SoS: January 26, 2015 - February 1, 2015

Tomorrow!!

 

February 1

Stirling Sheep Soap
Feather Artist Club razor
Feather Professional blade (day 7)
Two-band silvertip
Stirling Naked and Smooth soap plus a few bits of leftover soap & glycerin
Two-pass plus touch-ups
Alum, Thayer's Lavender witch hazel, & unrefined shea butter

This is the first day of my February Focus to improve my skills using a shavette. I started today with a tamed Feather Pro blade and ended up with a close shave. It reminded me of operating a snow plow on my face! I experienced some irritation on my lower neck and a couple of weepers on my upper lip. This is a rather unforgiving set up compared to the Mongoose. Everything from prep to post needs to be right in order to get the shave I'm looking for. I hope to make steady progress this month.

I hope you all have a great week, and I look forward to to reading about your February adventures!

 

happy birthday tomorrow

 

Welcome to the 60s.

 

Bay Rum Face off
I wasn't going to do the super bowl shaving challenge, but I couldn't resist. I compared Krampert's Bay Rum vs HTGAM Coconut Bay. I love both scents and both make great lather. I think post shave feel will be the tie breaker. I lathered my right with HTGAM a and my left with KFBR.
Scent: I give a slight edge to HTGAM here (the PAA version is a different formula, which I have not tried).
Lather - a true draw here, as both exploded quickly and provided great protection.
Post shave - the edge goes to Krampert's here. My face is smooth, but my left is a little smoother.
To me, both of these are excellent products.

 

SoTD, Saturday, January 30, or, the fall of SINGLEMANIA



I forgot to take my picture before I left for work, so I had to get it this morning. I am posting it late for completeness. Why? Because this was the day that SINGLEMANIA, my near three week long celebration of all things Single Edge, finally ran out of gas. I decided to bring DE shaving back into the picture in the best possible way, so I set up my English Aristocrat with a vintage spoiler blade. All I can say is; wow. It was like shaving with a piece of silk. So smooth and perfect... so okay. I love them, but maybe the single edge is not the pinnacle of shave engineering. If you haven't tried a Spoiler, do so. As soon as possible.

 

Today's shave.

Prep: hot shower, Neutrogena Face Wash.
Brush: Burma boar.
Razor: '62 Gillette Slim set on 3.
Blade: Personna Lab.
Cream: Palmolive Menthol.
Post: cold water rinse, Barbon AS, Myrsol Emulsion.

Great one pass DFS. I had no irritation, pulling, or nicks. And tons of refreshing menthol. I love menthol. I've been using Palmolive Menthol for the past few shaves. It's my favorite cream.

 

SOTD Sunday, 2/1

Razor: 65 Slim (9 XTG, 6 ATG)
Blade: Rapira Lux Platinum
Brush: WD silvertip
Soap: Maggard London Barbershop
AS: Barbasol PR

Still learning to love my Slim (no pic today) . After a nice 2 pass yesterday (8 xtg, 4 atg), that was my best result with a Slim to date, I decided to crank it up . So I used 9 for a XTG followed up with a 6 for a ATG to end up with an even better very smooth, comfortable shave . I used an alum block and had little or no feedback. I think my problem with the Slim has been I've been setting it too mild. Guess I'm still learning.

 

SoTD for Sunday, Feb 1, or Krona x Probak: what were they doing to name this stuff? Drawing letters out of hats?

Pre- Clove balsam PSO
Soap- pc Namaste
Brush- Certifyd w/ black badger knot
Razor- Probak
Blades- schick vintage Krona Chrome
Rinse-Osage
Aftershave- Seaforth scotch leather
Lotion- Kiehl's
Cologne- Aveda Men pure-formance


Yet another impossibly smooth vintage blade. I swear that I have not used a modern blade as nice as this out the Spoiler from yesterday.

 

PSO: Palmer's oil
brush: Banat
soap: Cella
razor: Shake Sharp
blade: Ladas (5 ... or ... 2b)
finish: tuxxdk 's DIY AS splash >here<

Man, today's was a superb 2-pass BBS! Both passes were really smooth and few touchups required.Here I am 10 hours later and my face is still DFS+ smooth — just a tiny bit of scratch stubble starting in the usual trouble spots. I can only feel it by rubbing in the "just so" direction.

I've been a fan of Shave Secret for some time, but have been using the Palmer's oil as a PSO lately. I don't know how much was the Palmer's and how much was the Cella, but my skin felt really nice before the AS splash. Topping off with tuxxdk's formula made my face feel almost creamy-silky... and with hardly a tingle!

Tomorrow will be my 6th shave on the Ladas blade. I think I'll throw a Ladas in the FaTip on Tuesday to see how it holds up. I am wondering if the Shake Sharp adds to blade life because I rarely get 6 shaves from a blade!

The Shakey continues to re-impress me. I wasn't going for one, but I still doubt the Shake Sharp would deliver a one-and-done BBS. However, after today's second pass, the trouble spots hardly needed tocuhups at all. In fact, a couple didn't! Either this is a killer set up, or the shaving gods bestowed their favor. I'm already looking forward to tomorrow morning!

 

Neck only "Shave of the day"

- 1920's Gillette "Old Type" open comb safety razor w/custom maple handle

- Boar hair shaving brush w/mulberry tree handle

- Mikes Natural Soaps "Orange Cedarwood & Black Pepper" shave soap

- Sterling Soap Co. "Coniferous" aftershave

The razor worked great! I thought the handle since it's pretty smooth would slip in my hand a bit but had no problems with it... The brush worked superbly as well. It lost a couple hairs at first but being boar that's kind of expected. Only 3-4 came out then didn't have a problem after. The seal on the handle seemed to hold up fine but I'm going to continue to use it and see how it holds up over a few weeks.

 

Very creative! Has a rustic look, kinda like something a cave man might have used!
(Sorry, I couldn't resist!) Seriously, it looks great and, if the handle wears out, you just fabricate a new one! Great!

 

Like the handle on the Old. Is that something you bought or did yourself?

 

Have a great day tomorrow!

 

Thanks! The ultimate neanderthal shave is exactly what I was going for. Haha!

Yeah, I made the handle myself out of a piece of scrap wood.

http://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/what-to-do-when-your-handle-is-cracked-a-picture-story.42990/