MAYhem 2016
May 10
Razor - '46-'47 Gillette Aristocrat
Blade -
View attachment 102564
(1)
Brush - Vie-Long 12601 The Pony
Soap - Marvy
Post - Cold Rinse, Alum, Nivea
Welcome to the @
Rufus T. shave! And, by the grace of the shaving gods and the bad fortune of @
Rufus T. I have a pretty sweet shave lined up. The Aristocrat and Ladas. The Aristocrat is the finest razor in my collection, IMHO, and I have used it with tremendous success with many blades. The Ladas - other than the duds I found awhile back - has been one of my favorite Russians. You may remember my confusion when one was horrible and I discovered its tuckmate was equally horrible. Changed to a newer tuck and boom.....perfect shaves again. So what did I do with the bad tuck? More on that in a minute.
The Pony is a fine brush, again a favorite, and the only negative was the soap. Here we go with Marvy again. However, a few others have been playing with it to see if it can really work and we're closer to cracking the code. So today I plan to help in that effort. The Pony, being a horse, is floppier, though not too floppy, and it is best used in painting strokes. That seems to be the type of brush Marvy works best with. And, cold water soak on the brush and a cold water soak on the Marvy prior to shaving to test another seeming success.
So, the lather - and I am happy to report that we are onto something here boys and girls. I took my time loading the brush, using only the tips of the brush across the top of the soaked puck. I actually started building a lather in the bowl by doing this and the brush eventually loaded very well. It took a bit more time, but it looked good. I applied the lather in paintbrush strokes and was very happy with the coverage and the look. Still bigger bubbles than I like to see, but it wasn't dissipating as fast as it has in the past. On to the shave.
First stroke of the Ladas and.........remember that bad tuck? Yeah, I still have it apparently. Stopped for a second to check my stash and there in my open blade box are two tucks of Ladas, both opened. One is the dud blades, the other the good ones. I picked the dud. Well, you know what? It's MAYhem. I can't change blades now. We're going to finish this on the one I picked. So, on to the first pass and it was, shall we say, rough. Tuggy. Annoying. Painful. Awful. However, the Marvy lather held up through the entire first pass. It was starting to fade at the finish but it made it. Lathered again and went XTG with the same wonderfully tuggy sensation from this dud. Finished the right side and the Marvy was fading fast on the left this time. Dipped the brush tip into the water and re-painted the left side and got a very good lather up. Amazingly good. I let it stand about three minutes and it was still mostly there. Went XTG that side and then some touch up and called it a shave. Finished CCS, but a high CCS. Alum reminded me to always throw away dud blades. Ouch.
So, the good news - Marvy may be useful if a few things are remembered. Cold Water. Soft, floppy brush. Load tips and work it back and forth across the puck. When the lather starts showing up you should be ready to go. You could probably bowl lather at that point as well. If the lather starts to fade, wet the tips and brush it again. Now, I don't think there's anything we can do about the drying effect this soap has. It does leave my face feeling parched, but Nivea helped with that.
The bad news - I'm an idiot. I kept a bad tuck of blades and got caught with one in a razor. Normally that would be an instant blade change and lesson learned. Again. Today, however, since it's MAYhem, I punished myself by keeping it in. Oh, and the rest of that tuck is now safely disposed of. Not doing that again.
Tomorrow it's the @
Drygulch shave and I know he's pulling for one magnificently
horrid grand setup. So here it is:
Blade - Shark
Razor - Rimei
Soap - Arko
Brush - Wolf Whiskers Custom Silvertip
Well, the Shark did bite me the first time around and I"m using the same blade as then. The Remei - very mild so that may help. Soap and brush, no problem. Nice try but this one looks like it may not be too bad.
That also means that @
PLAla is the next in line chosen to choose! For the Thursday shave, pick 1-15 for the blade, 1-15 for the razor, 1-6 for the soap and 1-7 for the brush!
Happy Tuesday!
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