Haku Soap's Reborn Gets a New Label and a Tweaked Base
Did you know diarrhea is hereditary? True story. Runs in your genes. Anyway. Welcome back to Rabbit Shaves. Things keep falling over in my bathroom studio. Not a big deal. Happens all the time. It is what it is.
How I Ended Up With This Bottle
You probably saw the thumbnail. Rabbit guilted Sean. Here’s the story. I made a comment on the last Open Collective; that’s the little segment I do with Wes over at Tennessee Whiskey Shaving, a couple dudes sipping something and talking shaves. If you haven’t checked that out, you should. During the live, Sean was like, “Yo, send me that address, son.” I said I’d message him after. Then it got late. Then I didn’t know what time it was in Puerto Rico. Then I waited a day and finally sent it, feeling like an idiot for taking so long. Sean’s response was basically, “Fool, I already sent that.” That’s not exactly how the conversation went, but it’s close enough, and it’s funnier this way.
What landed in my hands is Reborn, in the new labeling. That’s new. What’s also new, according to Sean, is the base underneath it. He made a couple tweaks. I never used the original formulation, but everybody who has loved it has, so I can’t imagine he messed anything up.
The Soap: New Base, New Label, Same Obsession-Worthy Scent
I’ll be honest, I didn’t look up the scent notes before filming. Didn’t look them up. All thumbs. Shamrock Shaving’s Purple People Eater, a 26mm boar knot, went straight into the tub, no research, no prep. Why would I come prepared? This is a shaving channel, not a research paper.
What I got out of the tub is a scent that opens very earthy. My wife calls it dirt. I don’t. It’s more woody to me, earthy without tipping into mud, and at the same time it’s got a clean edge running underneath it. I could talk about this scent for days. I actually had to stop texting Sean about it so I could sit down and record this.
Lathering Up
The lather kept building past the point I needed it to. I had to stop myself because my phone only has so much storage, and I wasn’t about to fill the whole card watching myself whip soap. For the first pass, I grabbed a straight, the edge Chad put on it for me a while back. Felt right to use a straight on Sean’s soap. My second pass, the one I do off camera because it takes forever on film, was with a DE.
I’m not great with my left hand, so there was some residual stubble on that side. Also loaded the brush way too heavy, thick enough that I couldn’t see where the blade was going half the time. Both on me, not the soap.
Man, this stuff smells good going on the face. I could swear there’s pear in there somewhere; it might be something I heard someone else say and it stuck, but it smells good regardless. Performance-wise, everything you’d expect from a soap Sean built for people who straight shave the way he does. I wasn’t doing it full justice with my technique, but I wanted to pay it some respect.
The Razor: A C-Plate From Aylsworth and Karve
For the DE pass, I reached for a razor I don’t always grab, a C-plate collab piece between Aylsworth and Karve. My sister had walked off with my usual pick, so this one got the nod instead. Both of them strike me the same way: efficient without being aggressive about it.
A lot of people treat efficiency and aggressiveness as the same thing. I don’t think they have to be. Plenty of aggressive razors I’ve used have also been efficient, but a razor that gets the job done without scraping off the first seven layers of skin is rarer. That’s just my read on it, your mileage may vary.
No irritation on this pass, just a little of that same residual stubble I mentioned, which I don’t usually get. That’s a special shave. I walked away knocking on the door of BBS and two, with some buffing needed to finish the job.
The Aftershave
Reborn also comes as a splash, in a nice black glass bottle. I never even peeled the tape off, left it right there because it looked good on the shelf. Shook it up and went for it, almost soaked myself in the process.
There’s pear in this one too, for sure, riding on top of that same earthy, woody base. The pear gives it something close to an aquatic edge, not a full aquatic scent, just a lean toward it that plays off the earthiness underneath. It’s a strange combination to describe. Sitting next to a koi pond with pear trees nearby is about the closest I can get. I don’t know if that’s what Sean was going for, but it took me somewhere I hadn’t been with a splash before, and I liked it.
My wife and my sister would both say “dirt” if they smelled this. It’s not dirt. It’s earth. There’s a difference, even if I can’t fully explain it.
Where This Landed
That was a great shave. The soap performs, slickness, cushion, glide, and that residual slickness that carries into the splash. It smells good enough that I’m annoyed at myself for not trying the original formulation before this one came along. It comes packaged in a tin with label art that goes hard, for whatever that’s worth to you.
Sean’s aiming to get Reborn back out, and he mentioned there’s a new scent already coming down the pipe after that. He’ll announce both when they’re ready, so keep an eye on his shop if you want in. The Etsy link is in my video description if you want to poke around while you wait.
Be good to yourselves. Be good to others. This is just shaving. Have fun with it, do it your way, and go check out Sean’s shop when you get a chance. Rabbit out.