Grooming Dept

Hi Marko

Here are the instructions I sent along with the preshave samples.




1- Wet your face & hands

2- Apply a pea (maybe a bit more) size of the preshave on your beard and neck areas, rub the preshave in a circular motion for at least one minute, one minute and thirty seconds is more than enough. During this time, add few water drops, but not too much, you don’t want to dilute the preshave, you should let it form a film on your beard and neck areas.

3- You might need to increase the amount of water you use to make lather, Apply shaving soap on top of the preshave and enjoy your shave as usual. The preshave will provide a boost to the lather and is now mixed with the soap in the brush.

4-If doing multiple passes, lightly splash water on your face instead of completely removing soap residue - there are traces of the preshave now no your face and you don’t want to strip it away, it’s good for your skin and will be absorbed.


Some testers suggested not to splash any water on one's face between passes.

Somehow the cat got out of the bag

I'm honored to collaborate with Sean @ Maol Grooming

The first Janus tallow release will be based on a scent designed by Sean. It's amazing! I have had the essential oils for a while. We wanted to release the soap this summer. But my personal issues got in the way as they have gotten in my way to releasing my other products.

The soap will be only be available from Top of The Chain. It'll be available at the same time as my other upcoming soaps. Stay tuned.

I've got three of Sean's aftershaves, and couldn't be happier with them. Aside from Chatillon Lux, Maol Grooming aftershaves are the king of my den. I'm excited about this one.

Thanks CCity

Hi Marko

Here are the instructions I sent along with the preshave samples.




1- Wet your face & hands

2- Apply a pea (maybe a bit more) size of the preshave on your beard and neck areas, rub the preshave in a circular motion for at least one minute, one minute and thirty seconds is more than enough. During this time, add few water drops, but not too much, you don’t want to dilute the preshave, you should let it form a film on your beard and neck areas.

3- You might need to increase the amount of water you use to make lather, Apply shaving soap on top of the preshave and enjoy your shave as usual. The preshave will provide a boost to the lather and is now mixed with the soap in the brush.

4-If doing multiple passes, lightly splash water on your face instead of completely removing soap residue - there are traces of the preshave now no your face and you don’t want to strip it away, it’s good for your skin and will be absorbed.


Some testers suggested not to splash any water on one's face between passes.

Thanks for the instructions - I will try to get some of this if possible. I've used a couple of pre-shaves in the past Chatillon Lux made one for a while and so did Mickey Lee Soapworks. I never found them to make enough of a difference to justify the additional step. I'm always open to improving my shave, however.

So what else I have been doing in this unwanted extended absence.

As I said on a different thread, I want to put a big effort to overcome the scarcity of my products.

At anytime, I work on a large number of formulae and experiment with lots and lot of ingredients. The formulae of all my product are complex. Some of the fragrances I make have 30+ EOs and fragrance compounds. It got unwieldy to manage all the excel sheets which track the formulas and the inventory of items required to create existing products and mange WIP (work in progress) formulae.

For the people who are into tech, you'll understand how significant this undertaking is. I wrote some awesome computer programs to mange my Suppliers and Invoices, batch creation, inventory management of every single component of a batch of a product. The software manages ingredients down to the gram. I had to weigh every ingredient I own to get an exact picture of what I have on hand It also has a built-in soap formulae calculator. It's all written in React/JavaScript+Node+ PostgreSQL.

Now when I want to make something be it a perfume or a a grooming product, I create the formula or look up one, I enter how many units I need, the software outputs a listing of what I need and alerts me if there are shortages. For the tech people out there, every feature of the system has sufficient test coverage already in place.

I'm excited about the future of Grooming Dept. Wait until I tell you about the shaving gel I'm working on

Soooooo, I finally got a chance to use the pre-shave sample that Mohammad sent me a few weeks ago. I was dealing with some issues that would not allow me to shave for 2 weeks so I had a full beard when I used it Friday morning. The first thing that comes to mind is WOW!! I have been using Micky Lee’s pre-shave butter after trying multiple pre-shave oils and formulas for the last couple years and did not think it could get better than that for a pre-shave. I was dead wrong! I followed the instructions of using a small amount and keeping my face damp/wet with the application. I used the beef tallow GD Wonderland soap for this shave and my open comb Guerilla with a once used Voskhod blade. The first thing I noticed is that using this GD pre-shave with a GD soap provides the best shave cushioning that I have ever tried. On my next shave, I will try a more aggressive razor but I could barely feel the blade in my Guerilla OC, but that is not an overly aggressive razor. I picked something careful after not shaving for a few weeks that I knew would mow down my growth with ease. Now, I have always been of the opinion that GD soaps provide the best post shave feel of any soaps that I have and that has caused me to stop using any kind of aftershave. When I am finished with my 2.5 passes, I always spread the left over lather on my face until I am done cleaning up my gear and then I rinse my face with cold water. I did the same thing this time but I felt as though my skin had an even softer feel than usual and that continued throughout the day. I am excited to shave today to use this pre-shave again and I will use a different soap like Glide or a harder soap just to test the post shave feel without a GD soap. All in all, when Mo releases this pre-shave, I will be purchasing 2-3 tubs so I feel like I won’t run out anytime soon. Once again, he has knocked it out of the park!! Bravo Mohammad!!


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Please, no criticism or comments of when this will ship Thank you for taking the time to look over my post.


I feel like I've made a huge milestone after I made the preshave and have learnt so much in the process. Some of those ideas gave birth to this interesting new formula. Code name: Nirvana. It'll be available in 2019. But in December, I'm going to start doing public testing on a specific thread, I will request that DFS members sign up to to receive samples.

The composition is quite different from my other formulae. Hempseed oil, Olive oil, Flaxseed seed oil and Avocado oils are the primary oils in this base. It has more Cupuacu butter than Lusso (which has a lot) It also has Phytosterols - A cholesterol-like ingredient but plant based. It has Olive Oil Unsaponifiables and olive wax and many other interesting ingredients. V1 was vegan, V2 is tallow, let's see how it goes through testing


What the lather looks like from V2.

Soooooo, I finally got a chance to use the pre-shave sample that Mohammad sent me a few weeks ago.  I was dealing with some issues that would not allow me to shave for 2 weeks so I had a full beard when I used it Friday morning.  The first thing that comes to mind is WOW!!  I have been using Micky Lee’s pre-shave butter after trying multiple pre-shave oils and formulas for the last couple years and did not think it could get better than that for a pre-shave.  I was dead wrong! ...  All in all, when Mo releases this pre-shave, I will be purchasing 2-3 tubs so I feel like I won’t run out anytime soon.  Once again, he has knocked it out of the park!!  Bravo Mohammad!!

I had the very good fortune to try a test sample of the pre-shave today.  To quote George ...

WOW!!

... is right!  At the risk of sounding over-the-top, it was the best shave I have ever had. It was so simple too.  I followed Mohammad's instructions and could not believe the result.  For those who are interested, I just posted about it in more detail here, in the SOTD thread.  For now, let me just say to George "I'll see your 2-3 tubs and raise a tub."    This stuff is the real deal.

Thanks Mohammad, and happy shaves everyone.

A quick update with using Mohammad's pre-shave but this time with V35 instead of V32.

V35 Arrived Two days ago and I decided to use with setup of Meißner Tremonia Bay Rum and today I used Boellis Panama 1924. With Meißner, not really sure if it is glycerin based or what it is called but I like the aroma and easy to lather for me (same goes for Dark Limes) but the pre-shave feel is nothing special and same goes for the post shave feel, at least for me anyway. With using V35 as directed with the instructions, I didn't notice any difference between V35 and V32 with the first pass, but in regards to Meißner itself, made a huge difference in the quality of the shave. Where I did notice a difference with V35 over V32 was the 2nd pass which for me is ATG. Man was this super smooth. V32 was smooth, V35 with a 9 day old Super Iridium was super smooth. Today with Boellis Panama 1924, an excellent tallow based soap was super smooth WTG and ATG. This time I did my normal routine of NOT rinsing off between first and 2nd pass, just painted the shave soap on for the ATG pass and again super smooth, no drag at all resulting in BBS with an 11 day old Super Iridium blade, and I am one that shaves every day. Yes I will be buying this when it rolls out.

Thanks Mohamad for the opportunity to test drive V32 and V35 of your pre-shave.

A quick update with using Mohammad's pre-shave but this time with V35 instead of V32.

V35 Arrived Two days ago and I decided to use with setup of  Meißner Tremonia Bay Rum and today I used Boellis Panama 1924. With Meißner, not really sure if it is glycerin based or what it is called but I like the aroma and easy to lather for me (same goes for Dark Limes) but the pre-shave feel is nothing special and same goes for the post shave feel, at least for me anyway. With using V35 as directed with the instructions, I didn't notice any difference between V35 and V32 with the first pass, but in regards to Meißner  itself, made a huge difference in the quality of the shave. Were I did notice a difference with V35 over V32 was the 2nd pass which for me is ATG. Man was this super smooth. V32 was smooth, V35 with a 9 day old Super Iridium was super smooth. Today with Boellis Panama 1924, an excellent tallow based soap was super smooth WTG and ATG. This time I did my normal routine of NOT rinsing off between first and 2nd pass, just painted the shave soap on for the ATG pass and again super smooth, no drag at all resulting in   BBS with an 11 day old Super Iridium blade, and I am one that shaves every day. Yes I will be buying this when it rolls out.

Thanks Mohamad for the opportunity to test drive V32 and V35 of your pre-shave.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, I'm happy you're enjoying the preshave.

Mohammad was kind enough to send me a sample of V35. I’ve used it twice, and I’m convinced.

Several years ago, I went through a PSAD (pre-shave acquisition disorder) phase. I tried a bunch—both creams and oils. At the end of the day, I settled on Myrsol Emulsion, which I used daily until the bottle was almost empty. (I’ve got an unhealthy aversion to finishing shaving products...) Since then, I’ve gone without pre-shaves.

Until yesterday, when I used V35. I followed Mo’s instructions (mostly), and was able to create a very slick “mini-lather” on my face. Instead of rubbing in the salve for a minute or two, I spent maybe ten seconds, but got a tremendous shave with my Ikon Tech which, when well-behaved, is still a blade-forward challenge. I thought I noticed a difference, but wasn’t sure, as I used a Declaration bison soap, which always works well for me.

Today I spent the prescribed 60 seconds rubbing the V35 into my face. The mini-lather was much more prominent, and got much slicker over time. I used the Ikon Tech again, but switched to a soap that I’ve only used a couple of times—Lisa’s new Artisan line. I haven’t yet dialed in the new Lisa’s (as opposed to Declaration), so I wasn’t expecting a better shave than yesterday, but I got one. The Ikon Tech glided up the center of my neck, ATG, like a Gillette Tech without a blade (almost). This was truly a different experience with my Ikon Tech, as it usually reminds me every eighth of an inch how aggressive it is. Not today.

I’m only two shaves in with the stuff, but I plan to keep using Mo’s pre-shave, daily. It’s qualitatively different, and superior, to all the pre-shaves I’ve tried before, including my beloved Emulsion. It performs, on my face, like a “light” version of a brushless shaving soap or cream. Using it is effortless and enjoyable. My only complaint is that it has virtually no scent. I enjoy Mo’s scents a great deal, and would love to see him infuse the pre-shave with some.

Thanks for letting me test this great stuff, Mohammad!