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SOTD THURSDAY MORNING, JULY 22, 2021
This morning was my first shave with the slickly marketed Tedalus shavette. It arrived this past Tuesday, six days after I ordered it. The fit, finish, and packaging is what one would expect given its price. I do admit to having a devil of a time loading the dang thing. The magnetic closure is innovative, but quite fiddly to operate for this old geezer the first time. For whatever reason, when I tried to swap the Feather Super from my Colonial General V2 into the Tedalus, it refused to close easily and wasn’t sitting evenly, possibly because of soap scum residue. I remembered that my friend, Bill, who’s a big fan of Tedalus, and has made a few videos featuring this razor really liked a Feather Proguard in his. My oldest grandson had left a Proguard magazine here from his last visit. So I grabbed one, and after a few tries managed to get it to sit evenly.
After building my preferred MWF mug lather with the Viking Silvertip Badger, I grabbed the Tedalus and had at it. The razor is nicely balanced in the hand and shaves as advertised. It felt very much like I was shaving with one of my regular straight razors. That first WTG mug pass went smoothly and was followed by uneventful ATG and XTG shaves. The tail is a bit longer than I’m used too, but the jimping is well done both above and below the pivot pin promoting a solid non-slip hold. The scale and blade design is clearly not traditional vintage, but contemporary without going to the artistic curlicue extremes of some of the younger modern makers, but then again, as a retired engineer I prefer form to fit function. And this razor met those prerequisites, and left my mug porcelain smooth.
After observing a few friends on the 30DC shaving with their French Famex adjustable Cagehead safety razors, I grabbed mine for this morning’s noggin shave. Famex made both safety and straight razors. LeCoq’s Cagehead design in the twenties set it apart from Gillette, but was clearly influenced by the Damaskeene razor head. The problem was that LeCoq’s Cagehead was fixed. Famex set out to remedy this by inverting the cage, thus allowing blade angle to be shifted simply by twisting the razor handle. I’ll admit that I enjoy both designs, but Cagehead safety razors do require very consistent hold technique. The second thicker MWF dome lather I generated for the second shave of the morning provided the perfect protective carpet for my noggin. The Famex dome shave went swimmingly after two ATG passes, leaving me cool, clean and velveteen!
RAZOR: Tedalus Shavette (Mug), Famex (Dome)
BLADE: Feather Proguard AC
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a scrub with Argan Oil
BRUSH: Viking Silvertip Badger
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by a rinse with Humphreys Lilac WH. Finished with Cremo Cooling Post Shave Balm.
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