19/30
Long post today. My apologies.
1stly, i suspect that some members have taken umbrage at my stance on blooming. If that is the case, please know that no offence is meant nor are my opinions in any way a judgement on others and that any advise given is gladly received. I am sorry if you have taken this more seriously than it was ever meant.
I have no truck with anyone having a different opinion to me and i hope that can be the case vice-versa.
On to the shave.
To bloom or not, to face lather or not, how many passes? Is the blade blunt? Cold water or hot water? To wash or not, atg or wtg, slow or fast strokes, aftershave or balm and so on and so forth. It is a bewildering galaxy of variation a wet shaver faces, so today, being that i am on a day off, i took a step back from the sink and thought about my shave carefully.
I took my time today. Really so. I figured that i needed to focus and re-center my approach.
No face lathering for this shave. I figured i would take my loading issues out of the game and try bowl lathering. I also thought that this would give me more time through the shave to get things right and it would remove my growing 3rd pass soap angst.
In that regard, it was a good call.
Loading the brush, i started off with a damp brush. I didn't soak it though. I figured that the bowl lathering would do that for me and a stiffer brush would help with loading. I used slow, gentle strokes on the puck, adding a few drops of water every so often. This really seemed to get the brush loaded well. I will do this again for my next F/L shave.
This soap is a joy to lather tbh. Going to the bowl and dripping in water, the lather is really thirsy. You get a very hydrated lather which gets the hair good and wet as it should. I seemed to have done well with the loading. A bowl full of lather was created!
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I changed up a few things on this shave. Cold water (freezing cold tbh
) instead of hot. I find a cold water shave helps with irritated skin. I used a face soap 1st as well, not my aleppo soap. On the shave, i really pulled back on the pressure and made a conscious effort to use zero pressure and to not over shave. I did three passes without going over and over patches etc and thought that i would accept the shave that resulted.
The result was ok. SAS+. No issues with slickness from the soap, no pulling or tugging, no weepers and no soreness. My skin feels great as well. The post shave from Cade is as good as anything i have used.
My neck area is poor though. I am ok with that, it was sore from yesterday and i had considered skipping today altogether because of it. The light pressure and no buffing didn't inflame the area so its good.
The razor/blade combo is a good one for daily DFS shaves and i think pushing it for BBS with my tough stubble is inevitably going to cause issues. That said, it is clear that the last 3rd of this challange will be focusing on technique and result rather than the equipment.
Onwards and upwards
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