My business partner and his family dropped by yesterday to deliver Christmas gifts. Mine was an assortment of Greek men’s toiletries including shampoo, shaving foam, and after-shave balm. They are all made with mastic, an exotic aromatic tree resin that is native to the island of Chios (map above in red), and has a most unique and pleasant smell. I decided to follow through on the Greek theme by using a fresh BIC DE blade (made in Greece) in my E. J. Chatsworth razor. There was some trepidation at first since I don’t particularly like shave foam (“goo in a can” as Corey Greenberg used to call it) and wasn’t sure it could provide the protection demanded from a DE blade.
The shampoo was outstanding, with one of the most pleasant “organic” scents I’ve ever encountered, taking me back to my childhood when my grandmother would give me tiny bits of mastic to chew instead of commercial chewing gum. A definite re-buy although it is brutally expensive at $20 USD for 200 ml.
The shave foam isn’t really a foam (good news); in fact, one has to pump the nozzle manually in order to push the cream through. I can only assume that the objective is to aerate the cream and give it a foam-like appearance in order to cater to the goo-in-a-can crowd (very misguided IMHO). Next shave I will try it straight from the container (fortunately the aerator nozzle unscrews). This is one of the most lubricating shave products I’ve ever used beating out even Cremo Cream. Despite a very thin “foam” the blade just flew over the three-day beard growth and resulted in a very smooth finish (despite the BIC being somewhat sub-par in terms of sharpness). Even after rinsing off the foam I could still feel a slick residue on my face and didn’t even bother with the oil pass, using the residue for the final “gloss cut”.
The after-shave balsam was also very aromatic in a “clean and natural” scent, although it is dispensed from a glass bottle which makes it very difficult since the product is quite thick.
This is an interesting line of products that I need to experiment with a little more. Fortunately, that is a pretty attractive prospect. The products have limited distribution but are available on-line here.