SEptember 2016 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix & Discussion

I've had decent shaves with them, but every now and then I find a blade that just won't seem to cut.

 

I really like the container for those Nuavia creams. Very simple and elegant looking. Of course, your photography skills may aid in this assessment!

 

SOTD SEptember 5th


Pal Adjustable
Chick (2)
Stirling Executive Man
Stirling 24mm Synthetic

I didn't have time to post yesterday but I doubt anyone will mind me posting today. I had a dream shave out of the Pal adjustable yesterday. The shy girls was whispering sweet nothings in my ear as she simply wiped my face smooth. There was no tugging and no audible feedback just whiskers and lather there one second and gone the next. The shy girl caressed my face and after 3 passes I was perfectly smooth. This was the absolutely best shave that I've ever gotten from an injector. Perhaps the best shave of my wet shaving career. It was the perfect start to a great holiday! Have a great day my friends!

 

September 6, 2016

Razor: F2 Gillette FatBoy (4)
Blade: Shop-Rite Israeli blade (2)
Brush: VdH Boar
Soap: Marvy/Dove Hydrating Cream

Day 2 with my old friend, the supermarket Israeli blade. Here I depart from @NCoxSTL's testing methodology in terms of razor setting. Neil will be using a Slim with a setting of '6' which is pretty much the highest I can tolerate on a Slim. My normal Slim setting is '5' or '4' on the FatBoy, so I'm going to go with that for today's shave.

First impression- still smooth though I can sense a bit of feedback from the blade which, for me, is what I'd expect. Decent first pass reduction. Second pass and done with a DFS and the face feel I've gotten previously from this blade. I'd probably rate the shave a little higher, but I noticed afterwards that I was not as careful under my nose as I could have been. I expect Neil to have a decent result from today's shave, too.

IIRC, somebody said they were going to try one of these blades in a Shavette. How did that go?

 

Great Picture Andrew! Love the PAL Adjustable.

 

Thanks Mark, she is a great shaver!

 

Thanks Jim! Nuavia is my favorite soap, green, blu, and red. It's a top performer!

 

Be honest Mark...how does it compare to say MdC?

 

Nuavia has a better post shave feel than MDC and IMO the scents are much better. Cost and longevity are comparable, both are excellent buys. Nuavia has better containers. MDC may have the edge for ease of lathering but not by much.

 

I would agree with your assessment. MdC wins for ease of lathering. The scents of Nuavia are just fantastic and the post shave feel ranks as one of the best I have ever tried. Presentation is close but Nuavia wins with the unique containers. Cost is very similar. If the Nuavia lasts as long as MdC they will both turn out to be the most economical soaps I have purchased.

 

I'm certain I used a Kroger's Israeli Generic in a shavette about this time last year. I have no detailed memory of the event. If I documented the shave it was early in my wet shaving experience. I switched from carts to a shavette one year ago mistakenly thinking it was the learning path to straight razors. If I did a shave report it's on B&B, but I got banned there so I don't play with those guys anymore. Fortunate for me, as I ended up here at TSD!

 

Thank you gents. I appreciate the honest feedback. I have been impressed by MdC lately, but wish it had a touch more slickness and a smoother post shave face feel.

I'm doing a focus on MdC this month, but I really want to compare these two head to head.

 

Smells like a Drug Store SEptember!!

September 6

Grand Blade Trial

Razor - 1962 (H1) Gillette Slim (6)
Blade - (2)
Soap - Arko
Brush - Wolf Whiskers Custom Silvertip
Post - Alum, Styptic, Clubman

My one day off of the week and I won't claim to be fully awake or alive today. Big weekends like that are killers, especially when the sales came in the way they did. Lots of smaller sales means more time on your feet, more bargains being made for less money overall and no breaks between those big bed sales. I'm tired. But, the second day of the Walgreen's Red is upon us. Yesterday it treated me just like the Israeli Red. Mild razor equals not so great shave. Smooth but CCS.

Today is the mid-range setting and I'm expecting better. And, I got it. Just like with the true Red the first pass was still very smooth but the blade showed up a bit more. Definitely got a better reduction and a much better start to the shave. The second pass stayed smooth and effective and the third pass, ATG and Slide finished it with a very nice DFS. With two notable exceptions. A cut on my right jawline and a cut on my chin up against the goatee just on the jaw line.

What, I hear you gasping, went wrong?!?! Technique, my friends, technique. Here again is a perfect example of how technique is the biggest determiner of your shave. Just at the end of the second pass, XTG, I came down my jawline on the right side and...picked the razor up to do a short stroke to the goatee. But, mainly because my mind wasn't thinking about shaving at the moment, I set the razor down wrong. That's it. Just a bad set down. I felt the bite (almost like a pain stick) and picked the razor back up. Looked ok but by the time I re-lathered I could see a tiny amount of blood starting. The second technique probem.....cleaning up to the goatee line on the left jaw line after the third pass and I angled the blade and dug the corner as tried to finish it off. That one bled a bit more and required a little styptic. Yep, can't be doing that. Again, mind was wandering a bit and BAM! Two mental lapses created two technique errors which created two cuts. Perfect score!

Take away those, which are no fault of the blade (and may in fact demonstrate that this blade really is sharp) and very nice DFS is the result and I expect it to be even better tomorrow like its branded cousin.

 

Thanks for the pointers. It is what I tried to do over the weekend for my one shave I got in. It was definitely not my best. More on that in the report later. I really am liking this razor for everything except my chin. I just cannot seem to get it right around the chin. Still working on it though.

Glad you are getting such good shaves! I have no complaints about the closeness of the shaves, they have been good solid DFS near BBS shaves.

 

SEptember 2016 SE Focus

September 5

Razor: GEM Junior
Blade: GEM by Personna
Brush: Maggard 24mm synthetic
Soap: Stirling Gentleman
Post: Cold water rinse, Alum block, Old Spice


Shaved on Saturday morning with the GEM junior and it was an ok shave. I think my shave on the 1st was actually closer than I thought because I did not have quite the beard growth I am used to after 1.5 days, which id definitely a good thing. The shave still had some issues on the chin, but not too bad.

Did not shave again until last night. So definitely had some growth on my face at this point. Well, it was not my best shave. I have basically been finding the angle the way described by @Rufus T. where I start with an exaggerated ride the cap position and slowly drop the handle until I get the audible feedback and the nice slicing through the hairs. It really is just the ATG pass on the chin that I cannot seem to figure out how to hold and angle the razor to go from under the chin, across the chin itself, and up toward my lower lip. I either don't get a good cut or I get too much. This time was too much as I ended up with 2 good weepers on the chin. Those suckers burned good with the alum as well. I ended up with a pretty close shave, just not a comfortable one on my chin. The rest of my face seems to be going just fine. As a matter of fact, the blade does so well on my neck that I have basically no touch-up even around my Adam's apple. I am going to keep working on my chin and see if I cannot get things figured out for a comfortable shave on the chin.

 

I am a little late, but wanted to say congrats to @NCoxSTL on 5000 posts! I knew you could talk a lot, so this just confirmed it! I for one am thankful for all your help and for your participation on the 30 day threads. I have learned a lot from you on what to do and even more on what not to do! Looking forward to the next 5000!

Also, congrats to @John Ruschmeyer on your one year anniversary! I am not too far past mine and this site has definitely been the best thing that has happened to my shaving in the past year.

 

So, what we have here is a situation where the Gillette Adjustable at a low setting is adversely affecting the performance of the blade. The question is- How?

It seems like two things are happening at that setting: extreme blade curvature and minimal gap. Something in the design of the Personna blade must be running afoul of one or both of those extremes. At first blush, I'd assume that the blade is either wider than expected (which the curvature exaggerates into an even smaller gap) or the bevel is such that the blade curvature is causing it to glide on top of the whiskers (except possibly where the angle is almost perfect).

Of course, that is only supposition on my uneducated part. Any blade experts want to weigh in?

 

Thanks and I always try to be an example, good or bad!

 

This discussion has me a bit intrigued. And I think I have a way of testing your hypothesis, at least a bit. The blade gap on a Gillette Adjustable 2 is 0.024. The Feather Popular has the same gap but, I don't have one so can't compare to another razor with same gap. However, looking at the stats, a Gillette Adjustable 1 is a 0.022 gap along with the Tech and Weishi, and the Super Speeds and New razors are 0.023. Aha! We can try razors against each other at those gaps to see if the blade still fails in those geometries.

I don't think there's any doubt that the New would provide quite a bit of improvement given the open comb. So I'll leave that one out for now. I also don't think there's any question the blade will perform perfectly fine at 9 on the Slim. So let's take those two out of the shave pool, as it were. That leaves putting a blade in my Gillette Tech and my Weishi along with my flare tip Super Speed, as it is the one in the right date range for the gap we need. So, I will modify my schedule this week to see what kind of data I can get. Here it is -

Wednesday - Walgreens Red in my Ball End Tech.
Thursday - Walgreens Red in my Weishi (Van der Hagen)
Friday - Walgreens Red in my Super Speed

If any of these deliver a great shave we'll know it has to do with the Adjustable head geometry and how it interacts with the Personna blade. And, I could also add a Saturday shave with the blade in a Schick Krona - that 0.021 gap is slim and the geometry is unique.

Also, to make it perfectly fair, I'll use a new blade everyday. I did buy a 10 pack after all. So why not use a few for "science"?

 

Razor: BV-3 Injector (Notso Comb)
Blade: Schick (1)
Brush: El Druida Mopane 2 Band Badger
Soap: Route 66 Lavender Woods
Aftershave: Afta Skin Conditioner

Simply an amazing close comfortable shaving experience.