I joined the shave den last year and one day ago. Since that time I went from a generic safety razor to a merkur futur hated the handle sold it and bought muhle R89 it was nice learned it fast got bored sold it bought an ikon open comb and safety bar loved it so much I got the ikon slant and shaved with it exclusively for 7 months then started to get bored and tried straight razors got 2 TI 5/8 round nose razors ran back to safety razors lol. Decided to go more aggressive with safety razor while easing into straight razors. Bought the muhle R41 and got a PIF fatip. Love both of them they are now the only two razors I use and I rotate them daily. Oh the brushes, started out with a Rooney super badger, wanted a horse brush do got a vie long 30:70 natural hair, then made my own silver tips made a bunch sold half of then now I have four and I have a stable of ponies all the kinds, and now just added 3 pigs. I kind of like the pig brush didn't think I would because I work with pigs I see what they lay in kind of know how little of a wash job is done on the pig hair but nonetheless I'm liking the boar brush. Oh the razor blades I have enough to supply the Colombian army for years and all kinds to. Aftershaves a few not really my weakness, oh the soaps I really enjoy good smells my job usually has me at the south end of a north bound farm animal so I really appreciate a good smell. I think I learned this year I'm an Italian soap guy, love TFS and razorock. Proraso also. A couple of good German soapy smelling soaps but I love the italian Croaps especially tobacco verde then almonds. Anyway I doubt anyone did more than skim this, why that's what I would have done. It's been a great one year I wished my dad would have taught me this when I was a kid just think if all the money I would have saved by collecting all of this on his wallet 20 plus years ago lol.
Congrats. I hit my TSD anniversary in 4 days and agree that it has been one heck of a year. Lot's of learning, spending, and sharing. It goes by fast, and I don't see any signs of slowing down....lol.
To say nothing of how much shaving paraphernalia one can wind up buying after reading all those conversations! Congratulations on a very eventful first year!
I don't know how many but I have a list of brands I tried. If I didn't like a blade I just threw it away so I wasn't trying to get all I could from a blade when I started learning