Haku Reborn: Sean's Debut Soap on Straight Shave Saturday
What is up, my marvelous misfits of wet shaving? Welcome back to the channel. It’s a straight shave on Saturday, and this one has been on my radar for a while. We’re looking at Reborn - the debut soap from Sean, sold through the Haku shop on Etsy.
Sean and the Haku Shop
Me and Sean go way back. He’s a straight shaver, serious about it. He claims the world record for the fastest straight razor shave - he’s got the video on YouTube, go look it up. When he told me he was learning to make soap, I was in. He sent me test batches while he was still developing the formula, and that kind of process - grinding away, iterating, not settling - comes through when you open the tin.
The Label and the Contrast
The label art on this tin is something else. Very gothic, very Dark Souls - the armor design, the whole darkness of it. If you know that game, you know exactly what I mean. I absolutely love it.
Then you open the tin and the scent is the exact opposite. Bright, floral, very clean. I love that kind of contrast. Yin and yang. Like chips and salsa: the crunch of the chip against the softness of the tomatoes in the salsa. Or apple streusel with vanilla ice cream on top, where you get that hard, crispy crunch of the streusel against the softness of the ice cream and caramel. The label says one thing; the soap says something completely different. Bold choice for a debut. It works.
Scent Notes and the Proof Scale
Top notes are chamomile, pear, and sage. Heart notes are rose and lavender. Base notes are palo santo and patchouli.
On the Tennessee Whiskey Proof Scale - zero proof is worst, 100 is best - I give Reborn a 45. It’s lightly scented. You can smell it when you open the tin and when you’re loading the brush, but it won’t take over your bathroom. Clean, floral, pleasant.
The splash carries those same notes but adds oak moss and amber. That changes things in a good way. On the back of my hand, the amber and oak moss brought an earthy layer under the floral, and it really helps anchor the palo santo. More on that below.
On Palo Santo
You don’t see palo santo as a scent note very often. When I started researching it I came away with a whole new level of appreciation for what Sean put together here.
Palo Santo is Spanish for holy wood. The tree belongs to the Burseraceae family - same lineage as frankincense and myrrh. The aroma is complex. The core is woody and earthy, deep and resinous, almost cedar-like with a pine quality. There are soft sweet and balsamic notes too - natural vanilla and caramel undertones that round out the dry woodiness. Because it contains limonene, the same terpene found in citrus rinds, it carries a naturally bright, zesty character despite being a wood. Blend it into deeper perfumes and you get a trace of incense and soft resin.
The history goes back centuries. The tree comes from the seasonally dry tropical forests of South America - Mexico, Peru, Ecuador. Pre-Columbian peoples of the Andes burned it in sacred ceremonies for spiritual purposes. Indigenous healers across the Andean and Pacific coastal regions used it in traditional medicine for centuries - fevers, infections, rheumatism. When the Spanish friars arrived in the 16th century, they observed these rituals, got captivated by the wood, and gave it the name: Palo Santo. Holy wood.
Sean pairing palo santo with chamomile, pear, and sage up top, rose and lavender in the middle, and patchouli alongside it in the base - that’s a thoughtful set of choices. The palo santo grounds the fragrance. The rest of the notes bring the brightness. It holds together.
The Soap
This is a hard soap. Think Martin de Candre territory in terms of density. The base is wagyu tallow with stearic acid, goat milk, shea butter, mango butter, cocoa butter, kokum butter, olive oil, castor oil, glycerin, jojoba oil, lanolin, tussah silk, and fragrance oils. Excellent for straight razor work.
Sean packs the 4 oz tin full. You’re getting a serious amount of soap, and with that formula it’ll last you a long time. Because it’s on the harder side, bloom it a little before you load. The lather that comes up is thick, dense, creamy. All those butters do what they’re supposed to do.
The Splash
The splash comes in a spray bottle, which is a nice touch. Alcohol-free, with aloe and witch hazel - skin food. Same scent profile as the soap, but the added oak moss and amber are what make it interesting. The oak moss puts an earthy layer under the floral and helps the palo santo read more clearly. Put a little on the back of your hand before the shave. You’ll see what I mean.
The Setup: Iwasaki and Opus Brushworks
Me and Sean have talked about razors plenty, and he’s a huge Iwasaki fan. So the razor today was my Iwasaki kamisori. Traditional kamisori, asymmetrical grind - not symmetric, which takes getting used to. But once you’re comfortable with it, this thing gives a phenomenal shave. The Japanese really knew what they were doing.
For the brush I went with my Opus Brushworks, loaded with a G5C knot. One of my favorites, right up there with a true bliss or pure bliss, close to a solid 70/30 badger-boar. It’s also one of the prettiest brushes I own. The handle has this gothic column look to it, something you might see in a gothic church. Fits the Reborn theme perfectly.
The lather loaded up beautifully once I got the water balance right. Thick, dense, creamy - exactly what you want going into a straight razor shave. The soap opened up well, and the Iwasaki was outstanding. The scent coming up off the brush stayed true to what I’d smelled out of the tin. Light, clean, floral, with the palo santo and patchouli present in the background without pushing. Three passes, comfortable finish.
Between the formula, the splash, and the fragrance concept, this is a strong first release. The palo santo choice alone shows Sean was thinking beyond the obvious. He got the base right, he got the scent right, and the label art is one of the best I’ve seen on a debut tin. I was happy to get those test batches, and the final version held up.
Thanks for hanging out for straight shave Saturday, guys. Keep those edges sharp, gentlemen.