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SOTD FRIDAY MORNING, April 30, 2021
Welcome to Mitchell’s Wool Fat Fatboy Friday! It’s a bright sunny day here in the western Philadelphia burbs, and the perfect day for a great dome shave, albeit with the bulky Gillette TTO FB head design. Fortunately, for me, my goatee gets me an upper lip pass, so no issues! I also do enjoy shaving the mug with the Boker & Co. French Point. This little razor just works for me, particularly in the toe down neck pass that can be tricky with a larger blade. One of my good shave buddies is eagerly awaiting the arrival of a new Kravchenko shave hatchet. This will be his second, the first came from another artisan.
There is no question that they’re beautifully crafted. I prefer the traditional 19th century vintage lines and blade sizes of a classic straight razor like my little cast steel Boker French Point. I can’t attribute this shave hatchet, cleaver-looking aesthetic trend to millennial tastes, as my son, a fifty something and a very well-respected almost eighty something straight razor forum admin are fans as well. But that kind of variety of taste is why I enjoy this hobby of ours so much. I expect at some point, I’ll attempt a shave with one of these whisker cleavers, but until then I have more than enough traditionally sized straight razors to keep me well-occupied.
The shave this morning to the background refrain of my favorite super group, all musicians of my age, the Traveling Wilbury’s “End of the Line”, was uneventfully superb. The key to a great straight razor shave is taking one’s time and really “being there”, focused and involved. It’s almost a form of meditation for me in the mornings. It’s one of the two times of day for this old retiree that’s all mine! The ‘Honey Do’ list disappears. My favorite shave soap, the variety of shave tools that change each day, and that wonderfully smooth, clean, cool, and refreshing result set the tone for the rest of the day. The other time is when I’m working on my TR6.
RAZOR: Boker & Co. Sheffield Cast Steel French Point (Mug), Gillette Fatboy
BLADE: Kai DE
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a scrub with Argan Oil
BRUSH: Rearden Razor 316L SS Tuxedo Synth
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by a rinse with Humphreys Lilac WH. Finished with L’Occitane Cade AS Balm.
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