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SOTD WEDNESDAY, JULY 15, 2020
What a wonderful Wednesday shave! The new-to-me Genco 35 continues to perform beautifully without daily stropping! I really like this razor! A very experienced straight shaver/mentor on one of the larger straight razor forums informed me that there was no need to strop the Genco daily. He claimed to have gone over 20 shaves between strops on his, my kind of guy! Just swapped my virtually unused Merkur 34 for a brand new Monsieur Charles Barber’s Razor which uses injector blades. After reading a series of horror stories on half DE shavettes, I’ve decided to steer clear. I like variety (comes from 50 yrs with a Schick Krona). The Feather and Monsieur Charles should be fine. Looked at the IBC shavette, but there is a major design flaw with AC blades. Since my favorite blades are AC and injectors, my Feather SS and Monsieur Charles should meet my needs nicely.
I've said elsewhere that my favorite shaving Gillettes are the New Standard, Deluxe and LC. I enjoy shaving with Old Types, of which I own two, in addition to this early production (1920) Big Fellow with the Old Type head design. Later production near the end of the 20s featured a New Standard head design. While the Old Type is a better than average shaver, this king size version is a truly spectacular shaver and definitely holds it own with the Gillette New models. I imagine a late production Big Fellow with the New flat bottom design would be an even better shaver, if that’s possible. The late model Big Fellow is the only safety razor I would snap up if one in good condition came my way. The only safety razor currently on order is the Tradere. I’ve cancelled my Wolfman order. I’ve more than enough razor variety to keep the shave interest up at this point.
I’ve learned both here, elsewhere and personally that a thinner, more slippery lather is best for a straight razor shave. The beauty of Pannacrema Nuavia Blu is its incredible slickness. So for the mug shave I used a bit more water and achieved a great slick platform. In fact I initially worried that the stropping advice wasn’t so good since it felt for the first time like the Genco was just scooping the lather off my face until I noticed the copious amount of shorn whiskers in the lather. Still struggling with the ATG pass on my neck, but everything above the jaw was a clean VBBS with a DFS+ below the jaw. The Big Fellow brought the roughness around the Adam’s Apple to the VBBS level in short order, and did the same for the dome where that great Jayaruh brush generated the kind of thick, yogurty lather I prefer for my safety razor shaves. The post shave skin feel is great with this soap. I feel refreshed, cool, clean and oh so velveteen!
RAZOR: Genco 35 (Mug), Gillette Big Fellow (Dome)
BLADE: Kai (1)
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a scrub with Rabid Banana Preshave Cube
BRUSH: Jayaruh Custom Rosewood Silvertip Badger #378
SOAP: Pannacrema Nuavia Blu w/ 6 drops of M-Bomb
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by Humphreys Lilac WH and Osage Rub. Finished with Fine Accoutrements Snake Bite AS Splash.
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