Coming home for holiday. Best way to stock up

jebidiah

Hi there, I'm currently living in Tokyo where wet shaving is not a thing. Most guys shave their minimal facial hair with cartridges or electrics.

Despite the huge department stores with ridiculous ranges of beauty products for men there is basically nothing for shaving bar a few Japanese brands and the usual can foam.

Proraso in a tub is over 2000 yen ordered from Amazon, which is more than double the price at home.

So I have two questions I hope you can answer for me!

Q.1
I'll be home in April for just under two weeks and am wondering if it's best to order online and have it delivered? Or go to a place like Knights of the Green (they have a lot of stuff on their web shop, do they sell it in store?) And buy it in person?

Where do you recommend? Shaving.ie looks like it has a large selection. Or is there somewhere in Dublin that I can go?

Q.2
I used a fusion with a Men-u boar brush and just regular soap for lather for most of my time shaving. Only recently was I gifted a nice hand made badger brush and decided to get a DE razor and some nice soap.

I now have a Muhle R89 and I was able to find

Baxters super close shave formula (not really a foaming cream, but still a nice shave really moisturizing)

Logona MANN shaving cream (nice lather but maybe there are better out there)

And I got some Arko with a blade sample pack. Nice lather and the scent is ok.

So my next question is, what soaps and creams do you recommend to someone who's getting into this?

I will most likely buy some proraso or razo rock as they seem to be well reviewed and cheap soaps, and at 6 quid sure you cant go wrong.

On top of that I'd like to try two of the upper end soaps. Like Taylor, Mitchell's, Trumper etc.

I'm a little astonished at some of the people posting on shave forums, "two weeks in, this is my horde" they seem to have bought every soap available. I'd like to display some restraint, but since I can't get stuff cheap in Japan, better to get it while I'm home.

beardybrewer

Q1. For a stock up like this definitely order online. Check the "where to buy" sticky at the top of the forum. I'd recommend perusing shaving.ie and connaght shaving in terms of price and selection.

Q2. Pick up Palmolive shave sticks from Tesco for peanuts. There is a huge selection above for soap and creams. Hard soaps like MWF and DR Harris last a long time which would seem ideal for your situation.

hitemfrank

Have a look at Cyril Salter shave creams. They are really easy to get a good lather from and have a few different scents available.

Have you been able to find Lucido aftershave? It's pretty much only available in Japan and is supposed to be really good. It has no scent so wont interfere with a cologne. It's something on my want to try list of products.

andrew1977

Connaught shaving ebay store offers free delivery on items.
Works out cheaper than ordering direct from their normal online store.

I like the way they sell single packs of blades with free delivery, good cheap way of trying out single pack of blades for around the 4 euro or so mark.
Gives you the chance to try out different blades/creams/soaps and not having excessive delivery charges for a small order.

Great service also.

jebidiah

Thanks for the replies lads.

I've a cart lined up on shaving.ie to be delivered when I'm back home. Thanks for the soap recommendations.

As for the lucido stuff. Ive heard about it. And I think I may have seen it. But it says Lotion on the bottle. So I thought it was more like an after shave balm.

I'll have a look at it next time im at the pharmacy.

jebidiah

Found both the Lucido Aftershave Lotion and the Bravas After Shave in my local pharmacy. Both under 800 yen. Around 6 euro or less.

Bought some of the lucido to try

hitemfrank

That's pretty cheap considering the price it becomes when trying to get it in Europe. The only place I've seen ship it to Europe ask about €15 for just the Lucido and then another €15 or so for shipping.

Let us know how you get on with it.