Get Your Week Started Right! Monday Morning Mailbag for 07/22/2024 

Good Morning, Mark!! Love the Indiana Jones Coffee Mug!!! I second Mark Bagwell's comments regarding the Steve Woodhead Suribachi Bowl!! Have a great rest of the week!!!

For Fall/Winter scents, I recommend Stirling Coniferous, PAA Hinoki & Sage, and PAA Solstice.

Great show as always Mark. Enjoy the rest of the week, take care.

I want a George Brush!! Winston is growing like a weed! They do seems to shoot from little puppy to full sized dog overnight! Brushes should hang down. The water drains down from the not and is spread out to the wider fan of the knot. This increases the circulation passing over the water and thereby increases evaporation. But as you say- your den, your rules! Great Info from Mark Bagwell about Thayer's. Just ordered some.

From my own experience, the knot from an old Ever Ready brush that I had years ago fell out of the handle in pieces. I used to place the brush upright after shaving and this happened probably after only a couple years. I hang my wet brushes on a stand ever since. As as everything, YMMV.

For fall I like PAA Tombstone, Chiseled Face Sherlock, Barrister & Mann Leviathan/Hollows. Great show.

Regarding my favorite scents going into Fall: Harvest Moon from PAA is very underrated. It’s very dry, smoky, dark, mysterious, and incense-y with powdery barbershop notes. To me, it smells like a festive and eery Halloween night in a hay field, a bonfire in the distance, a creepy tobacco barn, autumnal spices, and candy and costumes out the wazoo! Hope you pick this one up. I always reach for it towards the end of August into the Winter. It always puts a smile on my face.

Great show today. Hope all is well in Ohio.

The last trailing parts of soap from a *tub* can be wiped from the inner surface using a moistened shaving brush, and this blended with a piece of soap intended for a current shave. If one has some insufficient "cream" in a tube, I might guess that some water can be used to help remove it, and this soapy water can be used for building a lather for a current shave. The wipe with the moistened brush I already know is practical and I did that. The water in the tube just seems like it would be expected to work, too.

Hello Mark. The Spanish version of Aqua Velva looks intriguing. 🪒

Great show Mark. You mentioned most of my favorite Fall scents, especially Atomic Pumpkin and Cider House 5. I would add Hinoki and White Sage even though it can be used all year round. I use Thayers Witch Hazel after a rough shave and every night I use Thayers pH Balancing Daily Cleanser. It leaves my facial skin soft. It's also a great product. Have a great week. 👍

Another great 3MB! Hendrix is bankrupting me! 😂 love thyers and love the burn! I have found the alum block then spaying thyers on after without washing the alum off works great. As it it dissolves the alum. All of it fantastic.

Hey Mark, As much as I like Thayer’s Witch Hazel, I’ve found ‘Dickinson’s Hydrating Toner with Rose Water’ to be the most exceptional Witch Hazel product I have ever used. I use it directly after a shave before I slap on aftershave splash or whenever my face needs a refresh throughout the day or before bed. I apply witch hazel products with a cotton make-up remover pad. They can be found in 100-200 packs for under $7 in the women’s cosmetic section. I always run a little cold water on them before dousing them in witch hazel and then lightly press and wipe my face and neck with them.

Mark, great show as always. I love that ReelShave. That is a really cool piece of shaving history🙂 Regarding Fall soaps my favorites are: TOBS Tobacco Leaf, PAAs Tombstone, Cold Spices and ClubGuy, Stirling's British Leather, WCS Leather, Caisson Shaving Co.'s Bohica, and Razor Emporium's Sandalwood. I may have missed some😅 Also Thayers rocks!

Great show! Have an amazing week

I appreciate the discussion on Thayer's. It is good guidance. I'm convinced to give it a try post-shave. I'll let you all know how it goes.

Hey Mark, I really enjoyed the three MB this morning. I know a lot of discussion about Thayers, which Hazel went on. I should add one note. Ever since I started using Thayers religiously I have used alum a lot less. Prior to using the Thayers I would probably usethe block, about 1/3 to 1/2 of the time. Since I’ve started using the Thiers use of the alum has greatly decreased. When I do use the album, I use it exactly as you described. I use the alum first. Leave it on wash it off completely and then use the witch hazel. I absolutely use the witch hazel every day now. Thanks again. Hope all is well.

Hahahaha!!! When do I get my entry in the Guinness Book? Haha!! Thanks, Bob, and of course, as always, thanks, Mark.

Looks like the reelshave was produced starting in 1964. Cool piece of shaving history.

@Mark Szorady I wonder if anybody ever accidentally tried to record a message on a Reelshav cassette or tried to shave with a Dictaphone cassette.😂😂😂 Here in Florida Cafe Bustelo is on the shelves of every grocery store. It's even available in K-Cups in two styles, regular espresso and in a rich and creamy cafe con leche flavor. You're doing pretty good with pronunciation of Cafe Bustelo but you're a bit off on your syllables. I'm hearing boos-tell-oh. It should be more like boo-steh-low. Pro tip: Cafe Bustelo instant is a great addition to chocolate cake and brownies. Just add a teaspoon to the liquid ingredients to really boost (no pun intended) the flavor. It's not enough to make your brownies or cake to taste of coffee it adds a bit of depth to chocolate just like a touch of vanilla can. If you're looking for a great variation on the Bay Rum theme, try the Ogallala Bay Rum & Sandalwood. I shake my brush out, rub on a towel or palm of my hand to help unstick the fibers from each other and hang, bristles down to prevent residue building up in the base of the knot. Regarding the plastic tubes for shaving cream. I went down a bit of a tube rabbit hole when I sent you the email about the tube squeezing tool a few weeks ago. The metal tubes have a thin polymer layer inside and out. Up until recently most plastic tube have been laminated with a thin ply of aluminum between two thicker plies of plastic. Procter and Gamble has switched to all plastic HDPE (High Density Polyethylene) tubes for their toothpaste. The new HDPE tubes are recyclable. The Old Spice tube has a recycling symbol with a "7" in the center. This indicates "other", which includes BPA, polycarbonate and bio-plastics. If you aren't sure what kind of plastic tube you have, put it between your eyes and a bright light source. If light shines through, it doesn't have an aluminum lamination layer. FWIW, I doubt many recyclers bother with recycling tubes because they'd have to be residue free to make recycling them worthwhile no matter what materials the tubes are made from. To me, this means the switch to recyclable tubes is more of a PR move, at least for now. Maybe someday there will be an automated machine that can efficiently clean residue from inside tubes. Even knowing this, they're still less wasteful than cans of goo. It would be nice if wet shaving could be zero-waste but it's still very low-waste compared to disposable plastic razors/cartridges and canned goo.

Mark, here's a PS on witch hazel. I have always contended that Thayer's is not "real" witch hazel. Removing the alcohol mitigates its antiseptic property. Thayer's may be a good skin toner but I prefer the antiseptic and astringent properties of TN Dickinson's witch hazel which contains 14% aalcohol. Extracting a concoction from the Witch Hazel plant yields natural alcohols, which vary depending on the amount/methods used. You can't extract Witch Hazel liquid, using any known process, without extracting alcohol. To remove the natural amount of alcohol, you would in essence be altering the base of the compound, making it fake Witch Hazel Extract. Going by the patented, accepted, and standard method for Witch Hazel extract which has been in use for for over two hundred and fifty years, steam distillation of Witch Hazel extract adds exactly 14% alcohol content to the formula which is used as a preservative and as an antiseptc.

Hey Mark another out of the park 3MB as always and Thanks for putting Winston on the show we appreciate it-Have a great day and rest of the week 👍✌️

MMMB and coffee are synonymous. I bought that 7.05 oz jar of Bustelo instant coffee at Walmart for $5.76, less than half the Amazon price. I like a strong cup of coffee and it was easy to kick up the boldness. Bustelo is definitely better than the instant coffee I drank decades ago. BTW, I had one of those Techmatic razors but it never provided a comfortable shave. However, that was back before I did the prep that I do today. Maybe you can find a cartridge that will work in that vintage Real Shave razor. It would be interesting to know how it compares to a traditional DE razor. That would make an awesome video! Take care.

That Razor looks like a Surgical Tool !

Hi Mark! Great 3MB like always, just uploaded my first impression on the great HC&C Qing Long shave soap - the fragrance is crisp and sharp and like Davidoff Cool Water on steroids❤ Like that vintage razor, hope you get the "Cassette" fixed and going - never heard of this razor before. Greetings from Germany 👋🏻 Christian P. S. In most of my videos on RU-vid I have my George by you in the background.

great video Mark !! have a nice week😃

Hi Mark are you familiar with oliwork's razors? A copy of rex razors.