From Iberia with Love…

What is your opinion on fine shaving creams and hard soaps? Do you like Trumpers, Coates, Taylors, Truefitt & Hill? Post your reviews and opinions here!
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Brutus
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From Iberia with Love…

Post by Brutus »

After I retired, we moved to Portugal and I since have been paying more attention to what Portugal and Spain have to offer to a shaver like me.

Some names like Musgo Real, Semogue, Viel-Long, La Toja are well known; others like Myrsol, Antiga Barbearia de Bairro, and Lea less so.
I do believe, however, that some of the Iberian brands can hold their own against better known brands from the U.K., Germany, and Italy.

Recently, I rediscovered Lea from Spain.
Lea is a bit of a household name in Spain, not unlike Nivea in Germany, or Palmolive elsewhere, and they sell a wide range of consumer products, but like Nivea and Palmolive they also offer some interesting shaving creams and soaps. I had bought some around 2015/2016 when in Barcelona, but for some reason I had never bothered to stock up again.

Lea produces two shaving creams of note: the Professional (250 ml) one and Mentholated (150 ml) one.
Both work very well, but the Mentholated one provides me with a fresh blast of menthol without being overpowering like Proraso (that I do not much care for). Just enough of a blast to put me on my way on a summer morning…
Quite a noticeable cooling sensation, in particular when combined with Myrsol Formula F/Extra or Myrsol Formula K (which in my book is clearly more dominated by peppermint rather than menthol as some people claim).

Lea also offers a slightly more up-market Lea Classic range that had mixed reviews in the past, but that works very well for me.
Similarly to Mitchell’s Wool Fat, it could be the water hardness that makes the difference.
Where I live now we have soft water and I find it easy to whip up a rich, creamy lather with the Classic shaving soap or cream.
What attracted me to this product is the scent profile, described as sandalwood, moss and a light touch of menthol.
Again, most welcome in the morning of what promises to be hot day.
Like many Iberian or British products, the (Aftershave balm) scent fades rather quickly however.

Europe, where a home a/c is the exception rather than the rule, has had a few exceptional hot (43°C / 110°F) days, but luckily in Coimbra (central Portugal), where I live, temperatures have since dropped to much more pleasant (29°C / 84°F) levels, and with a dose of Lea and Myrsol in the morning I should be able to quite nicely arm myself for the day ahead.



B.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell
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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by CMur12 »

Good to hear from you, Brutus!

I lived in Brazil, 1975 - 1977, and in Portugal, 1978 - 1981. I lived in Faro, in the Algarve, in Portugal.

Those were different times, but I toy with the idea of going back to live in Portugal.

I was attracted to Semogue shaving brushes, originally, because they were Portuguese products. It was a welcome surprise when they worked better for me than any brushes I had tried before. In fact, I had been pretty consistently disappointed with silvertip badger brushes until I got a Semogue. Then I found the grade of boar bristle used in the 1305 and 830 brushes to be exceptional, as well.

- Murray
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Brutus
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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by Brutus »

Semogue brushes spring to my mind when someone asks me for a boar or badger brush for beginners.
They are excellent value for money and I in particular like the S.O.C. (Semogue Owners Club) brushes with wooden handle that are very ergonomic to use and the wood is a pleasure to touch.
Mine are several years old and show now sign of water damage, which I have seen sometimes affect other manufacturers’ wooden brush handles.

Together with two Danidom boar brushes from Spain (I suspect the proud owner would rather have me say “Catalonia” :) ), which is another company that deserves to be better known, my Semogues are the only boar brushes that I regularly use and I clearly prefer them over the Omegas that I have. You could think of the Danidoms as a less expensive alternative to Semogue, although they are in no way inferior.

Semogue makes respectable badger brushes too and I have three S.O.C. badgers that I like very much.
Their Mistura badger/boar mix was something I was not so sure about and sat on the fence for some time, but once I ordered one I found them to work very well for me. My Misture is a Torga C5, which turned out to be an excellent purchase.

Some shavers may find Semogue brushes with a 24 mm (or less) knot a bit on the small side, but while most of my brushes are 24 mm or larger, I find the Danidoms and Semogues more than adequate to whip up a good lather.


Brutus
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by CMur12 »

I've always favored smaller brushes, so my Semogues in badger and boar - along with most of my other brushes - have 22mm knots.

My synthetics are mostly larger (up to 24mm) because of their different splaying behavior.

- Murray

PS. Brutus, do you speak Portuguese?
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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by Brutus »

Re: “Brutus, do you speak Portuguese?”

Yes, sort of…
Work in progress and every day I practice for another hour or so.
I have been at it for little over 4 years and slowly it all falls together. :)

They made me learn Latin in school, which makes learning languages that have Roman roots a little bit easier, but, trust me, it is a totally ineffective way to prepare oneself for Italian, Spanish, French or Portuguese. 8)
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by CMur12 »

Brutus, languages and linguistics are my passion, and I especially love the Portuguese language.

I went to Portugal speaking good Brazilian Portuguese, and the difference came as quite a shock. I went through something of a linguistic cultural crisis ("I speak Portuguese, but this isn't the language I know."), leaving me feeling lost and unsettled.

Brazilian spoken grammar is very different from Portuguese grammar. I had studied Portuguese, so I knew what Brazilians would call "formal grammar" and what the Portuguese would call "standard grammar," so I had no problem employing Portuguese grammar and learning different vocabulary and expressions. However, I just kept using my Brazilian pronunciation. I had thought I would spontaneously pick up Portuguese pronunciation, but it just wasn't happening.

At about ten months in Portugal, my ear suddenly no longer accepted what was coming out of my mouth, and I had to start consciously trying to speak Portuguese. Later, I was told that I sounded just like a Brazilian who had lived in Portugal for ten years. When I left, I was told that I had correct pronunciation, but that I still had a light Brazilian accent. I figured I could live with that. :mrgreen:

I would love to be immersed in the culture and language once again.

- Murray
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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by drmoss_ca »

It's a bit like learning to be proficient in French in the UK, then trying it out in Canada. Mind you, it's worse for the Quebeçois visiting Paris: they get laughed at as a bunch of hicks.

I love accents, but I'm not good at north American ones, which have mostly admixed into an indistinguishable television-influenced average. I grew up with a Wiltshire accent, which made my northern-born parents and brother laugh at me. Anyone knowing John Kirkwood's channel on YouTube (cooking) will be amused that I once guessed at his birthplace. Got within ten miles. I love that amount of variation in speech, but it too will become uniform as we listen to the media more than each other.
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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by CMur12 »

drmoss_ca wrote: Wed Jul 27, 2022 3:55 am It's a bit like learning to be proficient in French in the UK, then trying it out in Canada. Mind you, it's worse for the Quebeçois visiting Paris: they get laughed at as a bunch of hicks.

I love accents, but I'm not good at north American ones, which have mostly admixed into an indistinguishable television-influenced average. I grew up with a Wiltshire accent, which made my northern-born parents and brother laugh at me. Anyone knowing John Kirkwood's channel on YouTube (cooking) will be amused that I once guessed at his birthplace. Got within ten miles. I love that amount of variation in speech, but it too will become uniform as we listen to the media more than each other.
Good points. I love dialects and accents, too. (That's why I once asked you, Chris, what yours might be.)

- Murray
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Brutus
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Re: From Iberia with Love…

Post by Brutus »

Yes Murray,

this gulf between European Portuguese (EP) and Brazilian Portuguese (BP) caught me out too, a much wider gulf than let’s say between American English or British English.
As Brazil is the more populous country, most of the online courses teach BP even if they don’t say so, which is of limited use when moving to Portugal.
I found spoken BP, however, fairly easy to identify, it has a different rhythm to it than BP.

In bigger cities in Portugal it does not matter so much anyway, as there is a large Brazilian community here and you meet Brazilians everywhere.

The best Burger place in Coimbra is in fact Brazilian… :)

If my old teachers could see me know, they’d be surprised, because I never showed much talent in foreign languages then.
This diversity is another thing that makes Europe so attractive. You drive two hours and you end up in a different country with different language, history and culinary traditions.
You may not even have to cross borders, in seemingly monolithic Spain alone there are three major co-official languages, Galician (Galego), Catalan and Basque, which may surprise many.


B.
The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

Bertrand Russell
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