We all know pirates loved their rum. “Yo, ho, ho and a bottle of rum,” and all that. But did you know they used the rum for more than just getting drunk? Imagine yourself and twenty to fifty other men out to sea for months at a time with no running water, working hours on end to sail a ship, working up a sweat in the Caribbean sun on a daily basis. I spent a lot of time in locker rooms through high school and college, but I can’t begin to imagine what those crew quarters must have smelled like. Enter the bay rum. Some industrious sailor must have figured out that some of the local vegetation could be used to suppress and overcome their odoriferous emanations. Eventually, another creative soul realized that these plants (like bay leaves, cloves, and vanilla) could be mixed with rum to draw out even more of their wonderfully fragrant oils. Once the alcohol base was introduced, the step to using bay rum as an aftershave was a foregone conclusion.
Today, Cap’n Hunter carries on this tradition with his traditional wet shaving soaps and aftershaves. Furthermore, Cap’n Hunter embodies the persona of a pirate in his advertisements and on his Etsy store. It’s great to see an artisan really commit to their brand. Cap’n Hunter invited me to try all four of his products. I decided to start with his traditional Mutiny Bay Rhum shaving soap and aftershave.
Cap’n Hunter’s Mutiny Bay Rhum Shaving Soap and Aftershave
Shaving Soap
This soap has an outstanding fragrance that grows as you build your lather. But even the dry soap smells great. From my initial smells, I believed Cap’n Hunter’s claims about the quality of his ingredients to be true. Once I started using this shaving soap, I experienced something that I had never felt before. My face started to tingle. It felt like I had already applied a bay rum aftershave and the cloves were kicking in. Fascinating! At this point my question on the quality of ingredients had been confirmed. I found the lather to be quite slick, performing wonderfully. The volume of lather was a little thin, but it in no way affected my shaves.
Aftershave
Surprisingly, I did not get the same “clove burn” from the aftershave as I did from the shaving soap. I was actually expecting that burn to step up a notch considering the shaving soap and the aftershave share the same fragrance base. My theory is that my face had already acclimated to the sensation before using the aftershave splash. However, that lack of bay rum burn did not detract from the fantastic scent and post-shave feel this aftershave brought.
Conclusion
If you’re looking for a new bay rum heading into warmer weather, or you just like try as many as you can, Cap’n Hunter’s Mutiny Bay Rhum will not disappoint. I really enjoyed trying these products. Both the shaving soap and the aftershave are available on the good cap’n’s Etsy store.