Great looking bottle and I really like the idea of a one-way valve. I have mixed emotions about shaving oils. When I do use them, I always use them as a pre-shave oil and put shaving cream on top of them.
I started with Pacific Shaving oil and loved the scent and the lightness. Next I tried two different bottles of King of Shaves oil that I grew to hate. The scent made me feel like I was putting 10W-30 Quaker State Motor oil on my face. I gave these as a PIF to a friend. My third attempt was filling my empty Pacific bottle with Astroglide, which worked quite well as a pre-shave oil.
This past week, I tried the AOS unscented and Sandalwood pre-shave oils. While they seemed a bit heavy in texture, they did provide a smooth shave and the Sandalwood smelled great. The two negatives were (1) the oil made my shaving cream stick to the blade of my straight razor and (2) the oil seemed to gum up my Silvertip brush. I wound up washing my brush with shampoo to get the stickiness and clumping out of the brush. I did find the AOS cream and balm to be outstanding, albeit a little pricy.
There are times I feel like oil really add smoothness to my shave and other times I feel that I get just as fine a shave without oil. I guess I am going to have to do some controlled experiments. I think I will apply oil only to one side of my face, lather up the whole face with cream, and see which side shaves better. Using the same mixture of shaving cream should eliminate the shaving cream as a variable factor. I do believe it is worth further exploration.
Thanks for your post. I am not sure why anyone should care whether someone else uses pre-shave oil nor not. If it works for you, use it. If it doesn't work for you, don't use it. Certainly the world of shaving is big enough to include all our preferences.
Happy Shaving,
:)