Perfect shave today

Very wonderful shave. I used my Rod Need brush—this one has a coin from the year of my birth embedded in the base—and TOBS Lavender, which immediately yielded a very fine lather. I now see that the traditional English shaving soaps—such as TOBS, Trumper, Truefitt & Hill, D.R. Harris, Floris, and Creed—do not, as I mistakenly recalled, have the soap to the absolute brim (as does Martin de Candre and some artisanal soaps), but rather have a 1/4″ gap between top of soap and the brim. That amount seems fine. Once the gap gets to be an inch or more, it seems a lot of wasted space.

Again I used enough water to load the brush, but not more, and I did add a good driblet of water as I worked up the lather on my beard.

The red-tipped Gillette Super Speed is  fine razor, and with a Schick Plus Platinum blade it left my face BBS quite easily.

A good splash of La Toja aftershave—and aftershave I rather like—and the holiday commences.