April 2016 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix&Discussion Thread

Thank you Doug.

 

Arko April!!!

Planned 18 April 2016





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Fatip Grande
Derby Extra (4)
Arko!!
L'Occitane Plisson Synthetic
Alum
TSD ISZ AS Splash
Pinaud Lilac Vegetal

Have a terrific Tuesday!

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@Douglas Carey and @Boojum1 Frozen Margaritas is on my to buy list. I think I will put a couple of Route 66 Soaps on my wish list with my Anniversary and Father's Day coming up.

 

Knocked out a head shave before my mail call. I used Soapy Bathman Tropical Lime and a Schick Xtreme3 cartridge. The Tropical Lime was plenty slick for a wonderful 3 pass shave. Finished up with GFT Lime Skinfood and a splash of F&C Capri.

The other day I mentioned in that Fine American Blend soap wasn't slick enough for my liking, what I'm going to do is add a few swirls of Soap Commander unscented (integrity) I hope that will add what I'm looking for. Slickness.

 

April 19 Fool's Pass with scariest razor.

Fresh off the hones is a Robert Williams Purist, it is scary looking and took a scar sharp edge. My most successful hone starting from 1K. Four passes and one small cut on my ear from the point. Fools Pass went without incident so I can say I am now down with this pass with my straights. I always did it with my DE and SE razors.

 

Scary is right Keith. Heal up quick!

 

Careful Clint that "nice cooling effect" can be addictive, especially when the weather is hot.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, that is the coolest razor I've ever seen

 

Thank you, I need to take a better picture. It sounds vain but I do feel cool and macho when I shave with it. It also takes a sharp edge too.

 

I can see another acquisition disorder on the horizon.

 

Since I used up the last of my Sweeny Todd sample and I don't have enough time to use up my Ghost town sample before MAYhem, I think I'll stick to Proraso, Hydra and MiTA for the rest of the month. I'll start the break in process on my VDH a bit early. I'm about to try a CJB shave despite my burnt thumb. I think I should be able to do it now that the pain has gone down. Its still stiff but I can work around that I think.

 

April 18, 2016

Hot Shower
Razor: Personna Floating Head Injector
Blade: Personna *74 (1)
Soap: Cattie's Bubbles Mile High Menthol
Brush: Rooney 3/3 - Super Silvertip
TSD Witch Hazel
Old Spice



Two-pass shave - WTG, ATG

This razor was one of the last injector razors that I've had my eyes on and it finally found me as a PIF from my original shaving mentor, sensei and Grand Poobah of the 30Day Thread @Bama Samurai

Beautifully easy shave was certainly worth the wait! The first pass felt as though the head was operating like a vacuum cleaner and with none of the typical injector 'velcro' sound, yet produced a fine first pass reduction. The ATG pass sounded more typical, but the blade cut like buttah resulting in a dolphin-smooth shave.

The whole time I felt as though I was cheating! This was much too easy.

Thanks soooo much Chris!
(btw - I'll attempt to cash in on the "$1.50 Cash Refund" and promise to send to you!)

Cheers!
RT

 

Menthol Monday Shower/Shave

Shower- Noxzema facial cleaner, Dr. Bronner's All-One Hemp Peppermint bar soap
Pso- Homemade grapefruit PSO with M-Bomb
Brush- RazoRock Plissoft
Razor- Muhle R41 head on a Maggard MR5 handle
Blade- Gillette Silver Blue (4)
Soap- Catie's Bubbles Mile High Menthol with extra M-Bomb
Thayers Witch Hazel with TSD M-Bomb
TSD After Shave Milk Neroli with M-Bomb

This being my first participation in menthol Monday, I went full on menthol. I added 2 drops of M-Bomb to my PSO, 3 to the soap, 2 to the Thayers and 2 more to the AS milk. Only one word can describe it, Fantastic! I am definitely liking this menthol feeling, it's cooling and refreshing. I'm going to have to try something with more menthol in it soon, see if I can take it. The R41 and GSB combo is great, towards the end of my third pass it was slightly tugging so it will be a new blade tomorrow. I missed the smallest of areas under my chin so call it DFS+.

I'm so happy I found this thread. It's focused my shaves and really brought them to another level. Face stretching has been a game changer for me, close and comfortable each time. I'm really looking forward to MAYhem where I'll try out a bunch of new blades. Have a great day folks!

 

Early morning shave before bed.


Ontario Cutlery 5/8ths
RR 24mm Finest Badger 2 Band (Holy Splay Batman!!!)
Proraso Red Shaving Cream
The Finest Grade 45 Cent Plastic Bowl From Walmart
Fine Platinum


Was feeling pretty stubbly so decided to get a quick shave in before bed. 2 passes (XTG,ATG) and I am BBS. The RR Brush whipped up some amazing lather and after just one use yesterday this thing has splayed so much that I just have to dap my cheek with it and it fills my whole cheek. Wife reminded me how much she hates the smell of Proraso when she told me "I sure hope your not coming to bed smelling like a dead tree...throw on some cologne or aftershave!!!" so I threw on some Fine Platinum. Going to finish this episode of Breaking Bad then call it a night/morning.

 

What? You watch Breaking Bad? Shocked I am! NOT!! So are you going through seasons of the show or just jumping around? I recorded the final episode of Better Call Saul for the season tonight. Will watch it tomorrow. Can't believe the season is already over.

 

Hard to believe I know but it is true.. Re-watching it with the Wife as she hasn't seen it before but this will be my 5th time watching it from beginning to end. We are in season two and just finished the episode where Walt walks out of the hardware store and says "Stay out of my territory!" to the guy. SWMBO goes "Does this mean he's going to start doing bad stuff again?"....oh just wait sweetie...you haven't seen anything yet.

Don't remind me about BCS season being over already.... I've been trying not to remind myself.

 

You've got me thinking about starting the series again now. And yeah, season two he wasn't even really "bad" yet.

 

Well ladies and Gentleman (and Ivan), The baby has landed.

CJB
Feather Super Pro (2)
Don Jon's Hydra
VdH boar
Pinuad's Lime Sec

I was a little scared going into this shave. The way I shave, the razor stays in one hand and the grip changes at the mid line of my face. When I shave the other direction, the grips switch. Half of my shave is with a carving knife grip and the other is this strange flipped around thing that makes the end the the handle rest on the back of my thumb. Its normal location there would set it right in the middle of an open 2nd degree burn. I tried to pull my thumb back to keep the burnt part out from under the razor but it felt shaky and slick. I fixed this by doing something that is only done if I do a fool's pass, I stablized it with my left hand.

The Hydra whips up a wonderful lather and I should use it much more than I do. The scent is over the top in your face citrus, which I happen to love. Even with a brush that is has only had 2 lathers on it, it explodes into a rich thick lather. I've been using a lot of Route 66 lately so I will make this comparison. The don Jon soap made a richer creamier lather than the Route 66 but, the Route 66 has more slickness, a faster lather and, better skin feel after the shave. I was throwing Arko sized lumps of lather all over the room lathering with this VdH brush. Being new and not broken in it had some problems with soap hogging and not holding water the way I wanted. Because of that I had to reload between passes and dip the brush into water twice as often as normal to get the same quality lather. Now on to the shave its self.

My first pass starts out with my flipped grip. I have the handle pointed towards my nose and I shave the right side. At this point the razor ws still dry along with my hand and it was cake to get a good WTG pass on that side of my face and neck. At the center line of my face I rinse and change grip to s grip similar to the grip you would get on a carving knife and that part felt secure and was wonderful. The S/N pass was the tricky part. The knife grip was still stable feeling but when I flipped the grip at the centerline I had wet hands and razor from rinsing the mounds of falling lather off of them and it felt like the painstick was going to slip out of my grip and go dancing across my face for a nice walkabout. I fixed this by usig my left hand on the ti pine corner of the razor to steady it. I expected defeat and a crappy shave.

I rinsed and rubbed a bit and could hardly believe it. Baby butt on the face and almost there on the neck. I quickly relathered and jumped into a partial relather on the neck. Afterwards I did it and it worked. The baby walked in.

I followed with Lime Sec to continue the citrus theme. It burnt a bit on my lower neck, Where I had some irritation before I shaved from beard and sweat.

I hung my brush like I always do while I'm breaking them in, unrinsed out. I'll leave it dirty for at least a week then on the last day I'll condition it with whatever my lady love has in the shower. It has always worked for me before.

 

BB is the only reason I pay $8 a month for Netflix lol! Oh yeah...she's in for a big shock.