January 2016 Focus -- Blade search for the 1958 Executive
January 5
Razor: Gillette 1958 Executive adjustable
Blade: Dorco 300 (1)
Brush: Stirling Kong
Soap: Stirling MITA
Post: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel, Nivea Balm
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Did not get a chance to shave yesterday morning and knew this morning would also be rushed since I had to be at the bank first thing to deal with fraud, closing accounts, and getting new accounts. Someone in Honduras really wanted some auto parts and apparently my card was what they thought they could use to buy them. After much ado, have account closed and new one open and now get to go through and redo all of my online banking stuff. So much fun!
Anyway, as to last night's shave, it was . . . interesting.! I had my Executive set on 6 for the WTG/XTG pass. The blade tugged and pulled more than a tugboat pulling a huge cargo ship into harbor. I finished the right side of my face and it clearly had irritation. I decided to dial the Executive up to a more aggressive 7 to see if it made any difference for the left side. Nope, not really. I ended up finishing the WTG/XTG pass with no weepers but my face had several spots of significant irritation. I decided to continue anyway, so I headed into my ATG pass. This pass actually was smoother than the WTG pass. I don't know if the WTG pass basically stropped the blade for me or what, but the ATG pass still did not feel anywhere near as smooth and efficient as the GSB blades, but it was not terrible. The closeness was the main problem now. I think I barely got to CCS+ after my usual two passes. I tried to do some touch-up to try and save the shave and think I ended up with DFS. It really was just not a comfortable shave to start and then it just did not get close at all. Used some WH to try and heal my face and since it was night and I had plenty of irritation I went with the Nivea Balm to try and cool things down.
This morning I woke up and basically had enough stubble I probably could have justified a shave. It really did not get a close shave at all. I even still had a little redness on the right side of my chin which is where the worst of the irritation was from the WTG/XTG pass of the shave. I am going to give this blade one more try to see if the smoother ATG pass holds and maybe this blade just needed to be broken in or something. If it is not any closer than last night's shave or if I start having that irritation again, it is on to the next blade.
Speaking of which, I went ahead and drew the next blade out of the hat. Next up is the Ladas blade. One I have used very successfully in the past with oth If the Dorco fails me tonight I will switch to this one or if it works ok, this will be for my next shave.
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