As my first post I thought I would try to contribute. This is my first product review

Tabula Rasa Dark Lavender shaving soap and Catie's Bubbles A Midnight Dreary Aftershave Splash. Mystery and macabre. Two scents that highlight one another and teleport you to a different time. The mixture of dark, earthy Lavender in the soap combined with the Orchid, Lotus, Spices, Black Currant, and Jasmine of A midnight Dreary warp your imagination to nineteenth century London. Very....Gothic. Maybe even to a dark, low lit chamber straight from an Edgar Allen Poe poem, sitting in an oak armchair pondering a curious volume by candlelight, slowly falling into madness. There is a reason the soap is called Dark Lavender and the splash takes it's namesake from a Poe poem. The scents combined invoke a darker time, when Jack the Ripper was prowling the streets and you had to glance over your shoulder while taking that shortcut down a gloomy alley in the middle of the night.

So, I have to say that Tabula Rasa was a revelation to me. I was apprehensive at first because they recommend you palm lather. I was pleased to find that putting an almond size chunk of the soap in my shaken out brush and face lathering as I normally do worked great. The soap itself is more like a croap than anything, very soft and creamy. The Dark Lavender scent really pops when you start to lather. The ingredients are listed as Aqua, Stearic Acid, Glycerin, Cocos Nucifera Oil, Argania Spinoza Kernel Oil, Hordeum Vulgare Wax, Butyrospermum Parkii Extract, Mangifera Indica Butter, Potassium Hydroxide, Sodium Hydroxide, Sodium Borate. The lather didn't take much water but was voluptuos and thick (like I like my women :-) ) Super slick and left zero irritation using a fresh Feather blade and my iKon DLC which is my most "aggressive" razor and will easily bite me if I'm not careful. The standout to me was the post shave moisturizing feel. It felt like I already applied my aftershave balm. After three passes my face was smooth as glass.

This is where Catie's Bubbles A Midnight Dreary Aftershave Splash comes in to round of an amazing shave. It's just wonderful. It's ingredients are Aloe Barbadensis (Organic Aloe) Leaf Juice, Glycerin, Hamamelis Virginiana (Witch Hazel) Water, Fragrance, Phenoxyethanol, Salix Alba (Organic White Willow) Bark Extract, Mentha Arvensis (Menthol) Crystals, Polysorbate, Melaleuca Alternifolia (Tea Tree) Leaf Essential Oil, Alcohol, Tetrasodium. With my face feeling so good already the splash was just icing on the smooth cake. The scent stands out here above all else. Just amazing. It's very hard to pinpoint the scent with so many different notes mixing together but it just works on a different level than I'm used to. It really is genius to use so many distinct scents in a way that transforms the result into something new and original. It lingered for a few hours slowly dissipating but could be detected 5 hours later in much lighter notes. You know that amazing moisturized but non-greasy feel you get after a shave? It lasted all day. My face tends to be on the oily side but something in one of these products kept my face feeling fresh out the shave den all day. I couldn't recommend either product more.

Nice write-up! I could almost smell the scents and enjoy the whole experience.