Brush: Dogwood Handcrafts Papa Eld with Declaration Grooming B3 knot
Razor: Wade & Butcher Celebrated Fine India Steel Razor -13/16 near wedge with barber's notch
Lather: Southern Witchcrafts Pomona
Aftershave: Summer Break Soaps Teacher's Pet
Fragrance: Stirling Soap Co. – Island Man
Kind of a good news, bad news situation. We have our first upset, but DG took a surprisingly brütal beating yesterday:
64 🦦 vs 26 🦬
Who would have thought just a few years ago that Declaration Grooming could lose this match-up by more than a 2-1 margin? DG was king. Talk about fall from grace 😳.
The race was never close, to the hour-by-hour horse race table is less interesting that the one for the BaM-SW nailbiter two days ago:
No
DG
Other
Total
Time (GMT)
0
0
0
0
06:00
1
1
0
2
07:00
3
1
0
4
08:00
4
2
1
7
09:00
6
3
1
10
10:00
8
4
1
13
11:00
14
5
2
21
12:00
18
6
4
28
13:00
27
10
5
42
14:00
32
12
5
49
15:00
37
14
5
56
16:00
40
15
6
61
17:00
42
16
7
65
18:00
42
17
8
67
19:00
46
18
8
72
20:00
47
18
8
73
21:00
49
18
8
75
22:00
50
19
8
77
23:00
52
20
8
80
00:00
57
22
8
87
01:00
58
22
9
89
02:00
61
23
9
93
03:00
62
25
9
96
04:00
62
26
9
97
04:45
I had mentioned that I suspected NO might win, just based on how visible the two brands have been in the sub recently, but I thought it'd be close. this almost Tabacalypse-level of clarity definitely took me by surprise.
Today's Wedgeday shave is brought to by Southern Wedgecrafts and Wedge & Butcher. The heavy Sheffield cleaver is alwaysa joy to use and Pomona and Teacher's Pet are a very uncontroversial pairing that immediately got me compliments from the missus. I'll spritz on the Island Man before leaving for the office.
When I started this lifestyle back in 2020 Scott was all the rage. I think Milksteak was relatively new at that point? His scents and brushes never really clicked with me, which has saved me lots of money!
You and I started right around the same time, and I have had a similar experience. I do like some of his scents (Fake Yellow Light!), some of his dupes (MOTI!), and several of his collabs (Weinstrasse, YRP!), but I feel like every other time I heard from Scott in his own words, he was either complaining about his customers on podcasts on the chat, or making non-apology-apologies for long wait times and defective products like unlatherable Opulence and broken B12 knoots.
My first contrarian loss. If each round went according to seed, and I pick the higher number in each round, I get to use 15 out of 16 soaps on competition days. If I pick the lower number in each round, and there are no upsets, 8 out of 16 soaps get used. Clearly, I have my own ideas of winning :)