The Arko Horror, by HP Lovecraft

[ThePatrician]

I got a stick of Arko free with an order several months ago. For some reason I’m not a fan of shave sticks, I prefer pucks of soap in a tub. I had read that Arko can be cut into 1/2 –inch slices and pressed into a tub, so one night last week that’s what I did. This morning I had my first shave with it. Madness ensued.

I will start off by saying it smells like a cheap urinal cake. It’s not dreadful or eye-watering, it just smells slightly sickly-sweet, like a really cheap deodorizing soap. I can see it growing on me, but not right away. Maybe the scent is a big head-turner in Turkey, but not for me. I’m glad the scent fades after a while!

Considering that a whole stick of it is a wallet-gentle US$2, this has to be the bargain of the century. The lather was super-thick, creamy, and rich. I don’t think I added enough water because I don’t think it was as slick as my other soaps, but I will chalk this up to my rock-hard water and remember this for the future. My razor didn’t quite glide across my face like a chubby boy over oiled ice, but it didn’t catch and skip either. The thick lather with my glycerin-rich AS left my face feeling very moisturized.

The scent may be as close to rubbish without being actually nauseating as any object from the Old Ones can be, but this waltzed right into my rotation with verve and aplomb.

Sigh. I am a member of the cult of Arko.

[joshgambit]

Letting it sit uncovered will help with the scent. When I first started using Arko, I unwrapped the stick and put it in the garage!

And now that I am part of the Cult of Arko (CoA?)...to quote Lovecraft; "When the last days were upon me, and the ugly trifles of existence began to drive me to madness like the small drops of water torturers let fall ceaselessly upon one spot of their victim's body, I loved the irradiate refuge of sleep. In my dreams I found a little of the beauty I had vainly sought in life, and wandered through old gardens and enchanted woods."

[rockviper]

(with apologies to The Eagles)

Welcome to the Hotel Arko Shave Stick
You can check out anytime you like, but you can never leave.

[gsurko]

Using Arko will make you a better lover.

[Oblique Human]

Using Arko will make you a better lover.

No doubt, women just fawn over that musky john scent.

[MACGI98z28]

Arko is very soft and made to go on your face to be lathered by a wet brush. When lathering Arko in a bowl you can pick up too much on the brush and it will gunk/dry quickly on your face. I find that running a bit of water over the brush tip and then going back to the face before making my first passes really helps. It also means that you don't need to go back to the bowl for more lather.

[Songwind]

I think you've struck upon a truth. The smell doesn't actually exist, it's simply the mind's attempt to deal with the n-dimensional goodness of lather being forced into a 3-dimensional shape of a shave stick. Incapable of correlating this information, the mind makes up a smell, as a way to deal with the input without madness.

The sweetness or foulness of the smell probably indicates how close you are to the gibbering realms already.

Are those flutes? Wait, Nyarlathotep, I'm coming with you!​

[Cochese2323]

No doubt, women just fawn over that musky john scent.

My SWMBO said I had to sleep on the couch if I started using it. Plus after reading multiple posts about the "urinal cake" reference, I simply could not bring it to my face.

[xero2099]

as others have said if you leave it out after you open it alot of the smell goes away

[gsurko]

I feel sorry for you poor guys that don't appreciate all that is Arko.

[xero2099]

I feel sorry for you poor guys that don't appreciate all that is Arko.

+1

[tomjr]

another convert

[Deltaboy]

Welcome to the Cult of Arko and as others have said. Set those sticks out in the garage for a week and the scent will got away.
It works great and I make super lather using some CO Bigelow shaving cream.

[DE_Dude]

I live the lemon pez-ish arko smell. I wouldn't mind if it smelled stronger!!

[Topgumby]

Man, with that kind of thread title, I was expecting something like this:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the incapacity of the human mind to correlate all of shavedom. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of a vast, dark realm of arcane shaving accouterments and curios, some that have remained hidden in the dark corners of the world, and the discovery of the most blood freezing, ghastly and foul of them would surely drive the wet-shaver gibbering mad or force him into a new dark age, ruled by shaman and charlatans preaching the virtues of canned foams and cartridge razors.

I will, of course, be considered quite insane, but this manuscript, should it survive my own expectations of a short and malodorous existence, may serve as testament to that unspeakable evil that has ripped my olfactory sanity screeching from me, and warn the future reader of what has befallen me, but I fear, even for them, it will be to late.

Arko is coming! I smell the sickly-sweet lemon Pez miasma that heralds his return, and I take these last moments before I am utterly destroyed, or, more horrible yet, my will surrenders to the pleasingly ample lather and attractive price of this foul demigod of Thracian antiquity, whom the Turks have unwittingly unleashed upon a doomed planet. Arko, who pervades my waking nightmares, soft white flesh pulsating like some unfathomable evil in pupatation, foaming up at the slightest hint of water and brush, lurking behind the visage of that grinning, welcoming happy crew-cut man, who is only a shell for what lurks within!

I must go to Arko, even as the last shreds of my sensibility are torn from me, the joyful days of pleasant scents and highly regarded soaps a mocking half memory, for Arko calls, filling my tortured soul with that wretched scent. Oh, help me, Arko beckons with such cheapness, I can shave forever......"

[Dusty1]

Using Arko will make you a better lover.

My lady won't kiss me when I smell of an Arko romance.

[cryhavoc]

Man, with that kind of thread title, I was expecting something like this:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the incapacity of the human mind to correlate all of shavedom. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of a vast, dark realm of arcane shaving accouterments and curios, some that have remained hidden in the dark corners of the world, and the discovery of the most blood freezing, ghastly and foul of them would surely drive the wet-shaver gibbering mad or force him into a new dark age, ruled by shaman and charlatans preaching the virtues of canned foams and cartridge razors.

I will, of course, be considered quite insane, but this manuscript, should it survive my own expectations of a short and malodorous existence, may serve as testament to that unspeakable evil that has ripped my olfactory sanity screeching from me, and warn the future reader of what has befallen me, but I fear, even for them, it will be to late.

Arko is coming! I smell the sickly-sweet lemon Pez miasma that heralds his return, and I take these last moments before I am utterly destroyed, or, more horrible yet, my will surrenders to the pleasingly ample lather and attractive price of this foul demigod of Thracian antiquity, whom the Turks have unwittingly unleashed upon a doomed planet. Arko, who pervades my waking nightmares, soft white flesh pulsating like some unfathomable evil in pupatation, foaming up at the slightest hint of water and brush, lurking behind the visage of that grinning, welcoming happy crew-cut man, who is only a shell for what lurks within!

I must go to Arko, even as the last shreds of my sensibility are torn from me, the joyful days of pleasant scents and highly regarded soaps a mocking half memory, for Arko calls, filling my tortured soul with that wretched scent. Oh, help me, Arko beckons with such cheapness, I can shave forever......"

What word craft H.P. Topgumby, the Mountains of Lather call me. Arko is coming!

[ThePatrician]

Man, with that kind of thread title, I was expecting something like this:

"The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the incapacity of the human mind to correlate all of shavedom. We live in a placid island of ignorance in the midst of a vast, dark realm of arcane shaving accouterments and curios, some that have remained hidden in the dark corners of the world, and the discovery of the most blood freezing, ghastly and foul of them would surely drive the wet-shaver gibbering mad or force him into a new dark age, ruled by shaman and charlatans preaching the virtues of canned foams and cartridge razors.

I will, of course, be considered quite insane, but this manuscript, should it survive my own expectations of a short and malodorous existence, may serve as testament to that unspeakable evil that has ripped my olfactory sanity screeching from me, and warn the future reader of what has befallen me, but I fear, even for them, it will be to late.

Arko is coming! I smell the sickly-sweet lemon Pez miasma that heralds his return, and I take these last moments before I am utterly destroyed, or, more horrible yet, my will surrenders to the pleasingly ample lather and attractive price of this foul demigod of Thracian antiquity, whom the Turks have unwittingly unleashed upon a doomed planet. Arko, who pervades my waking nightmares, soft white flesh pulsating like some unfathomable evil in pupatation, foaming up at the slightest hint of water and brush, lurking behind the visage of that grinning, welcoming happy crew-cut man, who is only a shell for what lurks within!

I must go to Arko, even as the last shreds of my sensibility are torn from me, the joyful days of pleasant scents and highly regarded soaps a mocking half memory, for Arko calls, filling my tortured soul with that wretched scent. Oh, help me, Arko beckons with such cheapness, I can shave forever......"

Wow, what wordcraft! I am, quite simply, amazed. Well done, good sir. Well done indeed.

[Oblique Human]

My SWMBO said I had to sleep on the couch if I started using it. Plus after reading multiple posts about the "urinal cake" reference, I simply could not bring it to my face.

Women can be fickle creatures. But on a more serious note, if you bowl leather, you can add a dab of some strong scented cream to Arko to neutralize that scent because Arko's scent is not offensive or lingers so it is easier to mask. I find that Palmolive green works very well as does Caola.

[ThePatrician]

Women can be fickle creatures. But on a more serious note, if you bowl leather, you can add a dab of some strong scented cream to Arko to neutralize that scent because Arko's scent is not offensive or lingers so it is easier to mask. I find that Palmolive green works very well as does Caola.

I may see what unholy terror I can create with Arko lather spiked with Old Spice cream. Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Arko R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn. In his sunken city of R'lyeh, dead Arko waits dreaming.