August 2020 30 Day Rule/Focus Pix & Discussion

Awesome everything Joseph, razor, setup, report, yeah....everything! Nice.

Cool shave and report Joe. Glad that the Cryogen experiment appears to be going as planned.

Nice image and read Jeff!

 

And.... @jluc I'm with Bruce and Joseph on the Seygus razor. The pricing puts it in a category that should be very clear as to the finish a customer receives. Finish is omitted, or appears ambiguous on purpose, including the Seygus website.

 

Saturday's Shave

GEM Featherweight Deluxe
GEM Carbon Steel Blade (1)
Omega 11126 Boar
The Sudsy Soapery 'Delor de Treget' Shave Soap
Dickinson's Witch Hazel
Chatillon Lux 'Delor de Treget' Post-Shave Toner
Chatillon Lux 'Delor de Treget' Aftershave

I don't plan on adhering to a Gold theme this month, but I thought it would be nice to start off with one. Today was my first use of a GEM carbon steel blade. It was part of a sample pack I got back when I bought my first SE razor (Ever Ready 1912). It did a fine job today in the GEM Featherweight, but it is just not as smooth as a GEM PTFE blade. It's a similar shave to a PAL Blue carbon steel blade (which I still have about 90 left in the pack).

2.5 passes today resulted in a surprise BBS finish with a slight hint of irritation on my lower neck just left of my adam's apple.

 

Beautiful setup and photo, Andrew!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

 

Super image, setup and report Andrew. Love it!

 

Thanks Blair! I am pleased that my method of combating the gel problem of Cryogen is working so that I feel much better about buying this second puck.

 

Terrific start to the month Andrew!

 

Thank you, Jim!

 

Thank you, Blair!

 

Thank you, Joe!

 

Happy August 1st, gents! I'll do my best to keep up again this month. My plan? Hmmm...there isn't one, beyond "I'm gonna shave". Let's get this party rollin', shall we?

Razor - Parker SRX
Blade - Astra S/P
Soap - Tabac. The one. The Only.
Brush - Thater 4125
A/S - Clubman. The choice of discriminating men.

Things began well. Really well. The soft Thater did a fine job lathering the Tabac into a creamy, dense, and delightful smelling lather. I kept adding water until it was plenty slick.
First pass....easy peasy, smooth sailing. Using residual slickness, a second pass was done on the cheeks XTG, and S - N on the neck. Piece of cake. A quick re-lather, another pass XTG on the cheeks in the opposite direction. No sweat.
Then, things went sideways...
Sometimes there are ideas that sound good at the time, and once you try it, you find out it wasn't a good idea. Then there's the second kind of idea. The one that you're pretty sure is stupid, but you try it anyway. The latter held true for me this morning.
I tried doing an inverted pass along the underside of my jawline. Um hmm...I ain't ready for that. Straight away, upon setdown, it got me.
Ditching that maneuver, the rest of the shave (ATG) was completed without further incident. Doing the normal routine, I put the rest of the lather from the brush on my face while I started cleaning up the area. After rinsing and wiping the lather off my face, I broke out the styptic - which stopped the bleeding quickly, and much to my surprise, didn't sting that much.
Fortunately, I escaped anything serious - what I thought was a decent cut isn't much more than a scratch. Around the Adam's Apple isn't 100% perfect, however it's good enough - and there wasn't additional blood.
All in all, despite my own dumbness, the shave turned out very, very well. The results are approaching what I can get with a safety razor.
A healthy dose of Clubman, just to smell nice. It's a good thing for Clint @clint64 that I'm many states away. If I were to drop by, smelling this good from Tabac and Clubman, there's a chance Swati would be swooning over me.


Have a wonderful Saturday everyone!

 

Oh, Wow!! Your photo won me over with the Chatillon Lux setup alone, Andrew!
That GEM just bumps it up even further. Well played, sir. Well played.

Back in 2018, Shawn (from CL) was at the Maggard Meet, and gave out samples of aftershave, marked just as *2018*. I could be beyond wrong, however I'm thinking that it was Delor de Treget, or it was the scent from which DdT was based on. Either way, it seems like it could be a "forever gone" scent.

 

Excellent shave to start the month Jeff.

Lovely photo and shave Andrew. I hope you have a great day.

Great photo Bruce. I would be careful coming around here with Clubman. Swooning might not be the outcome. More likely, swish and parts gone.

 

Awesome shave and a bold move on the inverted pass. I do the inverted pass on my jawline and parts of my neck. It takes a good amount of straight/ahavette experience to do it almost effortlessly. In my opinion, I would say that you would need approximately 200 open blade shaves of experience before I would try that maneuver. Hey, that's just my take. You might need less shaves. Consistency and committing to doing 100 consecutive shaves like @timabababaluka (Tim) is really the only way to be proficient whilst not attaining mastery. Unfortunately, doing 2 open blade shaves/week doesn't cut it nor sharpen your skills and yes, the puns were purposeful. The inverted pass is a useful stroke to achieve a real smooth shave and imho is the hardest maneuver to undertake with the fool's pass a close second.

 

August 1, 2020
Wolfman WR-1 Ti with Tirad Aristocrat Ti
Gillette 7 O’clock Black
Rubberset 400 #3 with WSP HMW
A&E Dirty Ginger
Shave Soap & Aftershave

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With all this talk of floppy badgers over the last few days, I had to break out what I would call one of my floppy badger brushes. This Rubberset restoration has a WSP High Moutain White set at a somewhat I loft. While the brush has adequate backbone it is less dense and somewhat floppy. The monster of a brush loaded and lathered the Dirty Ginger with ease. There was more the enough lather for 5 or more passes and the brush willingly let go of the lather. I really enjoy using this brush. I like all the various types of badger brushes. I have brushes that feel like lathering with a velvet covered brick to those that are like lathering with a badger cloud. I have never really had an issue with "lather hogs". I just load enough soap that the brush can't possibly hog it all. The different face feel of the brushes while face lathering adds so much to my shave routine. For me it is one of the most enjoyable parts of the shave. The shave was an automatic drama free near BBS shave. I can't really ask for much better. I hope everyone has a great Saturday.

 

You've always had style Clint! I can always "count" on you. Lol!

 

Thank you, Clint! At the very least, she'd question your friendships, and future guests would require vetting.

How is the drainage project coming along?

 

Interesting report, Bruce! I've been prone to questionable experimentation with shaves as well. We live and learn. Excellent shave setup and great B&W photo!

 

Thank you, Bruce! I believe this CL scent was the first he developed (at least as described from his product commentary). So it's quite possible what you have is DdT. It's a great scent.

 

Thank you, Clint! I hope your day is fantastic as well.