Gillette Adjustable Settings... which do you use?

Blade width? Even a thousandth of an inch is a huge difference when you're talking about the way you hold a blade to your face.

 

In the span of a week, my adjustables see all of the settings. I will run it on 9 for the 1st pass on 3-4 days growth.

They were made to adjust and I work them. Every shave is customizable.

 

A wider blade gets closer to your face?

 

Bully!!

Keep building technique. That will even out the blade issues. With solid technique any difference is adjusted for. It gets automatic more or less.

 

Yes - if you hold the razor itself at the exact same angle, due to repetition, then a wider blade will dig in more. A narrower blade won't hit the same. It's why my first stroke, no matter what the blade, is to adjust that blade and razor to my face. I'll admit that if I'm just working through a pack, I'll get lazy sometimes, because I know they're as identical as you can get.

 

There is no such thing as holding the exact same angle. Not even during a shave. Any little minute difference like that will not make any difference at all with the shave. That is all ironed out by learning solid technique. Another reason for the time spent learning.

 

I think we can agree to disagree with that. If that was the case, there would be NO adjustables, because there would be no need for them. For me, it's automatic. I find out what happens with _A_ blade, with _A_ razor in the first couple of inches, and adjust to the rest of my face to suit.

Again, if you've shaved often enough, you -will- go on automatic. It's referred to as muscle memory. Each spot on your face will end up with the angle you've used over and over again - unless you override it somehow. Otherwise, you wouldn't be able to hold both of your hands out to your sides and bring the fingers in to your nose repeatedly. Every time, you'd have to carefully watch. Jugglers wouldn't be able to juggle. Instead, a juggler adapts his motions to different objects in different patterns - but every time he uses the same objects, they will hit the same angles and patterns. Another example is touch typing. Every keyboard is a bit different, but you adjust to the new one within a few minutes - and you'll have a favourite.

Muscle memory, however, _will_ get you into trouble if you don't take the time to learn a new object. Someone who has only juggled tennis balls will NOT do well if you throw in a chainsaw.

 

Why do you always move off subject? Were talking shaving. If you ever get around to developing solid technique let me know. Then we can talk about how much difference a blade makes.

As for twisting an adjustable around..... seems the ideal was they could build one razor to suit a lot of people. If you want aggressive turn it up...if not turn it down. I could not give a rats tail feathers what you do with your razor. But we need to be careful of making it sound like that changing settings is necessary to get good shaves from one. Information like that can throw newer shavers off track.

 

If you want to insult me, please do it in a PM. I _have_ solid technique - with the razor and blades. I, as of yet, do not with brush and soap. I'm still working on that, which is why I'm still only using one brush. I have zero technique with a single edged razor, be it SE, Shavette, or Straight.

I think that a lot of people here _do_ change settings constantly during their shave. Heck, Gillette's marketing materials and instructions imply it, or outright state it. (panel 7 - third from the left, second row) Just not to the level that I've seen here and on other forums, changing for each pass.

 

Let's play nice.

 

I use between 4-6 for any blade. Some blades like voskhod need a little higher than say feathers for me. To each his own