Badger & Blade opens holiday shave thread for July 4, Canada Day week

Badger & Blade kicked off its June 29 through July 5 holiday SOTD thread with a familiar forum rhythm: members began posting shave setups immediately, turning a July 4 and Canada Day theme week into a running display of gear, scent, and ritual. The opening prompt asked for SOTDs that included at least one item made in Canada or the United States, and the first visible post set the tone with a full lineup from eezee: Antiga Barbearia de Bairro Chiado soap, a Semogue 610 brush, a Merkur 42C 1904 Closed Comb razor, a Gillette 7:00 Yellow blade marked as shave number four, Murray & Lanman Florida Water, Nivea Sensitive Cool Balm, and Nautica Blue.

That kind of post is exactly what gives the thread its pull. It is not just a holiday greeting; it is a public inventory of how wet shavers actually build a pass, from lather to aftershave to fragrance. The choices in the opening days leaned into the forum’s usual mix of practical tools and scent layering, with the Merkur 42C and Semogue 610 anchoring a setup that paired a traditional double-edge razor with a brush and finishers that pushed the shave beyond the sink.

The thread also showed how Badger & Blade uses themed weeks as part of its own culture. The forum’s wiki defines SOTD, or Shave of the Day, as a post showing what a person used that day to shave, and notes that some members post equipment lists while others post photos of the gear. Its SOTD calendar says it is meant to document recurring and one-off theme threads, which is why this holiday week reads like both a celebration and a logbook. Badger & Blade ran similar Canada Day and July 4 theme weeks in 2024 and 2025, and the 2024 version explicitly invited members to show SOTDs with at least one item made in Canada or the United States.

The 2026 prompt also named the sort of gear members were expected to surface, including Barrister and Mann, Stirling Soap Company, Noble Otter, Paladin, Elite Razor, The Varlet, and vintage Gillette razors. That North American emphasis fit the calendar cleanly, with Canada Day landing on July 1 and the Government of Canada’s 2026 holiday page highlighting celebrations and activities for that date. By the time the first posts went up, the thread had already done what these holiday shaves do best: turn patriotic color, regional pride, and favorite hardware into a dated record of what the community was actually using.