What Straight Razor Did You Use Today?

Saturday Straights' Shave


Cold Water Rinse
Musgo Real Shave Soap
Jayaruh #2 Two-band badger
Joseph Elliot 6/8 Wedge
CWR
Cella ASB

The Musgo Real Shave Soap face-lathered well with my Jayaruh #2 Two-band Badger Brush. Two passes and touch ups with the Joseph Elliot gave me a close, comfortable shave. After a cold water rinse I finished off with Cella ASB. I am clean, smooth, and refreshed...

This was a very enjoyable shave with the Josep Elliot. It is a heavy razor, but it is very smooth. No nicks, cuts, or abrasions.

 

Just use painters tape, and tape the areas to be protected. If just light tarnish, use steel wool. If heavier, use some Wet/Dry sandpaper. I've done this, and isn't difficult. I gave up on the Dremel, a long time ago. Too easy for things to get out of control, and trash the blade, permanently.


..

 

Last night's shave

Razor - Tanifuji Ba'Ba it's around a 6/8" I absolutely love this razor. Consistently gives me smooth comfortable shaves. It also, mowed down like 5 days growth I think. Cut threw it like a hot knife through butter.

Strop - Dubl Duck Special No1 Cordovan. The strop does all the talking for itsself. I am very happy this is part of my collection.

Brush - The CaYuen Hybrid with a 24mm DSCOSMETIC 2 band. First use with this knot. I ordered it March 04 and just received it 2 days ago. My first impression is I'm not impressed with it. Hopefully it gets better.

Soap - PAA Meta Nectar CK6 Formula

Aftershave - PAA Meta Nectar First time using PAA products at all. Have to say they are very good performing soaps and aftershaves. I do have the CK6 Formula which is supposed to kill the Tallow is better myth. My first thoughts are it gives more slickness than the tallow soaps I have used so far. The scent is nice as well. The aftershave says its aftershave and cologne. I will have to see how long it lasts.

 

Three days growth, and a freshly touched-up blade. Hot knife through butter smooth, 2 pass shave, that left me BBS. No sting from the aftershave. Great brand of razor.

Razor- F.W.Engels "Special"
Brush- B-400 By Tom. Omega Boar Knot
Soap- "More For You", from Turkey(ARKO on steroids).
Aftershave- Pinaud Clubman

 

Saturday's Shave

Grah Plumacher Blue Diamond 5/8th
RazoRock Stallion
Blue & White with Stabilized Drift Wood 24mm silvertip
Paco Rabanne Invictus

 

Snail Forge Woots, 7/8 half hollow

 

Very nice scales.

 

Want to trade??

.

 

Continuing the rotation through the excess 5/8th and 11/16ths. This John Clarke & Son is the only bellied hollow razor I’ve owned. Very smooth and close result with a little bit of touch up required.

Hot water preparation
Argan Oil PSO
Savile Row 3824 Silvertip Badger
Castle and Forbes Lavender Shaving Cream
John Clarke & Son NEVA 11/16
Thayers Rose Petal Witch Hazel



Happy shaving - Karl

 

I did a touch up of the french frameback Le Téléphone Auguste Bain (the maker is leresche).

Speick shaving stick and clubman lilac vegetal as.

 

Big smile for a Sunday...
Kikuboshi 165/R. Saito SK1
Always brings a smile.

Enjoy your shave.
Tom

 

I’ve been hitting the Filly 14 Sub Cero lately and didn’t want to bore people, but the edge is showing its age (#126 this morning), and I don’t think that it’s going to go much longer. Alfredo got 133 from a TI and I’ll be happy if I can equal that, and overjoyed if I get a little more out of it. If this razor was in my normal rotation I’d touch it up, but it isn’t as tuggy as the Cape and Filly DT were at shave 65, so I kind of feel like that I should continue on until it’s reached the same level.

But I have another reason. While this edge has a large amount of usage on it, it isn’t ‘dead’ yet and in fact still delivers a darned good shave, its just lost some smoothness. So I’m taking this opportunity (it’s taken 13 months to generate this edge, lol) to test fabric components. I feel like that if the fabric helps or hurts, it will be more obvious with an edge like this one that’s getting near the end of life than maybe with a fresh edge. So I’ve begun adding 40 linen (vs 20) before suede and cordovan.

So far, fire hose linen neither helped nor set back the edge. Tony Miller linen helped noticeably, and I’ve used that for the past 2 shaves. Today I used 40 Kanyama canvas before suede and cordovan. I have a piece of Latvian linen that’s soft yet to test. I hope that the final days of this edge can be helpful to TSD folks interested in stropping and fabric components in some limited way without boring people. I also want to get back to using many of the other wonderful razors that I own, but in retrospect it’s been both an educational and interesting experiment. It just takes a long time to do.

As a side note, at shave 125, I inspected the edge with a ~12x loupe (eh, that’s a 25-30x Chinese loupe, lol) and it looks amazingly good. there are a couple of short shiny segments up near the toe, but the rest of the edge looks pretty darned good, straight and even for a well worn edge. It does have one tiny half moon depression near the heel where I accidentally let the edge touch my fingernail at about shave 70. This razor continues to impress me.

 

Yesterdays shave


Razor - I was trying two razors I finished honing. So half of my face was the ABC razor. I'm almost done restoring it. The scales are wet sanded to 10k and without any polish they are like glass. Pictures really do not do this razor justice. The other half was a Mansalu. both razors were just ok. Not sure if it was the razor or if I do not have the lather right with this soap.


Strop - bakersfield barber supply strop. This is one of my favorite strops as it is from the city I was raised and still live in. It's cool to have this piece of the cities history.


Brush - @Graydog zebra wood with 24mm horsehair knot from Shave Forge. Good knot. Doesn't have a lot of backbone so used a hair rubber band to support it. Now it's a great brush.


Soap/aftershave - Blackship Grooming Captains Pipe soap and aftershave. Second time using this soap. I may just need to work with it to get it dialed in.

 

Shumate Shuraco
American blade out of St. Louis.

Really light blade from the combination of the grind and removing steel from the tang for the MOP inserts... I think that was worth the loss of heft.

The gold wash has seen better days but a pretty decent time capsule overall.

Enjoy your shave.
Tom

 

Omega 45 first shave, simply ‘perfect’ as you’d expect from a Perfect Works razor. doap was Provence Sante Green Tea lathered with a TOBS brush, and Myrsol AB finished up.

 

Recent BST transaction:


Osiris Razors, Buckeye Burl scales lined with G10, quarter hollow

 

Continuing to rotate through my 5/8th and 11/16ths. This lovely Otto Busch is what I learned on. Still a razor I can appreciate.

Hot water preparation
AOS Lavender PSO
Romera Wengue Chubby Manchurian Badger
AOS Lemon Shaving Cream
Otto Busch Weltmeister 265 Sonderklasse 11/16
Thayers Rose Petal Witch Hazel



Happy shaving - Karl

 

Impressive, it is has been fun following along to see how many shaves you get out that edge.

 

A smiling Drew Dick

 

Tonight's shave

SanKan 1074 6/8"

Perfect 2 1/2" Japanese strop

That Darn Rob with 26mm Oumo SHD I think HMW or Silvertip.

Crowne and Crane Tobacco Leaf and Amber soap and aftershave balm. I love this soap and balm