straight out of a 1950’s boxing movie – Hydrolast/Everlast…you get my drift. The Hydrolast line, like l’Occitane or Institute Karite, begs to be displayed on your counter like some “period” movie prop. No one will confuse this stuff with your better-half’s lotions and potions. The only thing that mars the packaging is the hand-applied white sticky label covered with Scotch-tape, that denotes the scent in any given bottle. I understand the costs involved in making and stocking custom labels for every SKU, but at these prices I expect better, even from a Mom & Pop operation!
The traditional mainstay of Method Shaving is the Shave Cube, a large, square block of olive-oil soap that is the backbone of a Hydrolast superlather (because, all protestations to the contrary, that’s basically what you’re making here). I like the earthy, musty smell of olive-oil soaps and “Da Cube” as its sometimes referred to, is every bit as stinky as the best of them. Either you hate it or you tolerate it – that’s as good as it gets.
Hydrolast Shaving Paste is a mysterious product that I can only guess is a concoction of some clay and other hydrophilic substances. Unfortunately, like most Hydrolast products it lacks a “contents” list – and frankly, even the products that do have one sound ingenuous, e.g. Hydrolast Activator says simply: “Proprietary bland of vegetal oils, proprietary blend of essential oils”, but it dissolves in water! As far as I know oil and water don’t mix unless there is a hydrolyzing agent, but there is no reference to one on the label. There are a variety of scents and they all all quite pleasant, albeit a little mild for my taste.
These three products then are the core of a Method shave – first you rub your Shavemaster brush on Da Cube, add some Activator and some Paste into the “breach” of the brush, a few dribbles of water and away you go. The Shavemaster brush is custom-made for Charles Roberts and is supposedly the only “purpose built” brush for wet-shaving on the market (another spurious claim that inevitably undermines the credibility of Method Shaving). That said, I really like the brush and find myself using it about 50% of the time for all my shaves regardless of products used. Its strength, for me, is its size and ergonomics, which work very well with my large, stiff hands.
The final “classic” Method Shaving product is the Hydrolast Cutting Balm, another “Proprietary blend of oils” that is actually, well, a blend of oils! It is used for the 5th (or more) finishing pass or “gloss cut” in Methodspeak. I’m not sure why Roberts calls it a “balm” instead of an oil (that would be too easy I guess!).
As a result, I suspect, of resistance to The Cube’s smell, Charles Roberts has released a series of scented shaving “rounds” (soaps) that I haven’t tried yet (and I probably won’t as I’m not overly enamored of the line, to be honest!).
Hydrolast also has a number of post-shave products, notably the Aromatic Tonic and the Shave Conditioner (available in various scents). You spray some Tonic on your face (basically some lightly-scented water in a small pump-bottle) and then immediately overlay the Shave Conditioner (a moisturizing cream) on your damp face.
Next installment: Performance
