djundjila
@djundjila@sub.wetshaving.social
- Comment on Monday SOTD Thread, July 7th, 2025 (#755) 23 hours ago:
Mon 07 Jul 2025
- Brush: Chisel and Hound – Flame On with v26 Fanchurian
- Razor: GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless (gen 2)
- Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
- Lather: Barrister and Mann – Braeburn
- Post Shave: Pitralon - Swiss version
- Fragrance: Acqua di Parma – Blu Mediterraneo Mirto di Panarea
I’m back home, but I enjoyed my travel razor enough to use it one more time before diving back into the straight razors.
- Comment on Sunday SOTD Thread, July 6th, 2025 (#754) 1 day ago:
Sun 06 Jul 2025
- Brush: Boti – Sunrise
- Razor: GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless (gen 2)
- Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
- Lather: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
- Post Shave: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
Last travel shave, it’s back to the grind stone tomorrow. Crangère is still lovely.
- Comment on Saturday SOTD Thread, July 5th, 2025 (#753) 2 days ago:
Sat 05 Jul 2025
- Brush: Boti – Sunrise
- Razor: GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless (gen 2)
- Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
- Lather: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
- Post Shave: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
Crangère++;
- Comment on Friday SOTD Thread, July 4th, 2025 (#752) 3 days ago:
Fri 04 Jul 2025
- Brush: Boti – Sunrise
- Razor: GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless (gen 2)
- Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
- Lather: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
- Post Shave: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
Travel shave. Yesterday, Djunior and I went to see the world’s largest Lego museum, and they have a big Star Wars exhibit. I think this might be his favourite place.
Crangère is lovely, really glad I picked it up.
- Comment on Thursday SOTD Thread, July 3rd, 2025 (#751) 4 days ago:
So good it’s literally without peer!
- Comment on Wednesday SOTD Thread, July 2nd, 2025 (#750) 4 days ago:
I can tell from listening to the podcasts that there’s work involved so the rest of us can have a good time.
It’s not that bad, and it’s good to hear you were having a good time!
- Comment on Wednesday SOTD Thread, July 2nd, 2025 (#750) 4 days ago:
Thanks!
- Comment on Thursday SOTD Thread, July 3rd, 2025 (#751) 4 days ago:
Thu 03 Jul 2025
- Brush: Boti – Sunrise
- Razor: GEM Micromatic Clog-Pruf Peerless (gen 2)
- Blade: Personna GEM PTFE
- Lather: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
- Post Shave: Catie’s Bubbles – Crangère
Travel shave. This set of Crangère arrived during LG and I’ve been looking forward to it. For the next 4 days, it’s the only set I have, and can tell I’ll enjoy it.
- Comment on Wednesday SOTD Thread, July 2nd, 2025 (#750) 5 days ago:
Wed 02 Jul 2025
- Brush: Chisel and Hound – Flame On with v26 Fanchurian
- Razor: Thiers Issard Le Dandy (5/8", square point, carbon steel)
- Lather: Barrister and Mann – Braeburn
- Post Shave: Southern Witchcrafts – Pomona
Travel day! I’m all djudged up for the Lather Games, and today, with an empty docket, I’m travelling with Djunior and Djundjilette to Prague for the next four days. It’s the first time I’m in Prague in a family setting, so I’ll need to adjust the beer intake from the usual level to an appropriate one 😅
A light apple-scented shave felt right for this already scorching hot summer day.
- Comment on Tuesday SOTD Thread, July 1st, 2025 (#749) 6 days ago:
Freedom!🏴Tabac Tuesday!🎉 Tue 01 Jul 2025- Brush: Dogwood Handcrafts Tabak Oridjinal, now with 28 mm Gelousy knot
- Razor: Blutt Rasur – BR-1 (0.99 mm gap)
- Blade: Feather – new Hi-Stainless
- Lather: Mäurer & Wirtz – Tabac Original
- Post Shave: Mäurer & Wirtz – Tabac Original
- Fragrance: Mäurer & Wirtz – Tabac Original
And one more edition of the Lather Games is fought, the results are imminent, and we are in the brief hiatus of freedom before Austere August, Sample Straightember, TabOKtoberfest, and BBS November take us into winter.
Great shave today with the Blutt. I haven’t used it in a while and it reminded me what a fantastic razor it is. Smooth and efficient, exactly like a safety razor should shave.
Now, let’s djudge those last posts!
- Comment on Monday SOTD Thread, June 30th, 2025 (#748) 1 week ago:
Victory Lap: Day 30 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Zwilling J. A. Henckels Friodur 14 (8/8", extra hollow ground, stainless steel)Blade:
- Lather: Declaration Grooming – Cerberus
- Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch
- Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Black Watch
Theme justification: Cerberus and Black Watch came out a year apart, but they have a similar feel IMO and are tied for my all-time favourite scent. The warm fruit and wood really do it for me.
I also went with my current favourite brush and razor. The little badger is making me rethink my size preferences and the Friodur 14 has everything I want from a straight: heft, gentle conviction, stainlessness.
A big thanks to all the participants and the organisers for these Lather Games 😘😘
- Comment on Sunday SOTD Thread, June 29th, 2025 (#747) 1 week ago:
A Toast to the Lather Games: Day 29 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Thiers Issard Le Dandy (5/8", square point, carbon steel)
- Lather: Noble Otter – Thé Noir et Vanille
- Post Shave: Wholly Kaw & House of Mammoth – Iced Tea
Theme justification: Thé Noir is black tea, and I stayed with the tea theme.
- Comment on Saturday SOTD Thread, June 28th, 2025 (#746) 1 week ago:
It’s Alive!: Day 28 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Thiers Issard Le Dandy (5/8", square point, carbon steel)
- Lather: Dr Djudjenstein’s – Nocce di Super Coco
- Post Shave: Mäurer & Wirtz – Wild Ride
Theme justification: I smashed together Vitos’ Super Extra Coco with Wholly Kaw’s Nocce di Cocco. Vitos soap is an old-school hard soap, so hard that it crumbles to dust instead of deforming, which makes it super hard to sample. WK’s soft base to the rescue! If you mash Vitos dust with a smush of WK’s, the concoction becomes malleable again and sticks to the bottom of the loading bowl.
Unsurprisingly combining these two solid soap bases provided for a very slick shave. After this wild ride, I finished off with, well…
- Comment on Friday SOTD Thread, June 27th, 2025 (#745) 1 week ago:
Frigid Friday: Day 27 of Lather Games
- Brush: Djundjila Brushworx u/IcyPooter $FauxFur
- Razor: Delolme – Le Thiernois №14 Acier Spécial pour Coiffeur (8/8", hollow ground, round tip, carbon steel)
- Lather: Wholly Kaw & House of Mammoth – Iced Tea
- Post Shave: Wholly Kaw & House of Mammoth – Iced Tea
- Fragrance: Imaginary Authors – Sundrunk
Theme justification and post/frag relevance: WK Iced tea has synthetic menthol (Menthyl Lactate). I’m leaning into summer beverages with this shave.
- Comment on Thursday SOTD Thread, June 26th, 2025 (#744) 1 week ago:
The Spice is Right: Day 26 of Lather Games
- Brush: Zenith r/Wetshaving exclusive MOAR BADGER (Silvertip)
- Razor: Böker S.S. Paris Wins (6/8", carbon steel, full hollow, square point)
- Lather: Stirling Soap Co. – Stirling Spice
- Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Spiced
- Fragrance: Atelier Rebul – Istanbul
Theme justification and post/frag relevance: Stirling Spice: according to resident spice connoisseur u/Cowzilla3, Stirling spice has a spiciness rating of 3, Seaforth! Spiced has a rating of 4 and Istanbul is a warm spicy fragrance with top notes of cinnamon, cloves, and saffron according to fragrantica.
Song Day Challenge: I’m on a nostalgia trip and it has brought me back to my undergrad days. I was an exchange student in 2006 meeting new people, going to concerts, and having tons of fun. Today, I’m choosing the song with the most out-of-tune guitar in music history Solid Gold by the Eagles of Death Metal from their album Death by Sexy. I dare you to listen to the song and not be in a good mood after.
- Comment on Wednesday SOTD Thread, June 25th, 2025 (#743) 1 week ago:
Christmas in June: Day 25 of Lather Games
- Brush: Chisel and Hound Ambrosia Maple with 26 mm synthetic Maggard knot
- Razor: Thiers Issard Le Dandy (5/8", square point, carbon steel)
- Lather: Macduffs Soap Company – Old Strathcona
- Post Shave: Barrister and Mann – Beaudelaire
- Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Fleur de France
Theme justification: This generous smush is from @sahenders@sub.wetshaving.social , whom I can thank for experiencing the Macduffs base. I’ve since bought a set of their Trail Tobacco which I greatly enjoy. It was used in one of the first Buena Vista Wetshaving Social Club meetings, throught which I have discovered a few great new-to-me bases and artisans.
Relevant post or frag: Old Strathcona is a barbershop scent that plays into the fougère area, so I’m going with three scents that all play with being fougère. Following the soap, comes Baudelaire which is actually a fougère (+ Mousse de Saxe) but you kinda need to play tricks like combining it with a strong Mousse de Saxe scent to really feel the green come out. It’s one of the most fascinating scents that way and fun to play with (look [here](reddit.com/r/Wetshaving/comments/…/l9bj7qb/] and here for a fun little experiment). Finally, Fleur de France smells like the result of making a fougère but without any green notes. The geranium, coumarin and oakmoss feel like the base of a fougère, the citron also fits in there, but there’s no lavender or vetiver. I initially struggled to categorise this scent and find pairings, but at one point two years ago when playing with Fougère Nemeta, Varen, and FdF, it clicked for me.
Wetshaving Wish List: Easy, u/C_bubbles, the people (mostly me) need Gruyère, a cheese-topped fougère in prem base, preferably in time for fondue season. You can even reuse the Blugère/Crangère artwork concept, making it yellow this time. A guaranteed success.
- Comment on Tuesday SOTD Thread, June 24th, 2025 (#742) 1 week ago:
All About That Base: Day 24 of Lather Games
- Brush: Zenith 506B MB (27 mm × 51 mm Manchurian badger)
- Razor: Delolme – Le Thiernois №14 Acier Spécial pour Coiffeur (8/8", hollow ground, round tip, carbon steel)
- Lather: Klar – Kohle
- Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co – Glacial Unscented
Theme justification: Kohle is unscented. And so is Stirling Unscented
I’m not sure what possessed me to buy glacial unscented balm years ago, but her we are.
Base Wars:
Discontinued bases in decreasing order of how much it’s missed:
- Tabac’s pre-2022 tallow base: this base has a ridiculously large usable hydration range. It was replaced by coconut oil froth. I still have a few pucks of the good base, but in a couple years it’s the end.
- Excelsior: This was my most used base for a while, and every time I use it I’m reminded of how good it is. This isn’t a knock on Omnibus, which is a great base.
- 20.1: My first two AAs were in 20.1. This base was fantastic, and the Highland base wasn’t a step up IMO, more like a lateral step towards more greasy bases like Omnibus.
Favourite current bases in decreasing order:
- Cbubs Premium Base: Definitely worth the premium price IMO. Creamy, dense, and slick without feeling greasy.
- Stirling sheep: My face just loves this base for some reason. After shaving with it I often feel like a post shave product isn’t necessary.
- Mike’s: This was a bit of a discovery for me this February. This simple and time-tested base is just easy to lather and really slick.
- Comment on Monday SOTD Thread, June 23rd, 2025 (#741) 2 weeks ago:
Information Overload: Day 23 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Atelier Durdan – Horizon $ARTISTCLUB $ADJUSTABLE $CNC
- Blade: Feather Professional
- Lather: Southern Witchcrafts – Autumn Ash
- Post Shave: Southern Witchcrafts – Autumn Ash
- Fragrance: Southern Witchcrafts – Autumn Ash
Theme justification: Scent notes: Maple, spice, smoke, amber, cedar, oud, rain, plum, blackberry, ash, birch tar, pumpkin, coffee, dirt, mildew
Autumn Ash was one of my first love-on-first sniff soaps, and now it’s a cherished treasure to be used sparingly. It has 15 scent notes, that really tell a story of warm, sweet, smokey autumn.
One pass ATG with the Horizon on 4 went very well. This razor feels really smooth, and by now (third use) I’ve got the angle locked in and an don’t need a lot of cleanup work. This razor goes on the to-buy list for me. Innovation in safety razors is rare, and this mechanism is novel, simple, and functional.
- Comment on Friday SOTD Thread, June 20th, 2025 (#738) 2 weeks ago:
Honestly, it’s not more finicky than a three piece DE taxis once you’ve done it a couple times
- Comment on Friday SOTD Thread, June 20th, 2025 (#738) 2 weeks ago:
Nah, you just side it where you want it before tightening the handle onto the head, at which point that screw holds the slider tightly in place
- Comment on Saturday SOTD Thread, June 21st, 2025 (#739) 2 weeks ago:
Yeah, I’m thinking the same. I’ll probably but this one, just to support the effort. Innovation is rare, and this is really, really functional innovation
- Comment on Sunday SOTD Thread, June 22nd, 2025 (#740) 2 weeks ago:
It Takes Two: Day 22 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Atelier Durdan – Horizon $ARTISTCLUB $ADJUSTABLE $CNC
- Blade: Feather Professional
- Lather: Stirling Soap Co – Black Pepper Lime
- Post Shave: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! Sea Spice Lime
- Fragrance: №4711 – Acqua Colonia Blood Orange & Basil
Theme justification: Black pepper and lime. All software today is marketed as a citrus and something (although only the soap claims two scent notes): Black pepper + lime, sea spice + lime, basil + blood orange.
Very satisfying shave. The fully open Horizon is a very nice shaver. Smooth and with a strong blade feel. The R41 of AC safety razors.
- Comment on Saturday SOTD Thread, June 21st, 2025 (#739) 2 weeks ago:
K.I.S.S: Day 21 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Atelier Durdan – Horizon $ARTISTCLUB $ADJUSTABLE $CNC
- Blade: Feather Professional
- Lather: Nordic Shaving Company – Coffee
- Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co – Orange Chill
- Fragrance: Imaginary Authors – Saint Julep
Theme justification: Nordic Shaving Company’s Coffee is just that: “This soap has a pleasant and rich, even a little bit sweet scent of fresh roasted coffee.”, and it’s a good start for a brunch beverage themed scentscape: coffee followed refreshing orange juice (also one scent note) and a mint Julep (unfortunately multiple scent notes, but who’s counting)
Oh, I like this razor. Today I used it on level 8, where it has a good amount of blade feel, but it mostly it’s smooth and efficient. I might find some rare safety razor thrill for this one.
- Comment on Friday SOTD Thread, June 20th, 2025 (#738) 2 weeks ago:
The Clash: Day 20 of Lather Games
- Brush: Declaration Grooming Washington Blood of Kings B3
- Razor: Atelier Durdan – Horizon $ARTISTCLUB $ADJUSTABLE $CNC
- Blade: Feather Professional
- Lather: CBL – Rock the Casbah
- Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. – Boat Drinks
- Fragrance: Farina – 1709
Theme justification: I never wrote down the scent notes of CBL Rock the Casbah because I don’t like the scent, and apparently the internet agrees with me because I can’t for the life of me find any person or site that found it worthwhile preserving them. The scent is a strong aromatic lavender (and if you’ve ever tried CBL, you know what I mean by “strong”. It’ll wrinkle your nose) with some warm, slightly nausea-inducing note that neither I nor my wife can place. What’s sure is that it doesn’t play well with sweet banana-coconut-rum combo of boat drinks. Farina’s bright Tuscan summer citrus throws a last wrench in this construction. You’ll note that I chose products that dissipate quickly.
The star of this shave is the razor. These hashtags have never been seen in that combination before. In this particular community, being European is usually a downside: I pay more for things, get them later, and reselling makes no sense because of shipping costs. But not today. Our ever-busy shave goods sponge u/J33pGuy13 somehow has the juice to get a prototype of the soon-to-be-released Horizon (French horizon, not English) for a pass-around. Since I live closest to Augustin, the pass-around starts with me 🎉.
So this razor has a very simple cam mechanism to move the base plate back and forth w.r.t the top cap where the blade tabs anchor the blade. Looking at the video from Augustin, I was worried about the alignment between the base plate and the top cap as the adjustment bolt slides from one end of the cam to the other, but it turns out that the two pieces have tight tolerances: they slide easily with no perceptible slack. Really satisfying.
I decided to start on level one for this first use. It’s fairly straight forward to find the right angle, and even at this lowest exposure, the razor is plenty efficient. The feedback is not quite GEM or Futur level, but quite loud and satisfying by safety razor standards. The head is heavy, maybe the heaviest I’ve tried, and that includes contraptions like the Wilkinson razor. I’m not sure yet how I feel about that, but it didn’t get in the way of a close and comfortable shave.
I’m a sucker for mechanical innovations in safety razors so this is catnip for me. I can’t find thrill anymore for yet another very well made three-piece safety razor, but this I can get behind. I’m holding back and try to continue forming opinion until I have more shaves with it under the belt, but this went as well as a first shave can.
- Comment on Thursday SOTD Thread, June 19th, 2025 (#737) 2 weeks ago:
(which cannot be sold as rum anymore, because EU).
Really? That’s interesting. I buy it for Feuerzangenbowle and it’s still sold as rum here
- Comment on Thursday SOTD Thread, June 19th, 2025 (#737) 2 weeks ago:
Juneteenth: Day 19 of Lather Games
- Brush: Rubberset 400-3 with a 26 mm unbleached Zenith boar knot at 56 mm loft $Hollow $AtomicAge $DoorKnob
- Razor: Wilkinson Sword – Wilkinson Razor $ADJUSTABLE $EIGHTDAYSAWEEK $FOREVERSAFETY $MACHINEAGE
- Lather: Martin de Candre – Absinthe
- Post Shave: Speick – Men Active
- Fragrance: Spearhead Shaving Company – Seaforth! 3 Scots
Theme justification: It’s a hot summer Sunday morning in Commugny, and drops of morning dew glint on the leaves and grapes of the vineyards around the village. The air is still heavy from the thunderstorm that had rolled over Lake Geneva the night before. Vineyard worker Jean Lanfray had slept like shit and wakes up in a mood. He is thirsty. He decides to sneak out before his wife wakes up and starts nagging him about the list of chores to get done before the baby arrives. Jean knows that she hates him, and that the only reason she hasn’t divorced him yet is because the priest at Founex had convinced her to stick with him. Down the street, Jean slinks into Gorgette’s Buvette and orders a glass of wine, then another. He gets hungry and orders a sandwich with another glass of wine. The thirst doesn’t go away and he keeps ordering until he has finished a bottle. His dad shows up and they decide to drink cognac. Six glasses later, Jean feels a bit tired and orders a coffee with brandy and two crèmes de menthe for dessert. By now it’s early afternoon, and Jean knows that he better goes home now, so he quickly orders a glass of absinthe to wash it all down. And a second glass, just to make sure. At home, he’s a bit tired again, so he tells his wife to make him another coffee with brandy. Scared, she does what he asks. He likes the feeling of power and orders her to polish his shoes, but this time she starts talking back. Going on about divorce again. Jean loses it. The nerve on her. And pregnant with his child, too! He gets his Vetterli rifle from the foot locker and beats her over the head with it. That will teach her, he thinks, but instead she starts screaming for help and runs away, to the back door through the kitchen. He follows her with three long strides, aims and shoots her in the back of her head. Alarmed, his 4 year old daughter Rose comes storming in and he shoots her too. Her little sister Blanche, 18 months old, starts crying in her pram and he shuts her up with a shot in the head. Now he can hear the neighbours yell for the gendarmerie and it dawns on him that this might end poorly for him. He leaves the house and goes to his barn, where he sits down and shoots himself in the face. He misses his brain and only mangles his jaw. He collapses. The gendarmes arrest him minutes later. The trial lasts only one day, and Dr Albert Mahaim, a leading psychologist and expert witness testifies that Lanfray had suffered from a classic case of absinthe madness. Obviously. The public outrage is enormous, and already a few months later, on May 15, 1906, the Canton de Vaud bans the production, sale, possession, and consumption of absinthe. At the federal level, a ballot initiative bans it a few years later in a constitutional amendment, starting the era of moonshine absinthe in the Val de Travers. Think Appalachia, but the bootleggers speak French and make expensive watches in winter.
Fast forward to the late 1990s and a teenage djundjila growing up in a small town in northern Switzerland, looking for ways to rebel with his friends discovers absinthe. The green fairy, de verbotni schnaps.
Nowadays, 20 years after the federal ban had been lifted, the smell of absinthe still reminds me of evenings at the banks of the Aare, drinking moonshine absinthe and feeling grown-up, cool, and free. If you’re wondering about the bottle of US moonshine that was smuggles to Switzerland in a nappy bag in the SOTD picture, I added it because it tells me that people feel the same about moonshine everywhere, and that’s why they keep making them even after prohibitions end.
Relevant post or frag: Speick has a similar folklore as absinthe, centring around exaggerated properties ascribed to a mountain herb, and 3 Scots makes me think of William Wallace and his fight for freedom (I know that it’s the name of a British regiment, the irony isn’t lost on me).
Challenge: I first planned to use an open blade razor for this like u/Marquis90 is his legendary lake shave, but TACOed eventually. With a safety razor, it’s surprisingly easy to shave without mirror. The only difficulties are feeling the side burns levels and feeling all the missed spots.
The Wilkinson is a fun over-engineered razor that tries to be everything at once: auto-stropping, switchable, but rehonable blades, and adjustable. It’s functional, but not a razor I enjoy with its gigantic head that gets in the way.
- Comment on Wednesday SOTD Thread, June 18th, 2025 (#736) 2 weeks ago:
Sadly both sticks aren’t readily available anymore in smaller drugstores like they used to be…
The palmolive one is even out of production :(
- Comment on Wednesday SOTD Thread, June 18th, 2025 (#736) 2 weeks ago:
Canned Shave Goop featuring a Canadian pharmacy’s intercom music playlist: Day 18 of Lather Games
- Brush: Chisel and Hound – Flame On with v26 Fanchurian
- Razor: Eversharp-Schick Hydro-magic (I2, NOS) #Injector
- Blade: Personna Injector Blade
- Lather: Speick – Men Active Rasierseife
- Post Shave: Pitralon - Swiss version
- Fragrance: Acqua di Parma – Blu Mediterraneo Mirto di Panarea
Theme justification: All of these products were bought in the department store less than five minutes of foot from my home.
The Speick soap is really good. It’s a vegan base that’s easy to lather and doesn’t froth a lot (which I find that commercial European soaps often do), and I enjoy the generic fresh scent of Speick products. In fact, I also used the matching deodorant today. This soap was the first shave soap that I really liked, and I used it exclusively for a while before I slipped and fell into the rabbit hole. Pitralon is a favourite of mine and it leaves the skin silky smooth like SW toners (used to 😭) do.
- Comment on Tuesday SOTD Thread, June 17th, 2025 (#735) 2 weeks ago:
So you actually have no idea which is which?
Yup, I haven’t figured out a way to make sure, other that forcing rust on them, which I’ll do at some point. For now, I kinda enjoy not knowing :)
- Comment on Monday SOTD Thread, June 16th, 2025 (#734) 2 weeks ago:
Yes they did, and this particular one is full hollow by modern standards, not like the Celebrated. Quite fascinating, this.
