Ariana & Evans Mail Call: Nero e Rosso and Obsidian Ember

Hey folks, welcome back to the Shave Den. Recording this Sunday morning, the day after the New York Knicks won the NBA championship for the first time in 53 years. First time in my lifetime. What a series. My whole family was invested the entire way through, and last night they finally got it done. One for the record books.

I was out most of Saturday car shopping with my son. He’s heading to college soon and we’ve been at it for weeks. We finally landed something yesterday, which felt great. But when I got home, there was a box sitting there that I was not expecting. A mail call from Peter at Ariana & Evans.

I want to thank Peter and his daughter Thalia for this. Very generous, very kind, and I’m honored to be able to share what’s in here with the community.

Obsidian Ember

First thing out of the box is the Obsidian Ember Artisan Shave Soap, and it’s in one of A&E’s new glass jars. The wide-mouth ones. You may have seen Peter sharing progress on these as he’s been rebuilding inventory. The opening is about the same size as the old plastic tubs, but it’s all glass now. And the A&E logo is engraved into the bottom of the glass itself. Not printed, not labeled. Molded in. That’s a detail you don’t have to bother with. Peter bothered with it.

His plan, from what I understand, is to move everything over from plastic to glass over time. The wide-mouth jar is for the main lineup. He’s also working on proper shipping boxes for these. The guy is thorough.

The label shows a cherry and coffee beans. That tells you where the fragrance is going. I put my nose in the jar and the cherry hit me right away. Coffee is in there, you can tell, but it’s way in the background. I’m not the biggest fan of heavy coffee fragrances day to day. You don’t want to smell like you knocked a pot over. This one leans much more fruit than coffee. Cherry is the star. The coffee is just grounding it without shouting. I’m really liking this.

It’s in the new Ultima 2 base. Great news.

The matching splash came in the box, too. Five ounces, big bottle. Label looks great. Between the soap and the splash, you’ve got a complete set. I’m seriously thinking about using this for the razor battle I’ve been planning, the Bison versus the Overlander. I’ve got four days of growth going since Wednesday morning, so the timing might work out perfectly.

Nero e Rosso

Now here’s the one I’ve been chasing.

A while back, Peter ran a fundraiser for a community member who had been hurt in an accident. As part of that, he made small 2-oz samples of Nero e Rosso available in black tins. I bought one to show my support, and the first time I smelled it I was completely blown away. That fragrance hit everything in my wheelhouse. I’ve already shaved three times from that little sample.

When Peter and I were talking around that time, he said once he had the boxes sorted and the inventory together, he’d send me a full set. I had a pretty good feeling that’s what was in this box. I was right.

Pulling the Nero e Rosso box out is a moment. Daniele’s logo on the front, Ariana & Evans on the bottom. Very classy, professionally done. You open the box, lift the jar out, and it just looks right.

This is the legacy base, and it comes in the legacy glass jar, the standard size, noticeably smaller than the new wide-mouth Obsidian Ember jar. Hold them side by side and the difference is clear. The legacy jar stays the format for the legacy series. And the fill is impressive. To the rim. Seven ounces. That soap is going to last you a very long time.

On the fragrance, I don’t have all the scent notes in front of me right now. My first impression: tobacco forward, masculine, unlike anything else I own. There’s supposed to be a touch of strawberry in the base, but I’m barely picking it up, extremely subtle. On first sniff there’s also something that reads like a soft coffee note in there. What keeps hitting me is that this doesn’t smell like anything I’ve used before. Completely its own thing. If you love a tobacco-leaning fragrance, this is it. I’d tell you to buy it on a blind buy and you will not be disappointed.

The matching splash rounds out the set. Eight and a half ounces, gorgeous label, same box presentation as the soap. Handcrafted by Ariana & Evans, ingredients on the back, QR code on the package. I’ve only experienced this fragrance through the soap and a small EDP sample before today, but my expectations are high.

Daniele, the artist behind this collab, has his own YouTube channel where he recently posted a video shaving someone with a straight razor using these products. Worth a watch. I’ll drop the link in the description.

I’ve been to meetups where I had a chance to smell just about everything Peter has ever produced. Not one fragrance I’d tell you to skip. Not one. The ingredient quality is top shelf, the bases perform, and the fragrances are built to stand out. If you’ve never tried A&E, you can pretty much blind buy with confidence.

If you want to pick something up and save 10%, use code LONGISLANDSHAVING10 at checkout on their site. I do have an affiliate arrangement with them.

Thanks for being here. Nero e Rosso was worth the wait, and Obsidian Ember turned out to be a genuine surprise. I’ll have full reviews of both on the channel, plus that Bison and Overlander razor battle. Appreciate Peter and Thalia for putting this together.