Thread: Wahl Bay Rum

Tried the Wahl “TRADITIONAL BARBERS BAY RUM” today.

Not a bad Bay Rum aftershave in the Australian sense of ‘not bad’ meaning ‘quite good’. This, despite the missing apostrophe.

Also despite a plastic bottle masquerading as a glass bottle.

It’s very clovascious, i.e. smells of cloves but I’m not sure it’s as strong as Dominica which I very much like.

It’s a great price and for something I can get down the street (Shaver Shop). Well worth the money and also a nice feel on the skin.

Carl, you're alive! You had us worried my friend.

Originally Posted by ReardenSteel

Carl, you're alive! You had us worried my friend.

No, I'm still here :-) Need to get back into SRP before they strip me of my Mentor badge at some sort of weird ceremony...

Looks like the same company that makes electric hair razors (which BTW last forever). If it was available in Canada I'd probably try it.

Interesting you should mention that it smells of cloves, but perhaps not as much as Dominica.

I too love Dominica and was obsessed with replicating it as close as I could. I got a bit of cinnamon when I smelled Dominica and maybe even a bit of Jamaican allspice, but the bottle only lists bay oil and alcohol as ingredients. As I posted in another thread in this forum recently, I didn't trust the ingredients list and tried many combinations of alcohol, bay oil, cinnamon, Jamaican allspice, and cloves, but couldn't get that clean Dominica scent. Then, I decided to try just what the bottle said and mixed 5 oz Everclear (190 proof grain alcohol), 2 oz distilled water to keep it from evaporating almost immediately, and 100 drops of bay oil. There it was! That clean, fresh scent of Dominica.

Now I am sure the bottle is truthful and the only ingredients are bay oil and alcohol. They probably use a lower proof alcohol than the 190 I am using so they have no need to cut it with water. I find it interesting that most people either pull clove or cinnamon notes from Dominica (including me) when there is actually none of either in it. Pimenta racemosa's natural spiciness has become one of my favorite scents.

Since there are no raw ingredients for the alcohol to pull oil from, and there is no need to mix different essential oils, you can really just mix it and use it, rather than having to mix it and let it sit for 6 weeks for the alcohol to draw the natural oils out of the raw materials.

The raw materials for my home made Dominica clone bay rum cost about $.60 per oz of aftershave, whereas Dominica is $1.80 per oz. I know to some, it's worth paying 3x for the real deal, and I will always have at least 1 bottle of the genuine article (assuming it remains available) on hand, but I get a kick out of making my own.

If you are like me and like the idea of making your own aftershave, give it a shot. You wont be disappointed with the results.

Originally Posted by murf

Interesting you should mention that it smells of cloves, but perhaps not as much as Dominica.

...

Yeah, I guess the cloves is actually the bay leaves. I've never actually smelt the sort of bay leaf they use of this so I guess I was trying to reference something I know. It's a bit like when wine tasters say a wine has the taste of chocolate :-) I still think Dominica is my favorite bay rum AS, but i also like D.R Harris Bay Rum AS. I'll have to track down some Dominica and fork out for the shipping costs...That sort of thing is hard to come by in South Australia. Mensbiz and Himage are two good Aussie on line sellers but they don't have it...

BTW today I bought some Wahl shaving cream; 12 bucks for a huge 250g tub with a nice traditional smell. I'll report back on how that goes for me... :-)

Carl