May 2015 30 Day Rule/Focus Pic-Discussion Thread

I have also been blessed with an amazing wife and a terrific Mother to our children.

 

Heck of a write up and an amazing picture.

 

Hope you get to feeling better soon!

As for me no updates on shaving due to work schedule but I'm enjoying reading about everyone else.

 

05/09/15
Razor - Schick Injector J3

Blade – Chinese Schick (1)

Brush – TGN Synthetic 

Lather – Nivea Cream
Post - Witch Hazel and Floid Vigoroso Sample



On another motorcyle trip this weekend so I used my travel setup. Very good 3 pass shave this morning. Hope everyone has a great weekend.

 

Brush Focus: Day 9
Brush: Frank Shave Brush Rosewood Best Badger,22/55
Gillette Super Speed, A3 Flare Tip (1955)
Gillette Platinum Blade (1)
Bowl: KO Shave
Soap: Jack's Soap
AS: Lucky Tiger
Old Spice Coffee Mug.

The Frank Shave Brush handle had some problems when I received it. I had to sand and polyurethane it. It is a pretty good brush has a solid backbone and is a little scratch, but not enough to worry about. It does hold a good lather, however, it takes a little longer to load. All in all it is a good brush, and is a brush I will keep on using. Gillette SS is an outstanding razor and always leaves me with the same problem I have with older Gillette's? Is this one better than the last one, or is the next one going to be better than the first two... I get really confused here. Older Gillette's are just "OUTSTANGING" razors. A new Platinum blade worked perfectly and the Lucky Tiger A/S is outstanding. Three passes and a clean up. Great shave today.

 

Aggressive Apri...errrr May? - Day 27 (5/9/15)



Prep: Hot shower
Soap: Arko
Brush: Omega 13522
Razor: Cadet OC
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
Post: Witch Hazel, Nivea Sensitive Balm
Scent: Tommy Bahama Very Cool

Awesome shave today. 2 passes, WTG & ATG to a smooth DFS. I think I've found a technique for ATG that may lead to less irritation. Grain on my neck and under my jaw runs from chin out. If I start ATG near the chin and cut just a little section at a time and work my way out, blades seem to catch and tug less.

 

MAYhem & Mercy
May 9, 2015
Prep - Hot shower and towel
Brush - Tweezerman Badger
Soap - Williams (As good as it's going to get)Mug Shaving Soap
Razor - Rapira
Blade - (2)
Post - Alum, Nivea Replenishing Post Shave Balm.

Thought I'd share a picture of the back of the blade wrapper for the Baili. Notice the slogan.....Get Baili - Get Perfect. Perfect what? Certainly not shaves. Oh wait, perfectly dull hunks of steel? That works. Perfectly useless imitation blade? That seems about right. Perfect wasted attempt to shave? Yep, even better. Did I mention this blade SUCKS?!?!?!?!?! Yes, it really does. I had heard that this blade is truly on the horrible list and thought maybe some people just hadn't worked with it to figure it out. There is no figuring it out. In the milder Soyuz it barely shaved but pulled and tugged like crazy. In the Rapira it did the same thing, it just made more noise doing it since it's more aggressive. I did one pass on the right side of my face and neck, checked the result, said a few bad words and picked up my Aristocrat and Voskhod and finished shaving. It's that bad. I'm not sure you could cut your wrists with this thing. I think we could issue it to prisoners and not worry about them hurting anyone with it. Decoy blades for those who want to try to hurt someone. I'm not even going to waste my time with it on a third day. Done, finiti, over. Now, I will revisit it in a week or so during the Mercy round to see if a good razor and setup can rescue it. I'm not optimistic. This may be the defective tool @GDCarrington warns us about. This may have been the only blade available upriver in Apocalypse now. If so, it definitely explains what happened to Colonel Kurtz.....the horror.....the horror.....


On the plus side the Williams has become consistent for me, or perhaps I've learned to get consistent with it. Three days in a row of a persistent lather. It's thin but it does provide slickness and enough durability to last a shave.

 

May 9th , SOTD (Shave 5 of this focus)
Three days’ growth
Prep: Hot Shower
Razor: Wade and Butcher 5/8 Square point (post 1890)
Strop: Chromexcel Horsehide- 20 laps on linen, 40 on leather
DE Razor: 1969 Gillette Black Handle SuperSpeed (O1) Anodized Aluminum handle
DE Blade: Shark- Stropped 30 times per edge (3rd shave on blade)
Soap: Barrister & Mann's Seville
Brush: Tulip Wood Brush- TGN Best Badger Knot 22mm x 54mm loft
Post Shave: Cold Water Rinse, Alum Block, Thayer’s Witch Hazel
Aftershave: Aubrey Men’s Stock North Woods

Was sick enough yesterday that I didn’t want to shave. I dislike days like that. Three days growth made for a better shave today anyways. Got a pretty great shave, but am starting to notice some tugging with the razor. Not sure if I should try and do a touch up on the finishing stone I have, or try one more shave with it. I do have one other razor that is shave ready, and can use that if I mess this one up. I did two passes with the straight, and touch ups with the DE. If I can get my chin a little bit better, I won’t need the DE.

All in all, DFS. Hope everyone is having a great weekend.

 

Love that I'm not going straight alone. Pleased to be learning with you this month sir.
E-

 

May 9 - shave 5
Prep: Stirling Metha Preshave oil
Soap: Col Conk lime with 3 drops of M bomb (thanks TSD store!)
Straight: Whipped Dog Sight Unseen Straight - Clover Brand, 5/8, Round
DE Razor: Merkur Progress
DE Blade: Wilkinson Sword (5)
Post: Cold water, alum, TSD Milk signature x2 ice, Stirling post shave balm
Growth 2 days

Wanted to start the shave off on the right note. So i stuck to the whipped dog straight today and i must say, best straight result thus far. Don't get it twisted, i still have a bit of burn because of my technique, but I'm coming along.

I did a 2 pass straight shave today wtg and xtg and could have settled with a dfs. Little buffing needed on the jaw, but by switching to a three finger grip, (index through ring finger) in front of the tang, I felt mite in control in the blade. Thus more confidence thus better shave.

I added 5 or so straights to my amazing wish list so if anyone wants to hook me up, lol... Birthday next month and mom always needs ideas .

I realized that the Merkur progress has a very heavy head and not much pressure is needed. I also noted that this is the 5th day out of the Wilkinson and ended up with a BBS shave. Alum told me it was a bit aggressive shave but that is my technique with the straight.

One nick on chin, as always. But angles were much better on neck area.

Bayern Munich lost today. I had a great shave. Wine makes it all balance out. Cheers!

 

Not going straight alone. Ummmmmmmmmmmm...........nah....I'll keep my mouth shut this time.

 

I'm from the bay area, I know where your mind is going. Lol

 

Progress is what your take away needs to be when learning to SR shave. Some shaves will still be less than perfect, especially early on, but keep focusing on the improvements you're seeing (and feeling).
I was so discouraged after my first two weeks of mediocre shaves, I considered dropping the SR idea and jump back onto the DEs. Needless to say, I'm glad that I persevered. It only gets better the longer you stick with it.

 

It's funny, I was thinking as I was cleaning up with the atg pass with de, I used to be nervous, but not that I'm putting a straight to my face, de fear is gone.

 

Blade Focus Day 10:

Homemade PS Oil
Vie-long Horsehair Brush
Cella
EJ Chatsworth Barley
Trig Silver Edge
Stirling Unscented PSB
Proraso AS

Day 2 of the Trig was a bit better than day 1, but I still had some irritation on the neck. The alum block stung quite a bit. The Proraso helped calm it down a bit, though.

 

May - Focus on badger brushes - I am using my 2 badger brushes for the next 30 days/shaves or so. Today was the Omega silvertip's turn. I used the TSD Lemon & Cedarwood wheat shaving cream and it and the brush did just fine. Ended up making a 3 pass shave just because everything felt so good. The Weber razor is simply a joy to use. The cream took just a short amount of time and a pretty small amount to whip up into a nice slick lather.

 

Nice looking picture. Good post.

 

Jokes aside, it's been nice to learn this. People not on shaving forums look at you like you are nuts if you try to talk about learning a straight razors. Grateful to be hearing about you and @txskimo and the stuff you are figuring out, because it is helping me. Also glad to have @HolyRollah giving us some basic advice in each of his posts. I think we are going to get this figured out.

I tried touching up my blade on my finishing stone. Won't know until Monday if that worked or not.