Quest for less technology

[blethenstrom]

Evening shaves here as well. One time I even shave at midnight because we came home very late. I did not want to break my cycle.

I haven’t shave for 3 days now and intend to shave on Sunday for a 5 day growth. You know that feeling trying to restrain yourself from something you want to do. It’s killing me already.

But I want to challenge and put Nacet into test. It would be my 1st time to finally use this blade. Expectation is high and I am hoping to get good result.

5 days! Oh my! This is the image that comes into my mind

 

[Guido75]

See here is another dilemma. We like to rotate our AS quite a bit. I have maybe 10-12 of them. The problem is that when we are gone and our grandkids remember us they will not have that one scent that reminds them of us. Our grandfathers used one AS and it became their trademark.

I only have one too. Stocked in bulk. And a tiny bottle of Areffa I am afraid to use because it’s 60% alcohol.

 

[blethenstrom]

I only have one too. Stocked in bulk. And a tiny bottle of Areffa I am afraid to use because it’s 60% alcohol.

 

[cajunrph]

I have been thinking about my morning shaves. I am normally an evening shaver, but I have regularly thinks going on in the evening a few times a week, which brings me home too late to get a shave it. This results in a morning shave instead and I become a bit rushed. I really have two choices here. Either I try to use fewer passes for my shaves and accept a bit lower shave quality as a result or I get up like 15 min earlier to get my full normal happy shave time in. I personally lean towards getting up a bit earlier. What would you do?

I chose to get up earlier, I have no children at home to distract me in the morning getting them ready for school, evenings are not consistent enough for me, for me 15 minutes earlier isn't that much of a big deal.

 

[blethenstrom]

I chose to get up earlier, I have no children at home to distract me in the morning getting them ready for school, evenings are not consistent enough for me, for me 15 minutes earlier isn't that much of a big deal.

Yep I think you are right. Same situation for me. 15 min earlier it is.

 

[Darth Scandalous]

I did the same, just got in the habit of getting up earlier because it was worth it. And now as my shaves are getting more efficient it means less rushing to get the kids out the door.

My beard grows fast so I prefer to have the itchy stage hit while I'm sleeping.

 

[Guido75]

Just echoing here, but I get up 20 minutes earlier or at least the alarm goes off earlier. First thing out of bed I shave in me-time when the rest of the house is still in various stages of waking up. Love it! And I have always been a morning shaver unless I had to get up really early for work or something then I might shave at night. My beard growth is such that a 5-o’clock shadow hits me later than 5 o’clock (thanks to DE shaving), but those 10-12 hours smooth I read about from others are usually not for me.

 

[Guido75]

I took a sniff of my BSS#1 sweet sandalwood again this morning and I wondered if - or better yet I think - Boris succeeded in recreating Dr Jon’s unobtainium Black Label. The scent has a likeliness. It is superb! And I think the shave will be too. Counting the days ‘til June!

Have a great weekend!

Guido

 

[blethenstrom]

I took a sniff of my BSS#1 sweet sandalwood again this morning and I wondered if - or better yet I think - Boris succeeded in recreating Dr Jon’s unobtainium Black Label. The scent has a likeliness. It is superb! And I think the shave will be too. Counting the days ‘til June!

Have a great weekend!

Guido

If that is so it is just a Happy accident

 

[Guido75]

If that is so it is just a Happy accident

If that is so, it is super duper! You are an artisan on the rise my friend!

 

[huck1680]

Yes. all artisans/artists rely or hope for, happy accidents every now and then.

 

[blethenstrom]

I'm so happy that @Guido75 received his package. It actually did not take as long as I expected.

I have also received a package on Saturday from our friend @ShavingPrimate. He told me that he had a bunch of blades from his testing ventures and wanted to share them with me. He said they were full tucks so I said sure. He sure sent me "some" blades. 32 tucks to be exact! That is a lot of blades. He even put them in a very nice container.

That is a jolly bunch of blades don't you think? Yes yes yes you have already seen it. Yes there is a GSB tuck in there. I hope you all are happy about that. Now a disclaimer. It will take me a bit to get to these. I have a plan for this year already but no worries I will get to these as well trust me. There are many great blades in here that I'm looking forward into trying out. Again thank you @ShavingPrimate for your very generous gift.

Edit: The unmarked tuck is American Made Personna Comfort Coated (Lab Blue) blades since they come bulk packaged.

 

[Guido75]

Way to go @ShavingPrimate !! And enjoy Boris! There are some excellent blades in that package like the Gillette Black (6th row far left) and the Dorco Prime - in fact all Dorco’s he sent. O and Shark Chrome. An absolute favourite of mine!

Enjoy!!

Guido

 

[blethenstrom]

Morning shave - 5/18/24
Razor: Swing SB
Blade: Ladas Stainless Steel (1/5) (6)
Soap: BSS #1
Brush: RazoRock Plissoft RR400
Aftershave: Stetson Cooling Moisture
Rating: 7/10, SAS
Quick morning shave to get off the worst of the stubble. I knew I was going to shave in the evening so I did not want to puch my luck and do a full three pass shave. It was good enough for the day's endeavours, but not really a satisfying one. Still it served it's purpose.

Evening shave - 5/18/24
Razor: Swing SB
Blade: Ladas Stainless Steel (1/5) (7)
Soap: BSS #1
Brush: RazoRock Plissoft RR400
Aftershave: Stetson Cooling Moisture
Rating: 10/10, BBS
What a pleasant last shave for this blade and a rare BBS at that! A great way to cap off a great shave week. Super smooth and comfortable. Blade could have easily have gone a few more shaves. Not a lick of irritation.

Evening shave - 5/19/24
Razor: Merkur 41C
Blade: Ladas Stainless Steel (2/5) (1)
Soap: BSS #1
Brush: RazoRock Plissoft RR400
Aftershave: Stetson Cooling Moisture
Rating: 9.5/10, DFS+
Time to pull out the Merkur 41C again and get some shaves on it. Just going back and looking at my previous shaves with this razor it confirmed my feelings about it. It feels quite inefficient. I was still able to get quite a close and respectable shave with it, but it took a lot of work to get there. Also, something that I did not notice last time is that it seems like one side of the razor is more efficient than the other and there seems to be a slight alignment issue. I tried to adjust it but to no avail. Anyways a good shave.

Saturday was a......

Two shaves in one day! Wohoo! Well it was out of necessity. I could not wait until the evening to shave due to activities during the day. One cannot have a day's worth of stubble being out and about right? That mindset certainly is a new one for me. Heck in my college days I only shave when the whiskers started to itch too bad and I could not stand it anymore and that was probably 7-10 days of growth. Nowadays I would not even dream of doing that. I guess I am too sophisticated anymore for that............ In reality I think getting married happened and my dear would have nothing of that type of shenanigans. There are many things that out dear wives straightens us out on. She always tells me that I am a husband in training and I think there is some truth in that.

First blade of the Ladas finished on Saturday evening and it has been a very pleasurable blade. It certainly have the longevity for a weeks worth of shaves and it stayed nice and sharp. Sharp enough to deliver a dolphinic BBS on Saturday evening. I kept on rubbing my face to try to find some stubble, but there was none to be had. It was kind of sad to bin the blade, but onto the next. We have a schedule here.....

Last night I pulled out the Merkur 41C OC, since I only had a couple of shaves on it and I wanted to try it with a new blade. Last time I used it it felt like quite the inefficient razor and I have to say that it was that way this time as well. This caused me to have to put in a good bit of effort to get to the result that I was after.

One surprising thing though was that one side of the razor felt a bit more efficient than the other. I did go back to my notes on the last time I used it and I did not make any comments regarding it having that issue. I looked at the alignment and while there is a bit of play I was really not able to adjust it. I may have to flip the blade tonight to see if it follows the blade or the razor. My bet is on the razor. It does cause me to favor one side of it vs the other and doing so I got a very respectable shave.

I have made a decision regarding my razor blade and razor statistics. This came about from @ShavingPrimate's comments regarding razor reviews. I will only list razors and blades that has had more than 10 shaves on them. I agree that just a few shaves are too few to make any sort of a judgement on their capabilities. I think 10 is a good number. This means for blades it will show up once I have used 2 blades since I get about 6 shaves per blade.

Happy shaves everyone!

 

[Guido75]

It feels quite inefficient.

Steep or shallow? Interesting finding. I get excellent shave with my Old Types on which this razor is modelled. But usually at a steeper angle. Although I know you are more sensitive to the skin than I might be.

Guido

 

[blethenstrom]

Steep or shallow? Interesting finding. I get excellent shave with my Old Types on which this razor is modelled. But usually at a steeper angle. Although I know you are more sensitive to the skin than I might be.

Guido

Hmm I do not consider myself having sensitive skin really. I can usually shave steep and shallow and anything in between. I am finding that I have more issues with neutral or negative exposure razors. The angles are very narrow at which they can be used. For some reason the KCG razor, which is certainly negative exposure I seem to do fine. However, I have to be careful not to over shave with them, which is my tendency.

I do actually prefer to start a bit steeper on my first and second pass and finish with a shallow pass for my ATG pass. This seems to be my ideal, but some of the mildest razors do not work well for that.

Now I do not have a real Gillette Old Type so I cannot speak for how close the Merkur 41C is to the real deal. I also have a RR "Old Type" and it took me a bit to get the handle on that one as well. I think with use I probable will get better with the Merkur 41C as well.

 

[Guido75]

Hmm I do not consider myself having sensitive skin really.

Ah ok - I might have falsely assumed that making your own soap was triggered by skin reaction to ingredients. At least to some extent.

 

[blethenstrom]

Ah ok - I might have falsely assumed that making your own soap was triggered by skin reaction to ingredients. At least to some extent.

Ah I see. My shave soap ventures really just came about since I have made regular bath soap long time ago and shave soap just seemed like a natural progression. Now with ingredients and things I do think that a lot of our products that we do use on our skin is probably not the best for us. Of course soap being one of them, but I make lip balm, lotion, body butter as well. Actually I made some lip balm with my dear wife on Saturday. Long ingredient lists on products is a pet peeve of mine in general, even on food. We strive to go back to base foods as much as possible and eat less processed stuff.

Sorry for the soap box rant (pun was certainly intended though).

 

[Guido75]

All good Boris! You definitely have a fan on this side of the globe!!

 

[thombrogan]

We strive to go back to base foods as much as possible and eat less processed stuff.

Stop eating soap for goodness’ sake!