Fern & Shadow Right of Winter: A Texas Micro Artisan You Should Know

Howdy. Welcome back to A Texan Shaves. We’ve got another Micro Artisan episode, and this one jumped ahead of everything else in my queue for a reason I’ll get to in about five seconds.

All the credit goes to Doug of Adopted Acres. He’s the one who brought this company to my attention, and I’m very happy he did. The company is called Fern & Shadow. They’re on Etsy. Link’s in the description. And the soap I grabbed from them is called Right of Winter.

Why This One Jumped the Queue

Look at that label. Right there. They’re made in Texas. About an hour and a half, two hours down the road from me. Their base is called the King base, and it’s made in Texas. I had to jump on it. I love featuring Texas artisans.

The packaging is solid. Four ounces of artisan shave soap, a side label with the fragrance name and ingredients, and the label art is fantastic. This particular colorway is dark, so it doesn’t read great on camera, but the pour on the soap itself is really smooth and interesting. It’s soft. Already curious what it’s going to do in the bowl.

They also have a splash for this scent, and I really like how they did the bottle. One side has a formatted panel with the name and ingredients. The other side keeps the label art. It’s a unique design, and I’m a fan.

Right of Winter: The Fragrance

I put a little of the splash on before filming and it was still there when I sat down to shoot. Light, but hanging around. This fragrance is so good.

Here’s the full fragrance profile, and just listen to this:

“Right of Winter begins with a shock of cold air against your face, sharp, clean, and silent, like stepping outside just after a fresh snow has covered everything in sight. The first impression is not smoke, sweetness, or heavy woods. It is open winter air, bright, frozen, and still. Then the green begins to rise. Snow-dusted pine cuts through the cold first, followed by the darker edge of black spruce and the soft damp of hush moss beneath the ice. The scent unfolds slowly, like walking deeper into an untouched wood where the air stays crisp and the evergreens stand heavy under frost. As it settles, Right of Winter becomes smooth, cold, and atmospheric. The freshness softens into a quiet evergreen finish: clean winter air, chilled needles, soft moss, and the stillness of frozen woodland after midnight.”

That sounds like a dream to me. My daughter smelled the tub and did one of those triple-take situations where she had to go back in for a few more whiffs. That right there tells you everything.

I checked whether there’s menthol in it, because everything in that description points cold. It doesn’t mention menthol in the description, and I didn’t chase down the full ingredient list before the shave, so I just went in and found out. No cooling sensation. But the atmosphere you get from this fragrance, the sense of it, lines up with so much of what that description promises.

Hardware

For the razor, I’m running the Tier One Echelon with the Ranger handle. I’ve been on this thing for about three weeks now and I’m absolutely in love with it. Full review is coming this week. Here’s the short version.

The Echelon is a dual-head design. Two different blade angles, one per side, which changes the aggression. The mild side sits around 30 degrees, Henson-like. The aggressive side uses a steeper angle. You can tell which side you’re on by the surface detail on the mild side; the aggressive side has none. The assembly is also foolproof. The tab geometry on the base plate is different on each end, so if you try to seat the top cap the wrong way, it won’t clamp all the way down. You have to flip it around. Can’t mess it up.

I’m running a first-use Persona Gem Diamond Coat blade in this shave.

The handle is a bit longer than most. Great for head shaving. I love the diameter. More in the full review.

I also have a new brush to show off. I commissioned Frank Shaving to build one. I wanted something to pair with my collab razor from Alpha Shaving, so I tracked down a vintage-style handle he had in stock. He only had four left. Blue, beautiful. 22mm knot in a synthetic I can’t name off the top of my head, but it’s fantastic. I had my Texan Shaves logo put in the center and a Texas Star on the bottom. Been really loving it.

The Lather

Going in heavy on the load. This stuff came up immediately. Super creamy, with a slightly different texture than I’m used to. Not in a bad way. It feels really, really good.

I used the sprayer to add water mid-load and it just blew up. This lather could take even more water if you wanted to work it. For two passes on a face that didn’t have much to shave (I had a great shave in the Blizzard Battles the day before), I had more than enough. Once I cleared the first pass, you could feel just how slick it left things. Wow. Very impressed.

I started on the aggressive side first, then switched to the mild for the second pass. That’s how I run dual-head razors, same as an adjustable. But do whatever works for you. No rules. If you’ve got a Tatara Duo or one of the Razor Rock dual-side heads, let me know how you use both sides.

The mild side on the Echelon is extremely forgiving on the neck. I kept going over the same spots with a light touch and got zero irritation. Just keep it light and that razor takes care of you.

What Else They Carry

Fern & Shadow only has two fragrances on their Etsy. Right of Winter is this one. The other is supposedly a citrus tangerine type, described as smelling like Sunny Delight. I love a good citrus, so I’ll probably grab that one too.

The one I missed, and Doug bought the last one before he even told me about this company (damn you, Doug), was a barbershop scent. He said the maker is restocking it. The moment it comes back, I’m on it. Especially after this shave.

Doug’s on vacation right now and hasn’t had a chance to get into his yet. In your face, Doug. And genuinely, thank you.

The Maker

I’ve never met him. But I did exchange messages with him on Etsy, and he knows of Doug’s work at Adopted Acres. He’s in the community, out there in the social media wet shaving world. He’s only been on Etsy for a very short time, and I’m honestly not sure how long he’s been making soap. But the results speak for themselves.

If you decide to check out his store, reach out and say hi. I do that with every artisan I buy from. Getting to know the person behind the soap, hearing how they got into making it, what they’re working on, that’s always been one of the best parts of this hobby for me.

Go read his story in the About section on his Etsy page. There are only two choices right now, which makes the decision easy. Take a look.

I’m very happy with this one. I’ll definitely be coming back, and I highly suggest you go check Fern & Shadow out. Real good call by Doug.