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That's what my face feels like today. Raw. I shaved with the Tabac shave stick again for the second day in a row, and my skin hasn't felt this sensitive in quite a while.

I think it has to do with the cologne in this Tabac shaving soap. Clearly, Tabac is not shy about how much cologne they pour into this soap -- it's far and away the strongest smelling hard shaving soap I've come across. Problem is, my skin is really sensitive to cologne-based shaving products. So while the shave I got yesterday with Tabac went swimmingly, today my face felt raw.

Since I started shaving with the Featherjector razor -- a vintage Schick Injector loaded with a modified Feather Pro Super disposable straight razor blade instead of a regular Schick or Personna blade -- I've noticed that I need to be much more careful about what cream or soap I shave with than I ever had to be when I was shaving with a DE, or even the Gillette Sensor and Mach3 before that. The Featherjector cuts so close, and does it so effortlessly, that you really need to lay down a thick, cushiony layer between the blade and your puss if you want to get a super-close shave without issues.

What's weird is that while the Tabac is the only hard shaving soap that let me shave over the mole on my upper lip without nicking it, I can't use this soap two days in a row without feeling raw. The equally excellent Classic Shaving soap, on the other hand, did let me me nick my mole, but it was so gentle and comfortable on my skin that I could and did shave with this soap for days on end without a hint of irritation.

If Tabac would do an unscented version of its shaving soap, it would be a world-beater. But then it wouldn't be Tabac. It would just be an unscented lump of processed animal fat. Hey, sign me up. That I could use. The Tabac, unfortunately, I can't, at least not two days in a row. My skin won't stand for it. I'll pull it out and shave with it once in awhile, because it really is unique and excellent stuff, but my skin and the Featherjector demand I go back to the creams. Which is good timing, because I just scored some D R Harris Lavender cream, which I've been dying to try. Seeing as how some shavesperts won't shave with anything else, I'm eager to try this high-end English cream tomorrow.