January 2018 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix & Discussion

Here's what the guy sent me when I bought the P1 super speed from him

 

Give that Astra a few days worth of shaves. Great starter. The Gillette Silver Blue also excellent. Can't quite make out the bottom one. The Feather - hang onto that one. It will be a great step up once you have some shaves under your belt.

 

Bottom one is a 7oclock

 

Good batch of equipment to pick from! Any of the three razors would be fine, although the Superspeed might be the best to start because it's the simplest. The other two are adjustables with settings to play with while the Superspeed is a stone simple middle-of-the-road shaver. I would be inclined to spend at least a month with the Superspeed, then go to the Fatboy and finally the Rockwell 6s, which is much heavier and has the plates to sort through.

Blades -- the Rockwell is a good average blade and does pair very well with the Rockwell 6s. The Astra SP and the Gillette Silver Blue are excellent choices too -- probably better actually. 7 O'clock is a Gillette blade and also excellent. The Feather is probably the sharpest blade on the market and might be better left for later. I'm not familiar with the shaverboy so I can't comment on them. Generally any blade should work fine, especially once you get used to it, although I think I would give the Feather a miss for now. Neal @NCoxSTL gave a great breakdown on them all.

The main thing with blades is they're cheap so no need to stint on them. Once you're used to shaving, you can stretch them out until they start showing they need to be changed by getting tuggy -- whether that's in three days or three months. To start, however, we usually recommend a maximum of "three shaves and out". No need to risk getting confusing results from a badly used up blade...

Soap -- I have Proraso creams and soaps of all colours -- great stuff. I also have at least two versions of Nivea creams -- also excellent. Can't go wrong with any of them. To use for a month straight for a start, I might go with the Proraso Green because it has such a nice refreshing feeling.

You didn't mention them, but you might want to get an alum block and either witch hazel or a balm as a postshave. You rub your wet face with the alum after the last shaving pass. The alum tingles anywhere you have pressed too hard, seals any small nicks or weepers, and tones the skin a bit. After rinsing the alum off, the witch hazel will soothe any razorburn. A balm will as well. Since you have Nivea creams, you might want to get Nivea Sensitive Skin Balm. Great stuff. My bottle was a real lifesaver when I started DE wetshaving.

 

I bought some witch hazel last night. Wow that stuff is magic. The bottom blade in pic is a 7oclock. I also have Rockwell barber scent shave balm . Love that stuff also

 

Another very good choice.

 

Had a personna in the super speed but didn't feel right so I put it in the other Gillette. The Rockwell likes any blade i put in it

 

Like Neal said, the 7 O'clock is also an excellent choice. There are two or three versions made in either Russia or India by Gillette and all are good. Basically, just pick one of those brands of blade you have and use it for the month -- assuming you have a number of each. If not, use up each in turn, then buy a 100-pack of the one you liked best.

Witch hazel (and the alum block as a training aid) were probably the best pieces of kit I learned about here.

I don’t have the Rockwell shave balm but I do have their shave soap and cream. They use good ingredients in their stuff.

 

Sadly I only have 1each of the blades in the pic . Rockwell sure impressed me with their balm and razor too. At this point I'm still clueless about blades and am eager to take any advice given . You guys on here are great.

 

Another newbie question....do people flip blades and how do you clean them after shaving? Read not to wipe them or take them out of razor until ready to discard. Any help appreciated.

 

Hello. Welcome to our little corner of the Internet.

Flipping blades unnecessary.

Pick one razor, one blade, one soap, and one brush.

Let's make you an expert.

 

I'll just leave this here....

PIF - Russian Roulette Edition

 

As Chris @Bama Samurai said, flipping blades is unnecessary. Especially if you are only using it for about three shaves anyway. You don't need to wipe them or take them out of the razor before discarding them either. To clean them after shaving, rinse the head of the razor under running water and shake. That's all that's necessary. Unless you are using old-style carbon steel blades, and then you do have to rinse and dry them each day or they rust. But none of your sample blades are carbon steel and there's no need to play with them until later if you really feel you must or want to.

If you only have one of each blade, I would use each for three shaves each and try them in turn. Save the Feather for last. In the meantime, I would order a 100-pack of one of them to start with.

Since you live in Canada, two good places to get stuff online are Fendrihan.ca and Canadianbladeco.com. Both are in Canada so you avoid the whole Customs thing, and both also offer free shipping over a certain amount, or very reasonable shipping if you don't reach that level, and both have excellent products and good customer service. For razor blades, Fendrihan is the best of the two because it offers 100-packs. It also offers samplers of tucks of several brands if you want to experiment. Honestly, though, you are probably just as well off to pick one reputable brand and stock up a bit, at least to start. Later, if you want, you can experiment with different blades to find your "perfect" one if you want -- although by then you will probably have found as many of us have that any quality blade will work just about as well as any other.

Of the ones you have as sample blades, Fendrihan offers Astra SP blades in 100-packs for $18.00 Cdn -- roughly 20 cents a blade by the time you figure in tax and shipping. If it were me, I would order a 100-pack of them from Fendrihan and maybe throw in one of their sampler sets of other blades to play with later once that first 100 was gone.

You'll notice that the GSBs, Gillette Platinums and Feathers -- which Fendrihan also sells in 100-packs -- are all significantly more expensive than the Astra SPs. And certainly to start, I doubt you will really notice that much difference between them. So get the good but cheaper ones.

Or if you find you like the Rockwell blades, then get a 100-pack of Rockwells from Rockwell for about the same price as the Astra SPs and use them. Either way, you aren't going to get a good razor blade for much cheaper than that in Canada.

If you want to use Voskhods, PolSilvers, Rapira or the other Russian-made blades (other than Astra SP or SS), the cheapest place to get them is by buying in bulk direct from Russian re-sellers. Neal @NCoxSTL can tell you how to do that. (I can't remember the website at the moment).

By the time you work your way through that first 100-pack, you will be an expert at using your razor (and lathering your soap if you are just learning that) and can better appreciate the frankly rather subtle differences between the top-rated blade brands.

Edit:. I forgot ItalianBarber.com -- another good internet store based in Ontario. And they have Voskhods on sale at the moment for $14 Cdn per 100...

 

January 24, 2018
OneBlade Genesis V2
Modified Gem PTFE
Thater Beehive White Boar
Jeeves Bay Rum
Captain’s Choice Bay Rum


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The hardware and software worked well together to deliver a very nice relaxing shave. The Jeeves Bay Rum really works well in shave stick form now that I have dialed in how much soap is needed. Three passes and touch ups ended in a drama free near BBS shave. A splash of Captain's Choice and I am ready for the day. I hope everyone has a great Wednesday.

 

Beautiful photograph of an excellent brush.

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Great looking setup and picture of fine products.

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Stunning photo Clint.

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Thank you Doug. Hope you are feeling better today.

 

It's my 48 year anniversary. My wife is 480 years (Doug years). I'll have to such it up today.