March Madness!!
March 20 - Wednesday Williams Shave
Razor -Kampfe Star Lather Catcher
Blade - CVS Carbon SE (1)
Soap - Williams. Yeah, I know, not what anyone expects from me.
Brush - Semogue 620
Post - Alum
Well, boys and girls, ladies and gentlemen and all the ships at sea - here is your Wednesday Williams shave that I promised last Wednesday when
@wchnu Fuzzy Wuzzy asked about it. Since it's March Madness - why not go madder and grab my rarely used puck of Williams that for so long baffled me and put together a shave for the day. The Fuzzman was kind enough to post a picture of what a Wednesday Williams shave is, and it clearly featured a Lather Catcher, Semogue boar brush, Williams, of course, and a pinkish mug (though he denies it's pink). And, knowing the Fuzzter I'm sure that LC has a carbon blade in it. So, having all of the required gear except a pink mug - I ordered a pink flowery girly thing from ebay (sorry not sure who made it but I'll try to find out) and broke out the rest of my gear. I have the Kampfe Star, which gained me membership in TCOC (The Clan of Catchers) and I had 20 Treet Carbon blades. Remember the last time I tried this razor? Remember the pack of 5 that were all damaged beyond use by rust? I bought a total of 25, so surely some of them are good. Nope. All rusted beyond use. I'll look up that seller and make sure I never buy anything from him again, but for now I do have my trusty CVS carbon blades that work just fine. The Semogue 620 is a fine example of a boar brush so all is in place. Point of order - I didn't actually use the scuttle I bought - but I felt it had to be included or this wasn't truly a Wednesday Williams shave.
Ok, time to lather. I didn't molest the Williams. I did add some water last night to my very, very, as in very dry puck just to bring it back from the dead. I soaked the brush for about 10 minutes and went to work. After a minute or so - this is what I had.
Still some bigger bubbles but a very nice lather was actually forming underneath. Wow. I guess my previous efforts to try and get this soap going for me held. I kept working it up and finally decided after another minute I was ready. I went to my face, lathering as I went, and grabbed the razor. Everything looked good and the first strokes with the Star were NOISY and quite smooth and nice. Went to the left side and.......there was my nemisis......dissipating Williams. Hmmmmmmm. I looked in the bowl. Still lots of lather. Let's try something. No face lathering. I loaded the brush with lather and just painted and dabbed it on. Seemed to like that. Stayed with me and was quite slick. So, for the second pass I didn't lather on my face at all. Just painted, dabbed, covered, and went for the full pass. XTG pass was still NOISY and smooth and fun. And.....I had enough lather through the whole thing to keep filling up the "catcher" part of the LC razor. Now THAT was fun. I decided why not do a third pass, eh? Applied the already made lather on again and had a very fine ATG pass with only a couple of little dings on my neck. Otherwise quite smooth and nice, and the alum only pinged me on those spots I knew I had gotten myself roughed up a bit. (too much pressure).
One more surprise to this shave, besides finally after four years figuring out to stop face lathering with Williams - if you have an older puck that really doesn't have any odor left - once you lather it you get a very light Williams scent that is not at all obnoxious like the full blown version with its bug repellent tendencies. Even now I am barely detecting what is actually just a clean soapy scent off of the shave.
I have to say, that was quite enjoyable. I felt like an old timer with that great vintage razor and a carbon blade, and using a soap with the history of Williams and getting a far better performance than I ever have with it was a great way to settle in for the evening. Mission accomplished. The Fuzz Monster vindicated. All's well in the land of the three rivers. Have a great Thursday!
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