@swarden43 After receiving this randomly from my favorite semantic sparring partner, I felt compelled to buy some Derby and be a newbie today. I've never tried AoS. My routine: Simple wash Lather Shave Alum Alcohol AS Can an AoS kit, used as the manufacturer intends, yield results equal to my normal routine? Thanks to Steve, I will know in a bit. Stay tuned....
Here we go.... For new guys, I am a shavette user. However, most new converts use DE, so that's the blade style for today.
Hmmm...odd . I didn't get an alert from the tag in your first post or from you quoting my post in that last post.
I'm interested in how this goes. I've never noticed any real difference from pre shaves Sent from my XT1710-02 using Tapatalk
The AoS kit.... I followed the box instructions and threw in some hot water, exuberant, newbie style prep. 1) Pre-shave - applied per directions. Very small amount Felt sticky. Smelled of an evergreen herbal forest. Now...two things here. There is conventional Forum and AoS advice. Then there is chemistry and physics. Preshave oil interferes with lather. Soap dissolves oil, and oil consumes soap. Notice the viscosity of shave oil? It's not slick at all people! Newbies get sold this, and it honestly doesn't help, it just makes soap get used up faster. Get it? That was the case here, too, as chemistry and physics are immutable. I felt like that the shave oil reccomendation interfered with a pretty good.... 2) Shave Cream - Good stuff, worked well, lathered easily...especially after the first pass disssolved the sticky oil from my face. Pass two was way better with just soap. Similar natural smell to the oil. Was using the 30 DC synthetic and all was normal. The cream is the real deal. 3) Balm - I passed on it. It had the consistency and similar ingredient list to suntan lotion. Unappealing to me. At risk of more flames, newbies buy balm when they need skill. Good shaves neither dry nor injure the user. But, if you're new, and you use an aggressive razor like I did, with oil and Derby--don't skip the balm. Use it, and then do a 30 Day rule with Alum. Results: My abrupt switch back to hot water, aggressive DE with Derby, plus the shave oil probably made the razor drag a bit on pass one. This left a touch of irritation around the chin and mouth, but alum fixed it right up. The Derby is serviceable as always, though it will never be the fave if @swarden43 or myself. Thanks Steve! It was cool to do this little experiment. I totally agree these are quality products, and the cream was actually quite nice. (Now, everybody can flame me about shave oil, though I probably won't respond to it unless science is cited.) Thanks for the reads.....
I tried a commercial pre-shave oil and then made a homemade batch. I didn't feel it was adding anything to the shave other than one extra step in the process. I stopped using psos and haven't missed them, quite honestly. This newbie still thoroughly enjoys balms as I find them more soothing to my sensitive skin than many aftershaves. Ironically I'm also a regular user of Fine's Snake Bite-which is about the farthest thing from soothing application. Invigorating, yes. And refreshing. AoS soaps and creams tend to get far more frequent positive reviews than most of their other offerings.
The balm seemed like it would be quite "moisturizing", just not for me. Dryness isn't an issue. My comment was meant to make newbies at least give pause to the fact that more product isn't a long term solution. Reducing the amount of damage done while shaving should a primary concern, rendering balm possibly unnecessary.
