August 2018 30 Day Rule/focus Pix & Discussion

Nice photo, Joseph! Great post as usual.

 

Thank you Andrew. She is very energetic. Right now she’s missing the girls terribly.

Great new photo for your avatar.


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Thank you, Andrew! No, Pitralon Classic is a woodsy fragrance. Cedar and pine is what I get. It's a nice scent. I had not used it in a while and it worked pretty well with the Maximo Gomez.

TERRIFIC avatar update, by the way!

 

Great shave and photo. With our high temps and humidity I could have used the menthol this morning.


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Great pics, Clint. Too bad about the blood loss. Good luck at the vet.

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Great photos and reports to start the day off, gentlemen!

Clint @clint64, sorry about the bloodshed. With luck there won't be any more as you drag Mocha into the vet clinic...

Perry @PLAla, I like that Revere Schick. Also, I have heard of Pitralon but never seen a description of its scent before, so I appreciate you describing it for us.

Joseph @Primotenore, beautiful photo as usual. Interesting that the Cella is stronger today -- maybe it just needed to be hydrated a bit to get the scent to the fore? Did you overdo the menthol in the Florida Water?

Also Andrew @Linuxguile, wonderful new Avatar!

 

That M&F is a beautiful brush, Joseph!

Thank you, Gents!

 

Thank you, John! I'm going to call in @mrchick and see if he agrees with me on the Pitralon description. Woodsy, with cedar and pine elements. Probably more heavily weighted toward cedar. What do you think, Brian?

 

Pshaw. Keep that up and I'll be writing sonnets.
How's about an old limerick to tide you over?

 

August 30th
Gillette NEW LC w Sharp Star (2)
Horsehair / Vintage Canadian Rubberset
First Canadian Maximo Gomez SS
Thayers
Chatillon Lux Bon Vivant AS

First use of this brush this morning. I thought ‘this had better be worth it’ as you may recall I ruined my NB for this brush, an E2 and a soap I’ve already relegated to the shower. I extracted the original knot and replaced it with this horsehair knot (VieLong?) that came as part of my Shavey Award from Randy @BaylorGator. This was an obviously well-used brush and it showed. I spent some time cleaning up the brush, but there were some pretty deep marks and cracks in the top part of the handle that if I rubbed all the way out I would have seriously compromised the lettering. As it is, it was very shallow to get any paint to stay in. It still came out ok, I think.
Anyway, loaded up the horse with one of my faves, the Maximo Gomez, and loaded more than enough in this smallish knot for what turned out to be 3 full passes. I was cognizant of using painting strokes and not circular strokes as I recall folks on here saying that was necessary with horsehair brushes. There were a few ‘pokey bits’ in the hair I felt while using it, but nothing unpleasant and the brush did a fine job. I am completely smooth and finished with the excellent CL.
Have a great day all!

 

Great minds again, Perry! The Maximo Gomez is one of my favourite scents regardless of the excellent performance, as well.

 

Great shaving pic, but an even better shot of that majestic looking Sheppard!

 

Great pic and an ‘annotated’ write up. 7 lines? You must be in a rush this morning, Joseph.

 

Great photo and shave, Jason! Definitely the great minds are pairing up this week! I really enjoy the Maximo Gomez as well. Terrific performance.

 

Love the Avatar, Andrew! I assume those were from the formal photos yesterday?

 

Cool photo of a neat old brush, Jason! Sounds like an all around good shave to start the day, too.

BTW, I am about to sewer my own NB'18: I was PIFed one of @Vlasta's modern recreations of the aluminum Rubberset brush, with one ferrule loaded with a silvertip badger. Very nice brush. (I used it today and it is in my photo.) However, it is designed to take interchangeable ferrules so you can have multiple knots, and mine only has the one. Vlasta has spare ferrules with or without knots available in his store right now, so I decided to get a set to complete my brush while they are still available.... So in the end, it's not going to be a soap or splash but a brush that gets me...

 

Thursday morning August 30 - Russian shave kit



Ukrainian late-Communist Era 3-piece pot metal razor / Rapira Swedish Supersteel (1)
@Vlasta's prototype aluminum Rubberset brush w/ 24mm silvertip badger knot
Renaissance Faire type horn quaich lather bowl
Russian shave cream by Svoboda
Alum and Thayers Witch Hazel Original Non-Alcoholic and Florida Water

Earlier this month, Alex @AlDm sent me one of Vlasta's prototype aluminum Rubberset brushes and included a complete kit of Russian shaving products with it (shown in the top photo). Today, I decided to try out the booty.

I've used the brush several times and quite like it. I squirted some of the cream into the lather bowl, added a bit of water, and started to whip it with the damp brush. I found it a bit tricky to get the right hydration at first. When I painted my face for the first pass, I found that by the time I had shaved my left cheek, the lather on the right side of my face had started to dry, and I had to re-wet the lather on my neck, chin and moustache area before I could shave there. I added more product and more water between passes and got a better grade of lather. It still wasn't fabulous though. I can't really describe the scent other than to say it was maybe a bit woodsy or herbal with possibly a hint of lemon in it -- sort of mild, non-descript herbal I suppose. The cream was lubricating but didn't seem to do much in the way of cushion, protection or any of that foofy skin conditioning stuff we Westerners expect in our shaving products.

It was interesting to try, but I don't see this shaving cream becoming a regular part of my shave rotation.

The 3-piece razor is quite light and appears to be cast out of pot metal. I noticed that the baseplate had some tag ends sticking out into the slots of the sort seen on die casting when the cast has not been cleaned up. I loaded it with a new Rapira blade. The blade gap seemed quite wide. Actually, after my shave, I loaded the blade into my Canadian pre-War Tech, and found that the gap didn't look much smaller on it, but the Tech had a more strongly curved top which angles the blade edges down towards the guard, while on the Soviet razor, the blade mostly sticks straight out.

This matched the feel of the razor. It had quite a strong blade presence. Moreover, the blade also felt like it was flexing or vibrating a bit, as though it didn't have enough support. After using it carefully and gingerly for two passes, I was at what I would call a CCS -- a notch below the DFS I usually get with two passes with most razors. I hadn't drawn any blood and chose to quit while I was ahead. I was mildly surprised to find that the alum was mostly silent. Nonetheless my face felt dry or rubbed enough after the razor and the cream that I chose to break out the witch hazel today.

After using the witch hazel to repair any skin dryness or abrasion, the Florida Water went on for the alcohol and the scent.

Bottom line: The razor is an interesting piece of shaving history for my collection but will not be gracing my shave reports again. The shave cream was one that Alex said is very common and cheap in Russian drugstores; I have much better stuff to use. Somehow I also expect that the men in Russia who can find or afford them use the Russian-language packaged Arko Sensitive or Nivea creams (which Alex also said are widely available in Russia) instead of this Svoboda cream. The Rapira, of course, is a first-class blade.

I may have to send the razor and this cream to Neal @NCoxSTL for an expert appraisal...

 

Thank you Jim Everything went well and we were in and out in 20 minutes or so.

Thank you John. Mocha was a perfect little lady this morning. I just never know with her at the vets.

Thank you Jason. Mocha is Canadian by the way since she was born in Toronto.

 

Great photos and report, John!

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Excellent restore, Jason. My new horse hair brush has a bit of scritch too, and I like it.

It is ! I'll post a few more in a bit.

The best part of a NB is breaking it! I've learned my lesson!