The Wilkies on the left are German made, the ones on the right look to be made in India, judging by the printing on the blade. The cardboard backer the blades came on should of had the country of origin. There are also Wilkies made in China, but we don't see those very often. All are legit blades, but different from each other.
The German ones are better regarded in general than the Indian ones. I may have already mentioned it, but I use the German Wilkies as my benchmark blade. They are very average, consistently average in smoothness, longevity, and sharpness.
https://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/the-haul-january-2023.66993/unread The haul thread. We do a new one each month. The Shave Gods will strike you down with lightning if you throw the boxes away. I visibly winced when I read that. It will also halve the value of the razor, should you decide to resell it later. I'm sure there are plenty of wet shavers in Australia who would love to add the cases to their collection of you don't want them. The cases are harder to find than the razors. What do you mean by loose? A lazy door? The head wobbles? It's got a dropped knob? A dropped knob is an easy fix, the other stuff not quite as easy to fix for someone who doesn't know what they are doing, but we can point you in the right direction and walk you through the process. Edit: Next time just get some foaming shower cleaner. Look for something that is specifically made to clean soap scum. In the U.S. it's an aerosol can of "scrubbing bubbles." In the u.k. it's "fairy liquid." Not sure what the equivalent would be down under. Takes about 30 seconds and a soft toothbrush. The clear plastic on the boxes will clean up with headlight cleaner/polish.
Best place to identify your Gillette razors. http://mr-razor.com/Rasierer/Gillette Rasierer.htm That is a No. 68 set. If you toss the box it becomes a 1950's era rocket, and no one will believe you when you say it's actually a No. 68. Just so you know. With British Gillettes, the box indentifies the razor most of the time, not the other way around.
Nah. That's normal. A lazy door is when one door opens much slower than the other and is caused by the lifter (thing that the doors hinge on) being out of alignment. Sounds like yours are completely normal.
Yes. And I see no reason why the set wouldn't be valid. Sometimes razors got swapped around, but for the most part they usually stay with the case they came in. Billions of razors. Thousands of manufacturers. About 80% of the razors are almost certainly in landfills or on the bottoms of rivers (they were popular as cheap fishing weights for a while). That still leaves millions for us to find.
Try it both ways. Been a long time since I used a pre-shave oil. I used to leave it on and lather over it. After a while I realized it really didn't do anything to enhance my shave. I found that a hot shower followed right up with my hot water shave, lathering up with a reputable soap and a blade/razor combo that works for me was enough. But that's me.
We say that a lot around here. Usually abbreviated as YMMV (your milage may vary). Everybody's hair and skin is different, so what works for one won't work for another person. I view pre-shave oils as a marketing gimmick, created by retailers to sell more products. Our ancestors got along just fine without them. They are dandy for cartridge shaving though. Personally, I just can't stand the thought of getting oil on my shave brush. Gives me the heebie-jeebies.
Really just another way of me relaying what you see under my avatar, something I said many years ago that seems to have become the Den's unofficial mantra - It's your shave. Enjoy it your way.
We're just having fun watching you enjoy this journey/hobby. It reminds us of why we're here. You only get the joy of discovery once, then you have to experience it vicariously through others.
Never had an issue with oil in the brushes. So glad to hear your shaves are becoming more of a "get to" rather than a "have to."
I have to agree with @swarden43 that the oil won't hurt your brush, as you are after all filling it with soap on a daily basis, and soap is good at getting rid of oil. I still don't like the thought of oil on my brushes.
Exposure to moisture and air does more damage to the blade's edge than your whiskers do. That's less of an issue with modern stainless steels, but it was a big deal back when carbon steel was the main blade material. Thicker lather may have more of a softening effect on your whiskers, which would make the blade *appear* sharper than it actually is.
Thicker lather doesn't do that, if anything, the opposite. Better lather does. Practice makes perfect.
A soap will not yield when you press your finger to it. A croap is like cookie dough. You can scoop it and form it. A cream is like a lotion, albeit some are thicker, some are runny. Just my opinions. When does a stream become a creek? When does a creek become a river? Does it matter?
I've never studied the ingredients list, but a good soap is a good soap, regardless of having tallow or being all vegetable. There are bad soaps out there that just refuse to give up a good lather. I've found TSD and Sterling soaps to be outstanding, with plenty of scents to choose from. For me, why go any place else? My only other soaps are Tabac and Van der Hagen. Oh, and a puck of Fine that I picked up not too long ago.
The old barber manuals said that one shouldn't use hot water for lather making, since it dries out the lather. They recommended medium warm water, so it would dry out slower. One method to tell when lather is at the right consistency is by lifting the brush straight out of the lather. The lather in the bowl will form a stiff peak, without slumping down, if it is at the proper consistency.
Generally as far as ingredients go, there are ingredients that form a lather, ingredients that moisturize, and ingredients that add slickness. In the highly commercialized soaps, there are also ingredients to increase bubbles, and ingredients to reduce bubbles, and ingredients to preserve all the other ingredients. fragrance is a non-entity for performance. Most popular shave soaps are pretty good. A few are outstanding. Some popular shave soaps are over-hyped, imo. (For example, I find Stirling to be a mediocre shave soap, good but not as good as people say it is. Granted, I haven't tried every type (and they make more than a few) of shave soap they make.) Go search out a recent thread for "your favorite/top 3 shave soaps" on a bigger forum. If you see the same name repeated a bunch of times by people that have been shaving for over 5 years, it's probably an excellent soap. My personal favorite is Saponifico Verisino, and it's a deep regret of mine that I only like two of their scents. All their scents are well crafted, but I don't go for citrus or flowery scents, which most of them seem to be, regardless of the scent description. Avoid the same lists on Facebook. Those lists seem to be a marketing exposure breakdown, with the biggest advertisers nailing the top slots. The very best soaps usually have added ingredients the other regular soaps don't have, to add slickness, moisture, or post shave skin care. They also tend to have higher quality fragrances, but not always. Sometimes you really are just paying extra for the name and the nice packaging.
