Blizzard Battles 2026 Round 7: Ariana & Evans vs The Cajun Blade
Howdy, welcome back to A Texan Shaves Blizzard Battles 2026. We’re on Round 7, but let’s close out Round 6 first.
Round 6: Final Score
Phoenix Artisan Accoutrements’ Frost in Space won the popular vote on label art, 22 votes to Wild Fox Rituals’ 14. That gives PAA the point and a final tally of 10 total points, Wild Fox finishing at 7. We already knew Phoenix Artisan was moving forward, so this is just icing. Congratulations to them on taking the label vote on top of everything else.
I want to say something about Wild Fox Rituals before they come off the wheel. Arctic Fox was one of my favorite fragrances in the entire Battles so far. The fact that they sold out of what they made says everything. I really hope they come back next year, maybe with something new. Thank you for being part of this. That was a great entry.
Wild Fox is off the wheel. Phoenix Shaving gets a bye this round. And we spin to find their Round 7 opponent.
Round 7: The Matchup
First competitor out of the Blizzard Dome: Ariana & Evans with Frozen Latte e Menta, in the Legacy base. Going up against them: The Cajun Blade with Sub Zero.
And we have splashes in play this episode. Both of them. I’ve been looking forward to this one for a while.
Peter handed me the A&E soaps at the Texas Wet Shavers meetup, still in the original box. The splash is in the new Legacy bottle. He was excited to participate in the Battles, and I was glad he brought these.
Ariana & Evans: Frozen Latte e Menta
This is Latte e Menta in the Legacy base, loaded with menthol. Every bit the same fragrance, just pushed into cold territory. Not A&E’s normal lane, and that’s the point of the Blizzard Battles. Here’s how A&E describes it:
Velvety milk notes wrapped in ambroxan. Feels like sunlight on the skin. The base has guaiac wood and hinoki wood to add depth. Imagine a cypress tree on a hot day. We use spearmint and peppermint essential oils, cold-steeped, for that just-poured-over-ice freshness. On top is a wisp of iris, powdery and tender like Nana’s cheek after a hug.
I love their descriptions. The Legacy base holds menthol better than I expected. Good to know going forward, Peter.
The Cajun Blade: Sub Zero
Eric built the White Walker base specifically for heavily mentholated soaps. It’s a menthol-focused version of his Braford base, designed for exactly this kind of competition. He didn’t stretch to compete here. He came with the right tool. From the label:
Made in our dedicated White Walker base, a menthol-focused version of Braford designed to stay firm, stable, and usable under a heavy cooling load. This is not a lightly mentholated soap. This is an intentionally aggressive cold-weather style shave, for shavers who want the freeze to hit hard and keep building through the shave. The fragrance is a bright citrus that opens the scent before blending into smooth mango and coconut, creating a clean tropical contrast against the extreme cold of the shave. The result is a fresh, icy scent profile that stays crisp and refreshing without becoming overly sweet.
And yes, we have White Walker Juice in the building too. Full splash-on-splash round.
A lot of you have been waiting to see what The Cajun Blade would bring to this competition. So have I.
Loading Up
Hardware this round: my Grizzly Bay brushes in the usual order. The razor is brand new, arrived the day before filming. Shield Elite Titanium Stomper single-edge, from Shield Razor. I’ll get back to that.
One brush per soap, one side of my face each. A&E’s lather comes up easy. Thirsty, but the lather is beautiful. Menthol starting to come through as I build it. Cajun Blade’s White Walker base takes a serious amount of water, which makes sense for a base built to carry this much menthol load. My rule: when in doubt, load heavy and back off. Easier to thin lather than to start over. Both soaps take the lather point. No debate there. These are two serious artisan bases.
The Shave
First pass, and the gap between them is already clear.
Left side, A&E: refreshing. Spearmint and peppermint coming through, smooth lather, cold you can feel. I rated it a 2 on the cold scale, just a step above Paso territory. It’s a comfortable cold, not swinging at your face. For a soap that doesn’t normally run in the menthol lane, that’s a solid showing.
Right side, Cajun Blade: a 4. Right away. Hit on contact and kept building through the pass. By pass two that side was going, nose running, eyes watering on that side only. Cajun Blade came to win on the cold front and he understood the assignment completely.
What I didn’t expect: both fragrances working together across both halves of my face at the same time. Bright citrus and mango on one side, spearmint and iris on the other. On paper you’d never put those two together. On my face they worked. I honestly would not have thought to layer these, but now I might try it.
The Shield razor is a different story. By pass three I was rushing, which you can’t do with a new razor. Backed off, went light, finished clean, no damage. I don’t love this razor yet. That’s mostly the situation: new blade, filming, splitting attention between two soaps and a camera at the same time. Not a fair test. I’ll give it a proper run before I say anything definitive about it.
Both bases through three passes: outstanding. I could tell a difference between the two, but it wasn’t much. These artisans are professionals who know what they’re doing. Two excellent bases going at it.
Scoring
Both soaps take the lather point. On coldness, A&E’s Frozen Latte e Menta rated a 2 at first pass, The Cajun Blade’s Sub Zero a 4. The cold gap only grew from there.
Watch the full video for the complete scoring breakdown, the label art vote totals, and where the bracket stands heading into Round 8.
Thanks for watching, and happy shaving.