30 Day Rule/Focus; November 2023. All Are Welcome!

Thank you Joe

 

A great post & shave Chris...The Muhle R89 along with the Merkur 34C where my first DE razors which will always have a place in my rotation...The R89 has always provided me with close comfortable shaves. Every traditional wet shaver should have a Gillette Tech in their shaving arsenal they are the best all-round DE razor ever made IMHO. When I first started out with this shaving hobby/pastime of mine like most of us I was far too eager and on an obsessional quest to get a perfect BBS shave with each shave causing unnecessary irritation, cuts weepers to myself suffering the consequences by my own over-zealous eager stupidity. After that I realised that nobody was standing on the other side of the mirror making biased judgements observing the closeness of my shave and it was my face I was shaving and didn't have to satisfy anyone but myself. Adding to that it's totally pointless, as after a few hours my face/dome the stubble starts to grow back anyway. Enjoy your shaves Chris. Yours-Barry.

 

Wednesday November 15 very early morning (500am here) - Neutrogena No Variant November

Prep: Hot shower with Aleppo 20% laurel bay oil soap

Razor: Supply 2.0 injector with SE comb plate / vintage US-made Schick Plus Platinum (23); and
Gillette SuperAdjustable on "4" / Red Israeli Personna ( 2)

Soap: Neutrogena Skin Clearing Shave Cream

Brush: none

Lather Bowl: none

Post: rinse, alum, rinse, Portland General Store Black Willowbark Toner

Last shave: early Tuesday - 1 day




Once again, I stuck with the Cunning Plan(TM) to send the Neutrogena shave cream tube to join the Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald. Nearly there -- as I have been saying for about the last five shaves now.... But I pried the cap off the tube and checked today: I am now guessing another three or four more shaves worth of cream still in there.

I have now shaved for four days in a row. And this time, three passes!

I did the first two passes with the injector. Since the blade wasn't tuggy last shave but just seemed a little dull, I decided to stay with it for another shave today. I now think the reason I thought it was getting dull yesterday was because I was shaving one-day stubble instead of multi-day whiskers as usual. Today it did fine. I then did a final pass with the Gillette SuperAdjustable and believe I can declare an error-free BBS today.

Alum was silent and no blood or razorburn anywhere either.

Once again, I doubled down on the "skinclearing" aspect of my routine with a healthy splash over my entire face and upper torso of the PGS black willowbark toner full of naturally occurring salicylic acid and musty bark scent. That bottle is also nearly done, so I will probably sink both it and the Neutrogena shave cream simultaneously.

To be honest, I will be rather glad when they are done and I can move on -- I miss lathering with the brush and the nice scents of some of my soap/cream and splash combos.

Hope everyone is having a good week.

 

Most excellent shave John.

 

I waited one extra day to start in order to give myself a good 72 hour test with the Feather blades. Beyond 48 hours is where the Silver/Blues start to get rough for me. I did not want to put the same kit pic up twice, so here is a shot of the wonderful lather I worked up on my face this morning.

Rating: 4.5 / 5

Prep- Hot shower with Stirling Executive Man bar soap
Razor: Gillette Slim Adjustable- Set to 3 on first pass and 4 on second
Blade- Feather Hi Stainless. First shave on new blade
Two Pass Shave
Brush: Semogue Owners Club Boar
Lather: Stirling Bay Rum
Aftershave: Barberry Coast Bay Rum and Stirling Bay Rum
Two Pass Shave- 1 with and 1 across grain


This shave was almost in revelation territory. I thought I would have a learning curve again with the Feather blade, but instead I had maybe the best shave of my life. I normally keep adjustable razors set at 5, but went with 3 on pass one and 4 on pass two, just to give myself a bit of extra forgiveness. Next shave I will do 4 and 5.

My face feels great, with no redness or irritation whatsoever. I am not quite BBS, but on the verge, and much closer to it than two passes with the GSB would have gotten me.

I'm going to shave at a more normal for me 48 hours on Friday morning. Hoping to get to 5/5 with a bit less stubble, and remembering that the second shave had been better for me with these blades

I have a blade sampler coming in this week, and per Joes recommendation I'm going to do a focus on Personna Lab Blue and Gillette Platinum blades next month. Having said that, the Feathers will be very hard to unseat, especially if I can stretch to three good shaves per blade with them.

Thank you all for the welcome and advice...

Scott





Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Awesome shave John. Enjoy your day.

 

Great looking shave John, and featuring many things I have not tried yet. Always good to see!

 

Excellent shave and quality lather Scott. I am sure you are going to find those blades will give you awesome shaves.

 

Thank you and have a wonderful Wednesday Joe!

 

Good morning all.
This mornings shave was different.
This is why today's post.
I raised up while working on things around the house Sunday and....



Yes, it was a good bite from the corner of a shelf I installed a few years back.
So I waited till today to shave the old gourd, giving it time to heal and close up.

I shaved over it this morning and was delighted to have a smooth outcome.
I didn't use shaving cream on that part, and I kept my razor in 70% alcohol after rinsing to keep down the possibility of infection.
Oh it stung, a bit, but I didn't flinch, let's be a man about it ok.... O..K.



I used a razor and blade combo that glides over most things and was a good choice.

The rest of the battle of blade and beard was normal and as expected, I won.


All
Enjoy

tp

 

SOTD 202311125 Tempo

ischiapp.blogspot.com​

 

Thank you, gentlemen!

 

Great shaves and pics, gents!

 

Where in MA? I'm from there.

 

Well, where is my SEE YESTERDAY'S SHAVE rubber-stamp when I need it? Same products(except for today's brush-the CLUBMAN-PINAUD), same results. Well, maybe one result difference.....this morning I dropped the shave soap into the sink, thus moistening the persuasion more than I wanted to. Missed a tiny bit on N.E. Porcupine Alley, but essentially no different than yesterday(save for the soap drop). This Nivea 4 Men is quite a good set up. More Clubman Special Reserve A.S. goodness. As Outstanding As It Gets.

 

I’m in Shrewsbury, about 20 minutes west of Boston…

 

Oh interesting-I'm in Acton-I suppose between Boston and Worcester. I stayed overnight at the Shrewsbury Days Inn once.

 

As you all know, I use the word PERSUASION quite a lot. Here is my definition of it.

PERSUASION-ANYTHING I WANT IT TO MEAN.

 

Nov 15 SOTM

Good morning.

1955 Gillette RedTip
Gillette Wilkinson Sword DE Blade (3,4)
MrEE Tuxedo Brush
Van der Hagen Select SS
Stirling Glastonbury AS
Stirling Alum Block
Modessa Witch Hazel
Beard Growth: 24.5 hrs
Dome Turf: 3 days



It was time for a headshave and face shave so I picked my Gillette RedTip for the task. It is the most aggressive razor in the series of colored tips, but it is not aggressive razor to me. On a scale of 1 to 10, I would say it's a 4.5. However, other shavers might say differently either higher or maybe lower. In any event, with good technique you can get a fine shave with thus razor.
I decided to use the VdH soap because it's in my apothecary mug and I just have the load the brush and face lather. Sorry, no lather pics today. Lol! MrEE's brush has significant backbone to really pick up the soap and make facelathering much easier for me.

Surprisingly, I only needed 2 passes on my face and dome to get a nice, close and comfortable shave. Although, I did have to do some minor touch-ups on the dome. There wasn't any bloodshed except for the spot where I had the weep from yesterday's shave. There wasn't any alum feedback all around so that showed me that it was a fine shave. Toned down the skin with the witch hazel. I picked the Stirling Glastonbury because it is a fall scent and need to use it up. Fortunately, I don't have much left so it should be gone before the year ends. Anyway, I didn't get any alcohol burn from the splash and that's a good thing. Take care.

 

Nice town. I'm up there often with my daughters travel softball team...