NOVember!!!
November 14 - Qshave Focus Blade Trial
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Razor - 1959 Gillette Fatboy
Blade -
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(3)
Soap - Arko
Brush - Vie Long 12601 - The Pony
Post - Alum
Final night of the official blade trial for the Qshave blade. We know it's an American Personna, we know it's Titanium and a custom job for the Qshave maker in China. That makes it unique. The first two shaves in the trial were, in order, rather "meh" and somewhat better, even to the point of a BBS in three passes. Tonight we take the Fatboy to 9 (which is still mild for the Qshave razor itself) and see what it does under trial conditions. Is it a blade that could actually be put into rotation? That's the question.
I chose the Vie Long 12601 for the brush tonight. I have neglected the pony for far too long, and when I lathered with it I felt bad. I've missed that scritch. I need to get it back into regular rotation and think about locating a 25/75 horse companion for it. The 12601 is 35/65. Lather was great and everything was set.
Two passes and touch ups and I have to say this was the best of the three shaves. The roughness that was present the past two shaves was not there tonight. It was a smooth and very effective shave with great reduction on the first pass so that all that was needed for the baby to show up was a solid second pass and some slides on the neck. Alum was quiet and I was actually quite impressed. Not what I had expected. Now, I know that the Lab Blues are a favorite with a lot of people and Personna has a great reputation. But I never thought this particular version of the Personna would impress me. But there you go. My suspicion that this is a less sharp version of the Lab Blue/Med Prep seems to hold true based on results. The more open the gap and aggressive the shave the better the blade seemed to perform. Given that result I can see why the Qshave people would match that blade to the razor.
Would I add the blade to my stash? Well, perhaps except for one slight problem. I can't seem to find it anywhere, including on the Qshave website. They want to sell me carts and have me sign up for their monthly cart delivery program and all of that. They have the Qshave DE available and it always comes with 5 blades. But I can't find any source for Qshave DE blades by themselves. That pretty much takes care of any urge to stock some up. I really don't want to buy a razor every time I need 5 blades. Yes, I know......a truly devoted person would do it.
I'll go back to the Qshave razor tomorrow night and load a Qshave blade. Probably stay north of 4.5 and give it a go. Now that I know what the blade likes and my technique with the razor is solid it should be fun.
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