The Martin de Candre Week

Just a reminder that the new rating system goes into effect with this week’s shaves. You stand warned. Oh, and there have been a few design changes. Enjoy!

With my last sample soap purchase from Maggards’, I added a couple more Martin de Candre soaps. Martin de Candre, for those who may not recall it from the Original formula’s debut here some months ago, is a French soap and perfume manufacturer. They started in 1974, which for some “artisinal” shaving soap brands is practically ancient. Their shaving soaps in particular are noted for being very hard and requiring very little to produce a voluminous lather. This may have something to do with a standard jar of their soaps going for $75 or more. The samples in question this week were each purchased for around $6. I believe I’m on track to get 6 or more shaves from them, as I’ve used the Original formula once and it barely shows a gouge from the spoon.

Anyway, I’d made the decision when planning this week of shaves to get the newer two MdC soaps in, and just decided to make it a clean sweep for the week. So on Sunday, you can also look for my MdC Original rating in the Lather Ratings page.

And coming off of the month of Lord blade shaves, rotating across the same 3 razors each week for 4 weeks, I also knew I was due for a change. So the GameChanger .68 -p gets the call.

Yes, it feels more medium aggressive to me than mild-medium. But I really like this razor. It’s just so pretty and well made, and I appreciate the heck out of it. But since it’s more medium aggressive, I need to pair it with a less aggressive blade. Now, coming off of the Lord month, I could pull in the Platinum or Super Chrome. But I want to get on with my life and use something else. I was initially planning on using the Shark Super Stainless, but decided to swap that out in favor of something I haven’t used since March: the Dorco Platinum HQ Red.

What? I’ve used that more recently than the Shark? Well, tough. It’s getting the call. I’ve committed it to the spreadsheet, and it is fait accompli.

So there are the basics. What else is coming this week? 3 synthetic brushes: the Yaqi Rainbow, Parker Blue Storm, and the Simpson Trafalgar T2.

Also appearing will be kind of the premium end of the pre-shave and post shave products. The Proraso Refreshing (green) pre and post shaves appear on Sunday (probably paired with the similarly scented beard oil and balm), but I manage to kind of cheat and get in a Proraso Sunday without the whole line. The Cella Organic pre-shave shows up on Tuesday, bookending the shave with the Proraso Azur Lime balm (again, probably with the azur lime beard products). And Thursday, I go a little more pedestrian with the Carden Farms pre-shave, but finish with another French product, the Pre de Provence No. 63 Aftershave balm.

So there you go. New ratings, new soaps, slightly new layout. Enjoy the week! I know I plan to.

The Ratings

Sunday’s Shave #340 The Martin de Candre Original Sunday Shave.

The setup:

New week, new combo, new post format, new rating system…And another outstanding shave.

The Martin de Candre soap makes a ton of lather, but for my liking, it isn’t as slick as I’d like or as slick as some others in the collection. But paired with the Proraso green pre-shave, it was nicely slick and ultimately very comfortable.

I think I’ve said it before, but I’m finding that the more mild-medium or medium aggressive razors really work well for me with a less aggressive shave. And pairing it with the Dorco Platinum HQ Red seems to have been the right move. Not to say the Shark Super Stainless would have been bad or worse, but this was a great combo with a good combination of comfort and effeciency.

There was a little bit of sparkle across my neck with the alum, so that’s why I gave it a 9 of 10 for comfort. But the closeness feels outstanding, with no noticeable stubble left behind. And overall, this was an extremely satisfying shave that brought me some great joy to start a shave week.

Comfort: 9 of 10 | Quality/Closeness: 10 of 10 | Satisfaction: 5 of 5 | Overall: 24 of 25

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Tuesday’s Shave, #341 The MdC Midweek Shave

The setup:

RAZOR	Razorock GameChanger .68 -p
BLADE	Dorco Platinum HQ Red
PRE-SHAVE	Cella Organic pre-shave gel (green)
BRUSH	Parker Blue Storm synthetic
LATHER	Martin de Candre Magellan soap
AFTER SHAVE	Proraso Azur Lime Single Blade Aftershave balm
STATS	1st shave with the MdC Magellan 9th shave with the Parker Blue Storm brush 3rd shave with an MdC product 8th shave with the Cella green pre-shave gel 2nd shave with the Proraso Azur Lime balm
RANKING	151st almost perfect shave 2nd consecutive almost perfect shave 61st shave with a rating of 24 (22.1% of logged)

New shave, new soap, and I can reiterate that while the MdC produces a metric ton of lather with just a tiny bit of soap scooped out of the sample tub, it isn’t as slick or rich a lather as, say, Saponificio Varesino, Cella, Proraso, or others in the collection, which is a bit disappointing. That isn’t to say it’s a bad soap, though. I like the fragrance–it’s light, pleasant, slightly spicy but also with a little sweet and herbal tones as well.

I’m taking a holistic approach here. On Sunday, I used a Proraso pre-shave, and today I used some Cella pre-shave, and they worked well, providing a nice slick layer under the lather. And that seemed to help the razor and blade combo do their jobs with a minimum of irritation.

The GC/Dorco combo seems to be an oustanding match–one that I’ll have to come back to in the future. It’s efficient enough, needing some extra strokes to clean up the usual problem spots, and only producing a few very minor sparkles on my neck with the alum (hence the 9 of 10 for comfort).

On the whole, this was a great, highly satisfying shave, and one that I would happily come back to. I’m looking forward to Thursday’s shave to see what the Vetiver fragrance has to offer.

Comfort: 9 of 10 | Quality/Closeness: 10 of 10 | Satisfaction: 5 of 5 | Overall: 24 of 25

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Thursday’s Shave, #342 The MdC French Vetiver Shave.

The setup:

RAZOR	Razorock GameChanger .68 -p
BLADE	Dorco Platinum HQ Red
PRE-SHAVE	Carden Farms Clear & Clean Shaving Soap Stick
BRUSH	Simpson Trafalgar T2 synthetic
LATHER	Martin de Candre Vetiver soap
AFTER SHAVE	Pre de Provence No. 63 Aftershave balm
STATS	1st shave with the MdC Vetiver 2nd shave with the Simpson Trafalgar T2 4th shave with the Pre de Provence balm 16th shave with the Dorco blade 13th shave wtih the GameChanger
RANKING	152nd almost perfect shave 91st shave with a rating of 23 (32.9% of logged)

It’s the end of the MdC week, and while I can say that I’m a little underwhelmed, I’m not disappointed. Martin de Candre soaps are very nice, let me make that clear here at the top. But in my experience and with my preferences for my soaps, I’ve got better.

But all of these shaves were very nice–efficient enough for the most part, though I did break off today’s shave as I was starting to feel the scrape-feel on my neck, and I needed to make sure not to incur more irritation. The result was a less-close shave than Sunday or Tuesday, but with just about the same comfort. This razor/blade combo was a good one, and I’ll come back to it, but I’m excited to try some similarly mild blades with the GameChanger, like the Lord Super Chrome, Shark Super Stainless, Parker, and Derby Extra. So look for those down the road.

The second use of the Simpson brush was nice–this clearly is a better grade of synthetic than some of my others, because it’s holding its shape better, and showed stiffness and flexibility that made for an excellent lather. And I like the form factor of the handle–kind of thick and stubby, but easy to grip without being too large.

In the end, this was a great week of shaves with another exciting week to come.

Comfort: 9 of 10 | Quality/Closeness: 9 of 10 | Satisfaction: 5 of 5 | Overall: 23 of 25