Med Shave - Taormina, Sicilly

The first stop on my week long Mediterranean cruise was Taormina, Sicilly and I found a nice looking barber shop to get a straight razor shave.

The barber lathered me up with some Proraso that he pumped from what looked like a two liter pump bottle. Then he loaded a blade into the straight razor and began shaving. When he got to my upper lip area I tightened my lip over my teeth and he waved his finger no. So I relaxed and he took care of all the necessary stretching as needed and I learned a new way to shave under my nose. With a relaxed lip he simply lifted the very tip of my nose and shaved down, voila! The shave was not as smooth as one I could have done myself, but the experience was definitely worth it.

View attachment $Taormina Str8 Shave.jpg

When it was done I paid the man ten Euro for the shave and bought an open comb razor that he recommended for 16 Euro and a green tube of Proraso for two Euro. I am not a big fan of Proraso but that was a pretty good price and it really seemed to work well with a straight razor.

View attachment 9302

Walked around for a while and bought a C&E Sienna shave soap for 10 Euro at a small perfume boutique. MBW also picked up a bottle of Santa Maria Novella lemon cologne for about 40 euro. All in all it was not a bad day for finding stuff, but I really want to find some red tube Proraso and the NEW Proraso.

Where in Taormina is that? On the main 'strip'? We go to the UK & Sicily every year to visit relatives.

Did you head up to Castlemola?

jamacdon said:

Where in Taormina is that? On the main 'strip'? We go to the UK & Sicily every year to visit relatives.

Did you head up to Castlemola?

Click to expand...

Yes it is. And yes I believe we did. I was going to attach a picture to see if it is what you meant but I am at my wifes office and don't have access to the pictures. We had the best meal of the entire trip in a little place with a nice terrace overlooking the entire area at the top of a thousand steps.

OldSaw said:

All in all it was not a bad day for finding stuff, but I really want to find some red tube Proraso and the NEW Proraso.

Click to expand...

If you find any red tube Proraso, and you like it, I suggest you think about scarfing it up. I have on good authority that it's been discontinued.

And I think the NEW Proraso is a lot like the "non-lathering" shave "cream" that everybody in the US is already selling. Although they may have some decent other stuff in that line as well.

I wish they had Proraso (red or green) for sale in England and Germany when I was there on vacation in April. As it was, I brought back about 24 assorted tubes of Plamolive Green, Speick, Nivea, Wilkinson, Florena, etc. At about $1.50 to $2.50 a tube, beats the heck outta $12-$15 a tube bought over here! Half of it went to a friend who had asked me to bring some back. The rest of it should keep me in decent SC for a little while, except for the occasional tube of Proraso...

fritz said:

If you find any red tube Proraso, and you like it, I suggest you think about scarfing it up. I have on good authority that it's been discontinued.

And I think the NEW Proraso is a lot like the "non-lathering" shave "cream" that everybody in the US is already selling. Although they may have some decent other stuff in that line as well.

I wish they had Proraso (red or green) for sale in England and Germany when I was there on vacation in April. As it was, I brought back about 24 assorted tubes of Plamolive Green, Speick, Nivea, Wilkinson, Florena, etc. At about $1.50 to $2.50 a tube, beats the heck outta $12-$15 a tube bought over here! Half of it went to a friend who had asked me to bring some back. The rest of it should keep me in decent SC for a little while, except for the occasional tube of Proraso...

Click to expand...

Your authority must be correct then, because after seven days of searching I didn't find any red tube Proraso. My checked bag was really stuffed with all the shave cream and stuff MBW bought. I even had to buy another carry-on bag for all the leather we bought, 3 jackets and 2 purses.