I bought a bit over a year ago, but I only honed it during this year's TabOktoberfest, and wrote this little write-up because I think it's an interesting razor.
I then promptly busted its pristine scales and luckily, Ralf Aust makes scales of almost the same size and shape. I posted the rescale operation here.
It's just a regular square point German hollow ground, but I enjoy it more than most of my other straights
Yesterday's shave was so good, I had to do it again. It helped that the combo 34C + old blade left me with the impression that I should do it today. The Cella has a really nice scent - unfortunately a very discreet one, that I get noseblind to very fast.
I had ordered a few perfume decants, mainly from Rogue Perfumery. Mon Bon Monsieur smells generically good, and very clean. On Fragrantica, someone described it as a mall perfume from the 80s. That's not completely false, but also not a bad thing.
Lather: Murphy and McNeil - Barbershop de Los Muertos 3 - Soap
Toner: Thayers - Lemon - Toner
Aftershave: Murphy and McNeil - Barbershop de Los Muertos 3 - Aftershave
Talc: Yardley Gold
2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.
I'm revisiting the Murphy & McNeil Kodiak base with this shave. Before leaving on my trip, I used The Great Bear (also Kodiak) and could not get a lather to build. I don't use these soaps that frequently so I was concerned that there might be a shelf life with this base. I had no problems today with BDLM 3 so I'll need to revisit The Great Bear to see if I just had a bad day.
The Kodiak soap base is quite nice. It features bear tallow as well as skin food additives for post-shave feel. I think this is one of those bases that takes a little time and work to get right. I load it heavily and end up adding a lot of water. The result is a high-density lather that, somehow, has a very light feel.