(This post was last modified: 08-11-2022, 03:51 PM by Lesser.)
Grooming Dept Diamond Dust (double posting this here and in the GD thread)
Was waiting to finally try this new soap out since I enjoy soaps/splashes with WS-23 chill. But I had some trepidation because I'm never sure what Mohammad's soaps will actually smell like -- I've read the ingredients and descriptions and so often have been surprised. This one was not a surprise, though: and the label art captures this soap perfectly. It smells like -- and with the cool carries the sensation of -- being in a northern pine forest on a snowy day. Crisp and bright and clean but the fir scents are all there. I used, as aftershave, the Talbot Champlain which is a perfectly named splash: it truly smells like the woods in the Adirondacks Mountains in New York near Lake Champlain. There is a difference between Diamond Dust and Champlain, however: whereas Diamond Dust has the light scent of fir and pine and balsam that you get on a snowy day in the winter, Champlain is earthier and deeper -- a rich, heavy fir scent. It is the scent of walking into the forest woods on a damp fall or spring day. Same family of scent but two different experiences. Both are in my wheelhouse, probably because I grew up summering in those woods and still go the Adirondacks a fair amount.
One note: the WS-23 is light. It's a touch of cooling. I suspect there's less of the WS-23 than in the two Summer Break WS-23 soaps, Cannonball! and Rope Swing, both of which I use a lot in the summer. Adding Icy Stare (an unscented WS-23 splash) to the Champlain made everything work quite well.
Second note: Diamond Dust is in Kairos base, and while I had not loved Kairos before (liked it, didn't love it as a base), I'm wondering whether the formula has been tweaked because this was an altogether excellent shave.