Henckles Friodur 14, cream was SMN lathered with a Simpsons 58, and a little SMN body cream finished up a BDBS shave. This razor really shaves impressively well. Here’s some info that may help others sometime, I bought the shaving cream and body cream off a BST, and the shaving cream was a little dried out as it had pulled away from the sides of the container. When I lathered it, it had small sand-like particles in it which has been reported by others as stearic acid crystalizing out. IDK, but this isn’t my first dance with sandy soap. Usually I just chuck them or give them away, but I wasn’t so willing to just give up on an almost full tub of SMN. Since it was dry, I took a fork and fluffed it like you’d fluff an omlette to increase the surface area, and added about 1-1/2 teaspoons of distilled water and closed the jar for about a week. That seemed to help, so I flipped the soap, fluffed it again, added a teaspoon of distilled water and closer ‘er up again. Repeated once more. That seemed to have dissolved the sandy specks. So I’m willing to declare a partial success here, on a first attempt to ‘fix’ stearic grains.
The third of my recently refreshed ivories coming back into rotation today. I have another Lund that is a full hollow and this one is a near wedge. The first pass had me concerned but the finish was superb. Hot water preparation T&H Ultimate Comfort PSO Romera Wengue Chubby Manchurian Badger Mystic Water Brown Windsor Lund 11/16 Thayers Rose Petal Witch Hazel Happy shaving - Karl
7/8 W.Greaves Wedge Has a great shave with this Vintage Sheffield Blade Removed two days of growth with little effort.
Henckles Friodur 17, soap was 3P lathered with a Simpsons 59. Since the almond 3P scent doesn’t linger, I decided to go 90 degrees and finish up with AdP Colonia balm. Perfect.
W&B "Lather Well Shave Well" Wickham's English Rose homemade brush with Frank's Shaving in house knot Nice shave this morning. The knot in the original brush handle was pretty decent but I wanted to tweak it a bit. I picked up this razor at a local flea market and found a new buddy. He always shows up with a few razors for me to look at. He knows his knife prices but doesn't know about squat about razors. Not a bad thing. I haven't been able to get in the shop for a week. My back is so screwed up I can hardly walk but I think it's starting to loosen up a little. Have a good one.
Cattaraugus Cutlery Yellow Boy got an outing. Full strop progression, that vintage upstate NY edge just gets smoother...
This is my other Lund. It is always in contention for being the favorite razor in my den and today’s shave kept it in that highest tier. Pure pleasure. Hot water preparation AOS Lavender PSO Barrister Reserve Lavender Savile Row 3824 Lund 11/16 AOS Lavender After Shave Balm Happy shaving - Karl
GENCO with custom scales. Jayruh number 48 brush which I love Proraso red cream. Can't go wrong with proraso. Whiskey woods aftershave. Just got it recently and man oh man do I love it. To accomplish whiskey and woods, what's not lo love about it. And a Tony Miller strop I won in a giveaway. It's a steerdovan strop.
Love my Tony Miller horsehide strop! I’m upgrading it from cotton to the flax linen he got in stock recently. Get it while it lasts.
Koraat 14 2.0 Strop Martin J. Rubin 4601 New York Muhle Fibre Silvertip XL Saponificio Varesino Cubebe Saponificio Varesino Cubebe Aftershave lotion Saponificio Varesino Cubebe Edp
Back home and back to using my straights. Monday was a very sharp Riga Razor 6/8 with a smile. Tabac always delivers for me and I had very nice shave. The lighting was odd and that is not a huge bevel, it actually has very narrow bevel. Tuesday I went for some flash with my Ed Brice and some vintage Antaeus to round out the shave.
Flax is more abrasive. Coticule honers like it because it picks up most coti edges a little, coticules are not that fine. That’s been my experience with coti/flax. Flax seems to make a fine jnat edge a bit harsher as opposed to the canvas on my Kanoyama, but a fine jnat is a lot finer than a coticule, and apparently linen. You should try both. A friend of mine that’s a coticule person said that the Tony Miller linen was his favorite. It’s a harder, rougher surface than a lot of vintage linen.