My Shave With Strike Gold's 9/11 Tunnel to Towers Soap
Hi, I’m Matthew. Welcome to my channel. It’s shave day, so let me wet my face real quick. What a set I’ve got in front of me.
I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to Frank over at Strike Gold Shave for sending this my way. He included the matching splash too. This one’s the 25th anniversary 9/11 release, and it’s built in honor of everyone affected that day. My buddy Jerry over at Shave Dad and Frank were both law enforcement in New York, so this one hits home for them in a way it doesn’t for most of us. I remember exactly what I was doing when it happened. Everything just stopped.
The Set and the Cause
The label on this is really nice. Take a look at it. I think putting something like this together is a solid way to give back. As I understand it, and don’t hold me to the exact percentage, Frank’s sending the proceeds from this release to the Tunnel to Towers Foundation. I always mix up whether it’s “Tunnel to Towers” or “Towers to Tunnel,” but either way, that organization is getting a donation out of this, and that’s generous of him.
One thing I respect here: Frank had this ready to go well ahead of the anniversary. You’ve probably seen companies announce something tied to a specific date and then miss it entirely, and that always struck me as a little off. Life happens, deadlines slip, I get it. But having the product in hand on time instead of still “coming soon” says something about how this one was run.
Scent Notes
I scooped out a quarter teaspoon of the soap and added about 11 mils of water to hit the lather consistency I like. I wrote the scent notes down beforehand because there’s no way I remember all of them: lavender, rosemary, oakmoss, mint, basil, geranium, patchouli, and amber. If you’ve smelled Tom Ford’s Beau de Jour, this is being pitched as a clone or homage to it, whatever word you want to use. I haven’t worn this long enough to tell you how it develops on skin, but on paper, lavender and rosemary up top with oakmoss and patchouli underneath reads like a proper cologne-style scent, not a beach or barbershop soap. I’ll link Strike Gold Shave in the description if you want to grab some for yourself.
Pass One With the Apollo Light
This shave’s razor is the Apollo Light by Helix. And right on cue, my phone starts ringing.
“Hey, is that you?” Jerry asks.
“Yeah, I’m right in the middle of shooting my shave video,” I tell him. “Let me call you back.”
“Alright,” he says. “Don’t forget to grab me some water.”
Jerry, you didn’t know it, but you just ended up on video.
I loaded a Gillette 7 O’Clock Yellow into the Apollo Light. Great blade and razor combo. I’ve got about a day and a half of growth going, so let’s get into pass one, with the grain.
Plenty of residual slickness left on the skin after that pass, nice and smooth. I didn’t have to work for it either; I just let the weight of the razor and the sharpness of the blade do the job. This particular finish isn’t easy to track down anymore, as far as I know, so if you missed it, that’s on you.
I should mention I’m lathering this with my Semogue 830 boar brush.
A Word on the Scent, and on Trust
Very nice scent coming off this. When something like this shows up in the mail, I always let my wife smell it too. We talk it over, whether we like it or not, and she liked this one. That matters. Anyone who wears cologne or a scented soap should want their partner to actually enjoy it, because if they don’t, that becomes a problem fast.
Time for pass two. Frank and Jerry don’t get any say in what I say in these videos, and that’s been true since I started making them. The only thing I’ve got to offer you is my word. If I lose your trust, my channel is done. Once my credibility is gone, there’s no point making more videos.
With that said, a lot of this comes down to preference. My experience with a soap might not match yours at all. I always tell the new guys, and the veterans who’ve been around since day one, that it’s a lot like pizza. Almost everybody likes pizza. I don’t think I’ve ever had a slice bad enough to turn down. But ask ten people what their favorite pizza is, and you’ll get ten different answers, some close together, some way off. Scent works the same way. Ask somebody what pizza smells like, and one guy’s going to say pepperoni and garlic, another’s going to go supreme and start talking about olives and onions and peppers. Same pizza, different noses.
Wrapping Up
I rinsed off with cold water. No weepers, no gushers, no bleeders, which is always the goal, and a nice close shave on top of it. That’s what I’m after every time, just knock it down clean.
I do have the matching splash, but I’m not using it. For me it’s got too much skin food in the formula, and that makes it sit tacky and sticky on my skin, not my thing. So I went with Star Jelly instead to close things out.
Thanks for stopping by, watching, and commenting. I’ll see you guys on the next shave.