NOV 30 Day Rule/Focus Pic&Discussion Thread

I am craving ice cold Coke and dry smoked ribs.

 

I'd settle for catfish and hushpuppies.

 

Play the fight song.

 

Hello gents!

I am going to toss my entry into the 30 day rule thread.

I am working on rekindling my love for wetshaving as I have gotten into bad habits of rushed shaves lately. More spa like shaves, which is part of the reason I got into this in the first place. Also am working on technique, as it had gotten all out of whack. Especially angles. Working on getting close smooth shaves with no irritation, especially around the neck, to the right of my Adams apple.

To accomplish this I am going to pick some equipment and stick with it for 30 days which is hard for me, I like to rotate.

My choices:

1959 Fatboy set on 4
Feather blades (but may switch to Voskhod if blades are the problem of irritation)
Rubberset 400-4 Badger
Home made preshave oil
Strop Shoppe Tallow Shave Soap (I will rotate between 3 scents, all identical formulas though)
L'Occitane Cade aftershave balm


I had my first run tonight after work. Took a long relaxing shower and put on some PSO and then a hot towel. I mixed up some lather and let it get hot in the sink. I chose the Baker Street scent. I applied lather and grabbed the Fatboy and set out to shaving.

I really focused on no pressure and correct angles. All was going extremely well with no nicks. Then I got to the ATG pass. This blade, the Feather, was only on its second use. But even if i rode the cap it tugged and pulled my hair and skin up into the razor. I don't understand as I've never had this issue with Feather blades before. Usually they just slice through everything. It was acting like it was dull already. Maybe I messed up the edge with poor angles last shave? Maybe I'll try a new one next shave and see if that don't help.

The entire shave was fairly enjoyable but I just didn't get the satisfaction of a wonderful shave. Everything is BBS except for my neck around the trouble areas which is DFS. Except for the irritation, which is going down with the ASB.

I'll figure this thing out. I think I may switch back to Voskhod as my main blade of choice and see if that doesn't help.

Anyways, thanks for reading if you made it this far.

 

Don't get me started on southern food

 

Welcome to the 30 Day thread!

I need to grab an IPad...

 

Good Morning Deutschland!


I am from Alabama, and have family in Georgia and Texas. Several who post here are from the Southern USA.

 

That's strange ... I never experienced feather blades as rough like that. Usually they just punish you with their sharpness if you're becoming over-confident with them And I really don't believe you can mess up a blade in just one shave. Maybe it was faulty from the get-go? Interesting to hear how a new blade works out for you next time.

 

My wife and I love the Southern USA - spent quite a few vacations there. But Colorado is a great place as well

 

This is what I got so far...

1. Is it possible that you are over-prepping? Water logged skin swells, and is softer, making it deform more--both from pulling and from pressure. (Pulling up in to razor.)
2. Reserve judgement on Feather until you try a new one. Just reset the whole experiment next shave.
3. Maybe try SR style skin stretching?
4. On work days, maybe just hold it to two passes and no ATG? Perfection isn't necessary daily, and saves mileage on the skin for the days you need to chase!
5. Teflon coatings might be worth a look here. I am still using GSB as blade of choice because I perceive it as smooth. Voskhod, as you know, is also PTFE.

What's the thing you must fix first?

 

I really do like Colorado, but home will always be Alabama. You list Berlin as home. I am not too far from the airport, just east of Denver.

 

we've never been to Denver actually, but we visited Silverton, Durango, Mesa Verde NP, Black Canyon of the Gunnisson - beautiful places. And we just love being on the road in the US. So far we've seen 30 of the 48 mainland states plus Hawai'i and Puerto Rico over the course of 15 years.

But I guess we're a little off topic here

 

No worries, we all write about shaving sometimes.

That's an impressive number of states. I have spent a couple of months in total in Germany, but it was 20+ years ago. I also was traveling by car and generally stayed in gästhauser in more rural areas. It was most interesting and enjoyable. The German countryside is beautiful in springtime.

 

I usually under prep... So I thought I would go for a little more prep this time. Like how I used to do, before I got all rushed.

I've been trying to incorporate skin stretching and jaw jutting as much as possible while shaving.

I'll give the Feather another go, I'm gonna choose one from another pack. Maybe I have a bad batch, the last blade wasn't great either. I dunno.

It's really really hard to not do ATG... I have thick coarse beard hairs so its almost like half a days growth if I don't do that pass. I wanna be smooth... but I see the wisdom.

I need to get some GSBs... I think I have a couple somewhere. I remember them being a good shave.

 

I am just lucky! I can totally get away with no ATG. But, I understand the lingering shadow issue could be really annoying. These things can be a little baffling!

New win streak starts tomorrow!

 

Okay, back to shaving.

Setup as usual, just changed the Aftershave:

- D.R. Harris Sandalwood
- Semogue 620
- Mühle R89
- Gillette Silver Blue (#4)
- Confianca O Melhor ASB



For me, a really thorough 3-pass-shave will provide a smooth skin for almost 2 days. So my usual routine for daily shaves are 2 passes W and X. Sticking to a certain setup for a while opens the opportunity for some other fields of experimentation, so today I just had one pass XTG plus a little touchup, just to see how far that will get me

To my embarrassment I can't blame the lather problems entirely on the brush. Though I think its performance improves with each shave, there also MIGHT have been some user errors... I always wondered why the lather from the Harris soap would dry on my skin pretty fast - and I guess it's because I used too little water (though I thought I had used too much at one time). Today I tried palm lathering and added much more water than I did while face lathering - until the brush looked like this:



The lather still shows a few bigger bubbles here and there, might have needed some more work, but it was more than sufficient for a nice shave today.

 

I also have a thick beard and crave the BBS that can only be achieved by going ATG. If go ATG on the 3rd pass I usually get lots of irritation. So now to WTG, XTG, XTG in the opposite direction and the ATG. I find I helps if I have more beard reduction before the ATG pass.

 

Thank you.

 

Aristocrat Focus Day 5:

November 5 SOTD:

Homemade PS Oil
Stirling Synthetic Brush
Pre de Provence SS
Gillette Aristocrat
Stirling Unscented PSB
Canoe AS

I was able to keep myself to a strict two pass shave again this morning, and again an extremely comfortable shave resulted. There a couple of little spots that could use a little buffing, but they aren't really visible unless you are really looking. I'll note these for tomorrow's shave in an attempt to get myself to a strict two pass routine.

 

11/05/2015
Razor – Schick Type G
Blade – Chinese Schick (1)
Brush – Rudy Very with TGN Finest
Lather – MdC
Post - Witch Hazel and Fine L’Orange



I took a one day break from the November Focus to try out a new G Type Injector this morning. An exceptional 3 pass shave with very little touch ups got me so near a BBS. I was expecting the G to be more aggressive then my I type. While that is true, it was not a huge difference to me. Finished off with a splash of Fine L'Orange.