August 30 Day Rule/Focus Pic & Discussion Thread

August 2, 2015

Adjustable August Slim-apalooza!

30-Day Focus - Gillette Slim Adjustable

Mid-morning shave.

Hot Shower
Pre-Shave Oil: Gingers Garden
Soap: Catie's Bubbles Mile High Menthol
Brush: Omega Pro 48
Razor: Gillette Slim Adjustable
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue (3)
TSD Witch Hazel
After Shave: TSD Lemon
Mustache Wax: Dirigo Blue



This shave was as good as yesterday if not better as I'm keeping sharp focus on my technique - I purposefully exaggerate 'riding the cap' as I find the efficient angle and slice thru the beard for a most satisfying shave

I'm tempted to move up a notch tomorrow.

Cheers!
RT

 

In Sovet Russia, vodka has you for breakfast.

 

Well then it's probably these though on rare occasions it might be .

 

Day 1 - 2 August 2015

30 Day Rule - Phoenix OC!


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Day one of the real rule was a good experience. The Rapira seems to match well to the head geometry of the DOC. This razor falls in between Cadet OC (Razorock, et al) and Maggard in terms of aggression. It has performed well the first two days and I am liking it so far! La Toja is a lather bomb, and produced some of my best lather to date, like Arko level thick awesome lather. Alum felt like a cool stone and the Clubman congratulated me on shaving old school. About to take the IPad outside, it's still 75F and is a lovely evening near Denver! Other than that...all is quiet in Colorado.

Have a sterling Monday!

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Ok who put the camera in my room?!?!

 

August 30 Day Rule

Second shave done earlier today. As with every day this month it will be my Lord L6 razor with the GSB blade. Will be using my VDH boar to lather some Stirling MITA. Today went very well with the shave. Very smooth. Worked hard on my lip to chin area using the tongue push out technique suggested by @clint64. It did seem to work better. No weepers or nicks so that is good. Still having some trouble getting the crease above the chin, but it was definitely better. In the end I call it a DFS shave. The shave was this morning and so it has been about 15 hours. Face still fairly smooth which is something I could NEVER say when I used cartridges.

Also realized today that by doing WTG and XTG on my neck means going in about every one of the 360 possible directions. Will spend time while I am getting the technique down to also get my beard growth mapped to the extent possible.

Thanks again for the pointers. I did the tongue push out on the upper lip, which works great so not sure why I could not think of it to do below the lips too.

Hope this week is a great one for everyone!

 

Better yet how did you go from being Russian to being English to being Italian in one evening?

 

Don't hate the player, hate the game.

 

No blood = decent shave!

On the neck, shorter strokes while gripping the razor closer to the cap will relieve pressure and improve control. I use this grip with stroke quick deliberate strokes with good results. Disclaimer, I only go XTG in the neck fold, to prevent ingrown hair. This is where the pressure advice gets murky, but you are on a good path by mapping the grain carefully.

 

1956 Gillette Super Speed Flair
Vulfix Super Badger (660)
Georgetown G12 Scuttle
Proraso Sandalwood cream
Aqua Velva Ice Blue

Shave #1 with the Voskhod Teflon blade. A smooth shave, very close and mostly comfortable. I did some feel some pull at times on my neck while going ATG. Good lather. Shook out the brush well, then after putting a dab of Proraso cream in the scuttle and while working my lather, I went back for more water 4 times. At this point my lather was really nice:

2 full passes: Pass 1: WTG on my face and XTG on my neck. Pass 2: ATG. This gave me a near DFS shave. Touch up took a bit more time than yesterday, but I finally caught the baby. The Aqua Velva stung a little bit on my throat, but quieted down ok. The first Voskhod shave is in the books as a BBS shave.

Have a great week!

 

08/03/2015
Razor – Gillette Slim (J3) Set on 8
Blade – Gillette 7 O’clock Black (1)
Brush – Brothers Bristles with WD HM
Lather – Catie’s Bubbles Santal Sensuelle
Post - Witch Hazel & Captain’s Choice Sandalwood



Changed out the Lab Blue for my last 7 o'clock black and left the Slim set on 8. Much better shave this morning. When I first started Lab Blue was my favorite blade by far. It seems that now I have been unable to find a razor that works for me using the Lab Blue blades. Traditional 3 pass shave plus a little touch up and I caught the baby. I had forgotten just how easy Catie's Bubbles is to lather. Finished off with a splash of CC Sandalwood. Overall an A+ morning.

 

Phoenix Comparison Focus Day 2:

Homemade PS Oil
VDH Boar Brush
Stirling Glacial Spearmint
'48 Gillette Milord
Osage Rub
Stirling Unscented PSB
Fine Platinum AS

Another good shave this morning, DFS, but still some irritation on the neck. The Rub helped cool it off a bit. Have a great day.

 

Nice setup!

 

Thank you!

 

30 day Focus - Day 2
MDC Lavender Face Lathered
Sputnik Blade (Day 2 on blade, Day 2 on Sputnik)
Slim Adjustable set to 8
3 passes

Today's shave was much nicer than yesterday's because it was very smooth for all passes.

 

Ha! That was the plan! Thank you very much!

 

Focus: Adjustable August - 1958 Executive: Monday's shave was nearly as close as Sunday's BBS was. I decided to alter my plan a bit by setting the Exec at 3 for my entire shave. I think I only need a higher WTG pass when I've skipped a day of shaving. Also, In the past I've always played with the settings during the shave. I was in a bit of a hurry to get to work, but still only needed 2 passes (XTG, ATG) to get a really nice DFS. The low setting required a few more touch-ups than I like (or was it the fact that the blade was on day 3?). Tomorrow I'll try a new blade and set the razor on 4.

 

August 3, 2015

Adjustable August Slim-apalooza!
30-Day Focus - Gillette Slim Adjustable

Mid-morning shave.
Hot Shower
Pre-Shave Oil: Gingers Garden
Soap: Catie's Bubbles Mile High Menthol
Brush: Omega Pro 48
Razor: Gillette Slim Adjustable
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue (4)
TSD Witch Hazel
After Shave: TSD Iced Subzero Aftershave Milk and Splash (Brrr!)
Mustache Wax: Dirigo Blue

I decided to move up a notch on both passes to:
4 - WTG
5 - ATG



Once again, a most satisfying shave, even with the fourth shave on this blade. I think I will change blades tomorrow.

It's dawned on me that in order to determine the effect of the variable settings, I need to identify criteria that I can use to "measure" the effectiveness of each shave and not simply base it on - amount of blood loss!

Smoothness of the pass and then closeness of the shave would be two important ones to me.

To measure closeness I think I will assess the amount of growth at the 12 and/or 24 hour mark post-shave. To do that, I think I will keep one other variable constant - touch-ups - I will not do any, nor repeat strokes.

I figure this will do two things:

1 - give me a baseline to measure the effectiveness of each setting for closeness.

2 - to accomplish #1, I must keep my technique sound and constant for every shave. A challenge of course, but perhaps an added benefit to my shaving regimen.

(I know, I know, - I overthink this way too much!)


Cheers!
RT

 

Rufus, don't forget to enjoy yourself during all that analysis.