View attachment 261547
SOTD SATURDAY MORNING, NOVEMBER 20, 2021
Woke up to a brilliantly sunny 28° morning, here in the Philadelphia suburbs. With Thanksgiving and the holiday season in the offing, I grabbed my Wade & Butcher 7/8 and my Cooper Monobilt, both dependable, stalwart shaving tools. My 19 year old grandson, Kevin, is moving in tomorrow to watch the three cats while SWMBO, Gromit and I wend our way to Las Vegas for our regular Thanksgiving celebration with SWMBO’s brother’s family. This is the second year Kevin is house sitting until the rest of my family arrives Tuesday. They’ll be staying through Saturday when I return. My daughter-in-law hosts at my house, for our extended family, and I’ll join virtually on Thanksgiving day, and will celebrate again there with Turducken with them on Sunday. After losing half a fifth of 25 yr-old Macallan last year, I’m locking my good Single Malts in the gun safe this year, to which only I have the combination.
I realize that I’m a terrible example to new wet shavers with the way I switch up shave equipment daily. The only consistency in my shaves is my daily use of MWF. The key to success in wet shaving is sticking with the same razor, brush and soap for at least 30 days. In fact one of the better known online shave forums has a process called the thirty day concentration with a corresponding thread called the 30DC dedicated to helping newer wet shavers master wet shaving, or even a newer piece of shave hardware or software they may be struggling with. Mentors on that thread provide guidance and direction to the struggling newbie. Yours truly shaved with the same Schick Krona originally purchased in a PX in 1968 for almost 5 decades. So I give myself a pass.
In any case, back to the shave. I’ve shaved with this W&B 7/8 for quite a while. I’ve refined the bevel to my liking and really enjoy this razor’s heft and balance in hand. I credit my son’s honing mentor, Howard Schlecter, of the Perfect Edge up near Boston with truly upping my straight razor maintenance process. His constroption, a four sided pasted stropping device, with 4 levels of stropping pastes, has dramatically improved my edges. After every shave, I run the razor through the constroption and then to my roo-skin bench strop before putting it away for the next shave. The two and a half pass mug shave this morning with this razor just reinforces my commitment to using the constroption regularly.
I first learned about Cooper Monobilt shortly after joining the Shave Den several years ago where I came across the Cooper Razor Owner’s Club. Cooper Razor of Brooklyn, NY introduced both the Monobilt and the Kant Rust safety razors among others in the early thirties. The Monobilt is made of brass which is chrome plated over a base plating of nickel. There are two models of Monobilt with identical heads, but different handle knurling. Regardless of the handle, the shave this little razor delivers is nothing short of phenomenal. The problem is there are also a fair number of Monobilts floating around with bent heads. As you might imagine, these damaged models don’t shave well. But mine shaves magnificently, as it again delivered a very smooth noggin leaving your happy narrator velveteen from shoulders to dome!
RAZOR: Wade & Butcher 7/8 (Mug), Cooper Monobilt (Dome)
BLADE: Feather DE (Dome)
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a scrub with Argan Oil
BRUSH: MrEE Monster Tuxedo Synth
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by a rinse with Thayers WH. Finished with Alt-Innsbruck AS Splash.
Click to expand...
