Riding Rhonda: My Van Yulay Scent and the Blackland Blackbird
Oh, hi.
Little red stripe action today. It’s Saturday, you’ll see this Sunday. And before we get into it, I have to give a shout to my favorite piece of non-shave hardware: the Laroo Tactical beverage entry device. Tactical armadillo. Goes on a keychain, handles twist tops, handles pop tops, and you can get that tail right under a can lid and scoop. Thank you, Texas. For this. For all of this.
Riding Rhonda
I won a contest. That’s the whole story of how this scent happened.
Van Yulay put up a post asking for scent note submissions. I threw mine in. They picked mine. I still don’t know if you’d call that a collab, but Monica at Van Yulay did a fan-damn-tastic job bringing my vision to life and I can’t thank her enough for it.
The notes are mine, so let me walk you through them. Top: ruby red grapefruit, blood orange zest, faint pineapple. I didn’t want sweet. I wanted zest. The pineapple is there to break it up, not to take over. Middle: neroli, because I’d sneak neroli in anywhere, bergamot, plumeria - also known as frangipani, and now you know - and soft talc. Soft. That’s the word. I don’t like heavy talc, I don’t like smelling like baby powder. A little talc sitting quietly in the background? We can get there. Bottom: teakwood, coconut, ambergris, musk. The coconut isn’t there to make you want pie. It’s there to soften the musk and the ambergris and the teakwood. Just rounding things out.
When I first saw the label art - tan background, military pinup on a motorcycle - my brain went straight to Hawaiian barbershop. My dad rode motorcycles. She’s military. I’d been to Pearl Harbor. I don’t know exactly how my head connected those dots, but it did. I tried to design something in that direction and I think it landed.
This was available on May 22nd. I should’ve had this video up by then. I didn’t. I’m terrible at that.
Hardware
The razor is a Blackland Blackbird on loan from Siraj over at Shave in Solitude. Second-use Persona GEM blade. Brush is my Shamrock Shaving Purple People Eater with a 26mm fan boar knot. I had a 70/30 in it, then I got this boar fan I was setting aside for another handle. Threw it in here with some teflon tape and it just fits. The shape of the knot plays off the lines of the handle like it was supposed to be there all along.
Now, the Blackbird. I talked to Chris over at Lather Yeti about this razor because me and this razor were not instant friends. Siraj sent it through Chad from Chad Makes Wet Shaving and I was genuinely excited to try it. More shaves in, I’m coming around. But I want to be straight with you.
Not a beginner razor. You see it on Facebook constantly - someone asks about their first razor and people pile on: “get a Blackbird, get a Blackbird.” Please stop. Even Blackland says it isn’t a beginning razor. It’s not rough, but there is a lot of blade feel. A lot. And your mileage will vary on whether that works for you or not.
I don’t have a strong preference on blade feel because I haven’t been doing this long enough to have one. I haven’t shaved with everything. I don’t know everything about everything. The best advice I give anybody is try things. What works for me won’t work for you, won’t work for them, might work for that other guy. This isn’t a cookie cutter process, and the “you need to get this one, it’s the best” stuff drives me up a wall. The best for who? Not for the guy who just started and doesn’t know what anything is. Help the person. That’s not helping.
Open Comb Collective
Wednesday. Live. Tennessee Whiskey Shaving’s channel on YouTube. Me, Rabbit Shaves, and the Neroli Nomad going live with Wes. There will be giveaways. Elmescero is giving away something, and I’m not telling you what until we’re live. That’s how you get people to tune in. Mystery. Shroud of mystery. I don’t care. That’s the move.
Two Passes
Ten minutes into this video and I still haven’t put brush to face. Let’s go.
26mm fan boar. I love it. I’d love nothing more than to build a Masculero or Yeti-style lather. I’m not those guys. Those guys are masters of the art. I built enough to get going and I’m already behind.
Two passes today, with and across. My hair grows down in some spots and up in others. Dumb grain map. Second pass is a hybrid across-the-grain.
During the shave, the plumeria and the neroli came together. That floral combination - I didn’t know I needed it in my life until I was right in the middle of it. The coconut never jumps out at you. It’s just there, smoothing out those woody musky notes underneath. Ambergris at the end. Just a little.
Two passes done. That’s a two-pass razor for me every time. Efficient. I dried it off and set it out to send back to Siraj first thing in the morning.
Post-Shave
We’re back. Little island beer. Well, island splash. That barbershop scent.
This thing is a Hawaiian barbershop, straight up. I kind of joked about it, but only kind of: it’s almost like a less-sweet Hawaiian Punch, or POG, had a baby with Clubman Skin Food. With the splash you get deeper into those notes. More pronounced, but they all play nice. Really well blended.
My wife loves it. She’s used the splash as a perfume going to work. Wild to me, but I’ll take it. She walks past me after a shave, says “I can smell you,” and in our house that’s a compliment.
That’s Riding Rhonda. And that’s my time with the Blackland Blackbird. I’m not going to tell you to run out and get the razor. It’s not a new razor. At that price point, knocking on $200 or going over, that’s titanium razor territory to me. I make aluminum razor money. And I actually really like aluminum razors - I’ve got another one I still need to review. If I was spending Blackbird money, I’d probably lean toward the open comb version.
Thanks for watching. See you Wednesday.