United We Stand: Strike Gold Shave's 250th Anniversary Review
Portland Creek, above Fall Creek in Wamut National Forest. Luke’s with me in this shave. If you’ve been on the channel, you’ve seen him in a video before. We had the whole family out here, the dogs, a good afternoon. The setting sun was threatening to kill the shot, so we didn’t wait any longer.
We actually tried to do a Father’s Day shave out here a few weeks ago. Came out with the whole family and just got so busy doing what we were doing that we skipped it entirely. So we came back. This time with vintage Gillette Red Tips and a soap I’ve been sitting on for a few weeks now: United We Stand from Strike Gold Shave.
What Frank Built
Frank put United We Stand together for America’s 250th anniversary. The concept is this: he took several of his presidential-themed fragrances from the Strike Gold lineup and folded them into a single blend. All those individual notes come together and become one new thing. He described it to me as the melting pot. All these people from different cultures, different backgrounds, are becoming one culture. That’s what he was going for with the fragrance, and once you spend time with it, you understand what he means.
This is a limited release. It won’t be available forever.
The Scent
I’ve had about seven shaves on this. Luke hadn’t smelled it once before I handed him the brush. I kept it from him on purpose. I wanted his real first take, no setup.
The top opens clean, bright, and slightly spicy. Bergamot and lemon zest are there, then the crisp apple comes through. That apple is the thread that runs through the whole wear. It doesn’t burn off and step aside the way citrus top notes usually do. It hangs around. You notice it in the heart too.
That’s Luke off the back of my hand, first impression, no coaching. Old school barber shop. That’s the vibe they were going for on the top end, and he landed on it without me saying a word.
About five to ten minutes after the splash dries down, the heart fills in. Tobacco leaf, leather, cedarwood, lavender, sage. More masculine, more settled. The apple keeps threading through underneath all of it. Alexis and I both called that out. It’s not going anywhere. The combination of that apple with the tobacco and leather is what gives this fragrance its character.
The base carries oakmoss, sandalwood, vetiver, bourbon vanilla, and amber, with a gunsmoke accord and aged wood smoke alongside. The product calls the wood smoke “from a crackling campfire.” In practice, what Luke and I found was that neither of those reads as heavy.
That’s the honest read. The gunsmoke and aged wood smoke are there on paper, and they contribute something to the base, but they sit quietly. They give it depth and grounding without pushing the fragrance into any darkness. Not a campfire. Not a bonfire. Nothing like that.
The overall character, after seven-plus shaves, is linear. What you start with is close to what you wear all day. There are transitions as the heart fills in, but the fragrance never takes a hard left turn. It’s extremely well blended. All those notes that came in separately have become one thing.
If I had to put it in a phrase: executive barber shop meets the rugged frontier. Bold, patriotic, and smooth.
The Setup
For brushes: Luke had the throwbacks 250th collaboration brush, 50% black badger and 50% boar. Mine is 50% silver tip and 50% boar. Mine’s still shedding a little, but it’ll get there.
We both shaved with vintage Gillette Red Tips. Luke ran a Platinum Strange Lit on first use. I had the Gillette Platinum. Luke uses a 40 Super Speed at home most of the time, or the Symmetry he got in the Phoenix Artisan gift box. First time on a Red Tip for him, and he came out of it fine.
Before loading the brush, I put down a layer of mentholated blizzard butter from Cajun Blade. It’s Eric’s lather booster in mentholated form. Makes any lather expand and adds a menthol kick on top of that. We had a high of 81 that day, mid-70s by the time we were shaving. The menthol, when the air hits your face on a day like that, is something else.
At the Creek
No mirror out here. Luke handled that like a trooper. You rinse in the creek or spray from the water bottle, and you figure it out. The lighting is better than in the bathroom, honestly. Natural light at that hour makes it easy to see what you’re doing. Way different than standing at the sink.
I had a bowl set up for the brush between passes. The girls were up the bank, relaxing. Luna and Athena were chilling behind us. Good Sunday afternoon.
One thing that came out of nowhere: while I was getting the shave-of-the-day shots set up in the creek, I spotted a thunder egg in the soil. It was shimmering. I could see it but couldn’t jar it free. Luke came over and pulled it out. Crystal interior, just sitting there in the creek bed. It’s coming home with us.
The Verdict
United We Stand is a limited release. That’s the frame on everything.
What Frank pulled off here is harder than it looks. Taking a set of distinct presidential-themed fragrances and blending them into one cohesive thing, without the result smelling muddled, is not a given. Seven shaves in, I keep reaching for it. The apple-tobacco-leather combination is unlike anything I’ve got in the current rotation. Linear doesn’t mean boring here. It means the fragrance knows what it is and stays there.
To get it, find Strike Gold Shave. If you order through frankshaving.com, use my code Tobin at checkout. The normal free shipping threshold there is $50, but the code drops that to nothing. No minimum. Grab just the soap if that’s what you want.
Thanks for coming out to the creek with us. Luke nailed it, mirror or not. Until the next one.