Okay, so this isn’t exactly edible, but it falls into the same vein of interest for me, in many ways. At this weekend’s Farmer’s Market, Catherine and I decided to buy some soaps from the one of the natural soap vendors. This was mainly driven by the fact that I was almost out of shaving foam, and had been intending to begin using shaving soap as part of my intention to eventually shave with a straight-edge razor.

What we ended up getting was a Tea Tree Oil Shampoo Soap and another Shaving Soap, a scrubbing soap called “Pesto”, and a Rosemary Pumice soap. We paid about $16 for the four soaps, but these soaps are made with really good materials. Jojoba Oil and Castor Oil, both of which are really good for your skin, as significant ingredients. Even after a single use of these soaps, my skin already feels better, and that’s after a day of sun damage from planting the garden.

However, my favorite part of the new soap is the shaving soap. I had to buy a badger-hair brush, which are unfortunately hard to find these days. Luckily, I knew that Spartan Cutlery, in Spokane’s Malls carried boars-hair brushes. Unfortunately, they were only available in shaving kits that included a twin blade safety razor. Luckily, I’d been planning on buying one of those anyway, as the replacement blades are at least half the price of the modern Gillette replacement blades. Still, aside from using a fresh blade, I used my old Gillette Mach3 along with my boars hair brush and the Tea Tree Oil Shaving Soap.

Shaving soap is a little different to use. As I don’t have a good mug for the soap, I’m just using one of our smaller ice cream bowls, but putting a bit of warm water in with the soap is all it really takes to build a nice solid lather on the brush. Brush that one your face, same way you would the foam, except you don’t end up with this thick goop all over your face. From there, shave normally. Cold water over the blade to wash it out, and a cold water rinse when you’re done. This was honestly the best shave I’ve had in years. Hell, I shaved last night, and as I write this more than twelve hours later, I still am less shaggy than I normally am after this amount of time.

Natural Soaps aren’t necessarily very expensive, and just the way that you feel once you’re done using them makes it completely worth the slightly greater investment.