OCtober 2019

[bjm]

I managed to complete an entire month with just open comb razors and Tabac soap. It was fun, but I'm looking forward to a change of pace.

I didn't get around to using as many OC razors as I had hoped for in the beginning, but I got through it. Surprisingly, the two razors I used most often were my Gem MMOC and my Muhle R41. These are two razors I had previously had so much trouble with getting comfortable shaves that I had decided to sell them. After a month, they're back in my regular rotation.

Happy New Month! Be well...

 

[Sideways Tremolo]

Lots of great shaves, thanks to @Flintstone65 for organizing! OCtober really improved my feel for my Schone. Also multitasked with Tabac for some shaves FTW.

 

[Flintstone65]

Hi All -- I was going to put the stats in a thread of their own, but it's probably cleaner to keep them in this thread. Just a few thoughts about the numbers and this reporting exercise:

• First and foremost, it was truly a pleasure seeing everyone’s shaves. I also felt like I met some new friends and got to spend time with my well-established (didn’t want to say “old”) compatriots. Your dedication to OC razors, as well as your well-documented posts, have made this an excellent event!!!
  
  
• I need (and want) to apologize to those who diligently posted and whose posts I either missed or misstated in this report. While I am very obsessive by nature, I am also very, VERY fallible -- those two things together can make life both difficult, but interesting. I also tried to do some data clean-up, but 800+ shaves makes it not only laborious but also time consuming ...and time is something I’m running short on.
  
  
• Vintage vs Modern. I came up with this simple categorization early in the process, so I started adding it in. The challenge came when I realized that I can be pretty easily faked out by a Modern looking like a Vintage. I spent a fair amount of time with my Waits' Compendium; but the Merkurs actually caused me the most heartburn, and I pretty much called all of them “Modern”, which means some of you who shaved with a “Vintage” Merkur got misclassified…sorry about that. I put the cut off for age somewhere in the late 90’s / early 2000’s. So while I didn’t shave with one of my dozen or so Open Comb Tradere’s (I keep them in a Swiss bank vault...kidding of course, I wear them on my belt at all times ), they would have been considered Modern, of course.
  
  
• Different vs Not-Really-Different Razor Models. This one was TOUGH -- there are Gem Micromatic Open Combs, some with bumps inside the head, and some without. I have both razors and they shave the same to me, so I didn’t differentiate them. I don’t own any Aristocrats, so I couldn’t say if they shave differently (I bet some owners would say they do), so I counted each model year differently….where people posted specifics). Then there are the Gillette New DeLuxe (or De Luxe) Chromiums and Criterions -- are they different? I said yes, but I suspect they may just be different cases….or handles, I don’t know. So I tried to err on “different” vs same and include more info. The Karve razors seem the same, except you can change the blade gap….ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! What I did (when I could remember) was I put “your” razor description in the comment field. So for those who REALLY want to know, they can look at the spreadsheet and see it. The net net is that “unique razor model” counts are most definitely overstated.
  
  
• Blades. I did my best here, and I even googled different blade names to try and get it right and standardized. But then I started going insane, so I’m sure there are duplicate blade entries with different names.
  
  
• One last Mea Culpa -- I hope the above doesn’t diminish anyone’s enjoyment of the stats, and if I’m crazy enough….ummmm, I mean lucky enough to get to do this again next year, I’ll try to tighten things up on the reporting side.

So without further adieu, here we go!!! Feel free to comment on the stats and document any errors; but unless I’ve missed or messed-up something huge, I’ll leave edits to those who feel the calling/urge/desire. Oh, and I will put a link to the Google.Docs.Spreadsheet below. Feel free to make a copy and go crazy -- I know I did!!!

2019 OCtober Summary Statistics
89 participants initially “signed up” or "showed up" later
80 of those 89 posted at least 1 of their shaves (90% actual participation rate!!!)
838 shaves were posted
178 different/unique razors (+/- given the reasons above and typos/nicknames)
84 different razor blades (+/- given the reasons above and typos/nicknames)
359 pictures posted (43% of all posted shaves)
458 shaves were with a “Vintage” razor (55%), with the remaining 380 being “Modern” (45%)

Top 3 Participants -- the “You again?” category*
Invicta: 31 shaves
NCGent: 31 shaves
Saxonbowman: 30 shaves
MitchellUK: 30 shaves
* I’m sure some of you shaved every single day of the month, and I either missed some shaves, or some weren't posted. My apologies if I accidentally shorted you.

Top Participants with a single razor -- the “Mr. Consistency” category
Invicta: 31 shaves with a Fatip Piccolo SE (and a Voskhod -- although not the same exact blade for all shaves)
byDoms: 16 shaves with a Merkur 15C (mostly a Derby blade, but sometimes an AstraSp)

Top 3 Shavers with the Most Razors -- the “Lucky Dog” category
Tanuki: 27 razors
Flintstone65: 20 razors
MitchellUK: 19 razors
Honorable mentions: kjbarth (18 razors) bdehne (17 razors)

Top 3 Razors with the most shaves -- the “Most Used” category
Gillette Old Type: 80 shaves
Gillette New SC: 50 shaves
Gillette New LC: 41 shaves

Top 3 Seniors (Vintage Razor) with the most shaves -- see list above; and Gillette Single Ring (36 shaves) and Gem MMOC (34 shaves) came in next.

Top 3 Young Guns (Modern Razor) with the most shaves
Merkur 41C: 33 shaves
Fatip Piccolo SE: 33 shaves
Timeless 95 OC: 21 shaves
* RR Game Changer and Fatip Grande also had 21 shaves, respectively.

Top 3 Razors with the most shavers -- the “Most Popular” aka “Oldies but Goodies” since all 3 are Vintage
Gillette Old Type: 21 shavers
Gillette New SC: 17 shavers
Gillette New LC: 16 shavers

Top 3 Modern Razors with the most shavers -- the “Most Popular Young’uns”
Fatip Piccolo: 14 shavers
Muhle R41: 11 shavers
RR Game Changer: 8 shavers

Top 3 Blades with the most shaves -- the “I own 500 of these” category
Nacet: 99 shaves
Astra Sp: 89 shaves
Personna Red: 56 shaves

Top 3 Blades with the most shavers -- the “Favorite Cutters” category
Astra Sp: 21 shavers
Nacet: 18 shavers
Feather: 15 shavers

This LINK will take you to the spreadsheet. You’ll see 3 tabs:

• Participants -- this is the list of folks who either held up their hand when we first started, or they jumped in after the start
  
  
• Data -- this is where the posted data was captured -- 1 row per day per shaver per razor. If you shaved with 3 razors on a certain day, you got 3 entries for that day.
  
  
• Pivot Table -- this tab is where the analytical magic took place. I didn't save every Pivot for the above info (that probably would've been a nice thing to do), but rather I just ran a pivot, copied the numbers and ran another right on top of it. If you know how to use Pivot tables, this is a great way to access the data -- otherwise you can always sort by the various columns to see the data in different ways as well.
  
  And don't worry about messing up the spreadsheet -- it (should) only allow you to look and copy the data, but not edit/change it at the source. Let me know if I've made a significant mistake and I'll make the change.

Shave on and shave well!!!!

Oh and please feel free to ask questions, make comments, observations, and/or predictions. For example, I predict that it will take me another 10 or 11 months before I'm ready to obsessively document another thread

Best regards,
Fred

 

[Flintstone65]

And one last-last-last note: I just changed the spreadsheet credentials so that anyone can make comments (not sure what that means exactly, but you can do it)....oh and there is no sign-on/log-on needed. Only people who access the link can see this data -- it's not totally Public, unless someone broadcasts the link outside of this venue. All info is pretty publicly available (through B&B's search and Google out in the web), so hopefully no one will have any issue with this. If there is push-back, I'll remove the link access to the spreadsheet. Feel free to send me a PM if you have questions and don't want to engage in this broader arena.

Cheers,
Fred

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Hi Fred,

It's 00:37 at night in my part of the world, but what a good moment to thank you for all the time, effort and commitment that went in to organizing OCtober 2019.

So thanks and keep up the good work.

 

[Flintstone65]

Hi Fred,

It's 00:37 at night in my part of the world, but what a good moment to thank you for all the time, effort and commitment that went in to organizing OCtober 2019.

So thanks and keep up the good work.

Thanks Erik -- it has been my pleasure, and thank you for introducing me to the wonders of the RFB razor -- I absolutely love it!!!

 

[FarmerTan]

Hey brother Fred! Just wanted to let you know that I finished OCtober strong! Every single shave was an OC. Thanks for doing this.

As a matter of fact I had so much fun with it that I'm still OCing it!

 

[Flintstone65]

Hey brother Fred! Just wanted to let you know that I finished OCtober strong! Every single shave was an OC. Thanks for doing this.

As a matter of fact I had so much fun with it that I'm still OCing it!

Excellent!!! I can't understand why your shaves didn't show up.....wait, you weren't using Arko were you?!?!?

Just kidding, of course -- I too am a big fan (perhaps not quite as big a fan as yourself, but pretty big)!!! Enjoy those OC shaves!!!!!!!!!!

 

[FarmerTan]

Excellent!!! I can't understand why your shaves didn't show up.....wait, you weren't using Arko were you?!?!?

Just kidding, of course -- I too am a big fan (perhaps not quite as big a fan as yourself, but pretty big)!!! Enjoy those OC shaves!!!!!!!!!!

I was too lazy to post them!

 

[bdehne]

@Flintstone65 Outstanding work keeping the stats! Thank you very much. It was a fun month for sure. I didn't get to all of my OCs but there is always next year! Thanks again and thanks to all the people that posted. Sorry I didn't post more pics but that is not my strong point.

 

[GBerry]

Thanks again @Flintstone65. This was an awesome event with all the vintage eye candy. People went all out.

 

[GAW9576]

Thanks for all the time and effort you put into this year's OCtober @Flintstone65 it was fun participating in this thread and seeing everyone's participation.

 

[MitchellUK]

Hi All -- I was going to put the stats in a thread of their own, but it's probably cleaner to keep them in this thread. Just a few thoughts about the numbers and this reporting exercise:

• First and foremost, it was truly a pleasure seeing everyone’s shaves. I also felt like I met some new friends and got to spend time with my well-established (didn’t want to say “old”) compatriots. Your dedication to OC razors, as well as your well-documented posts, have made this an excellent event!!!
  
  
• I need (and want) to apologize to those who diligently posted and whose posts I either missed or misstated in this report. While I am very obsessive by nature, I am also very, VERY fallible -- those two things together can make life both difficult, but interesting. I also tried to do some data clean-up, but 800+ shaves makes it not only laborious but also time consuming ...and time is something I’m running short on.
  
  
• Vintage vs Modern. I came up with this simple categorization early in the process, so I started adding it in. The challenge came when I realized that I can be pretty easily faked out by a Modern looking like a Vintage. I spent a fair amount of time with my Waits' Compendium; but the Merkurs actually caused me the most heartburn, and I pretty much called all of them “Modern”, which means some of you who shaved with a “Vintage” Merkur got misclassified…sorry about that. I put the cut off for age somewhere in the late 90’s / early 2000’s. So while I didn’t shave with one of my dozen or so Open Comb Tradere’s (I keep them in a Swiss bank vault...kidding of course, I wear them on my belt at all times ), they would have been considered Modern, of course.
  
  
• Different vs Not-Really-Different Razor Models. This one was TOUGH -- there are Gem Micromatic Open Combs, some with bumps inside the head, and some without. I have both razors and they shave the same to me, so I didn’t differentiate them. I don’t own any Aristocrats, so I couldn’t say if they shave differently (I bet some owners would say they do), so I counted each model year differently….where people posted specifics). Then there are the Gillette New DeLuxe (or De Luxe) Chromiums and Criterions -- are they different? I said yes, but I suspect they may just be different cases….or handles, I don’t know. So I tried to err on “different” vs same and include more info. The Karve razors seem the same, except you can change the blade gap….ahhhhhhhhhh!!!! What I did (when I could remember) was I put “your” razor description in the comment field. So for those who REALLY want to know, they can look at the spreadsheet and see it. The net net is that “unique razor model” counts are most definitely overstated.
  
  
• Blades. I did my best here, and I even googled different blade names to try and get it right and standardized. But then I started going insane, so I’m sure there are duplicate blade entries with different names.
  
  
• One last Mea Culpa -- I hope the above doesn’t diminish anyone’s enjoyment of the stats, and if I’m crazy enough….ummmm, I mean lucky enough to get to do this again next year, I’ll try to tighten things up on the reporting side.

So without further adieu, here we go!!! Feel free to comment on the stats and document any errors; but unless I’ve missed or messed-up something huge, I’ll leave edits to those who feel the calling/urge/desire. Oh, and I will put a link to the Google.Docs.Spreadsheet below. Feel free to make a copy and go crazy -- I know I did!!!

2019 OCtober Summary Statistics
89 participants initially “signed up” or "showed up" later
80 of those 89 posted at least 1 of their shaves (90% actual participation rate!!!)
838 shaves were posted
178 different/unique razors (+/- given the reasons above and typos/nicknames)
84 different razor blades (+/- given the reasons above and typos/nicknames)
359 pictures posted (43% of all posted shaves)
458 shaves were with a “Vintage” razor (55%), with the remaining 380 being “Modern” (45%)

Top 3 Participants -- the “You again?” category*
Invicta: 31 shaves
NCGent: 31 shaves
Saxonbowman: 30 shaves
MitchellUK: 30 shaves
* I’m sure some of you shaved every single day of the month, and I either missed some shaves, or some weren't posted. My apologies if I accidentally shorted you.

Top Participants with a single razor -- the “Mr. Consistency” category
Invicta: 31 shaves with a Fatip Piccolo SE (and a Voskhod -- although not the same exact blade for all shaves)
byDoms: 16 shaves with a Merkur 15C (mostly a Derby blade, but sometimes an AstraSp)

Top 3 Shavers with the Most Razors -- the “Lucky Dog” category
Tanuki: 27 razors
Flintstone65: 20 razors
MitchellUK: 19 razors
Honorable mentions: kjbarth (18 razors) bdehne (17 razors)

Top 3 Razors with the most shaves -- the “Most Used” category
Gillette Old Type: 80 shaves
Gillette New SC: 50 shaves
Gillette New LC: 41 shaves

Top 3 Seniors (Vintage Razor) with the most shaves -- see list above; and Gillette Single Ring (36 shaves) and Gem MMOC (34 shaves) came in next.

Top 3 Young Guns (Modern Razor) with the most shaves
Merkur 41C: 33 shaves
Fatip Piccolo SE: 33 shaves
Timeless 95 OC: 21 shaves
* RR Game Changer and Fatip Grande also had 21 shaves, respectively.

Top 3 Razors with the most shavers -- the “Most Popular” aka “Oldies but Goodies” since all 3 are Vintage
Gillette Old Type: 21 shavers
Gillette New SC: 17 shavers
Gillette New LC: 16 shavers

Top 3 Modern Razors with the most shavers -- the “Most Popular Young’uns”
Fatip Piccolo: 14 shavers
Muhle R41: 11 shavers
RR Game Changer: 8 shavers

Top 3 Blades with the most shaves -- the “I own 500 of these” category
Nacet: 99 shaves
Astra Sp: 89 shaves
Personna Red: 56 shaves

Top 3 Blades with the most shavers -- the “Favorite Cutters” category
Astra Sp: 21 shavers
Nacet: 18 shavers
Feather: 15 shavers

This LINK will take you to the spreadsheet. You’ll see 3 tabs:

• Participants -- this is the list of folks who either held up their hand when we first started, or they jumped in after the start
  
  
• Data -- this is where the posted data was captured -- 1 row per day per shaver per razor. If you shaved with 3 razors on a certain day, you got 3 entries for that day.
  
  
• Pivot Table -- this tab is where the analytical magic took place. I didn't save every Pivot for the above info (that probably would've been a nice thing to do), but rather I just ran a pivot, copied the numbers and ran another right on top of it. If you know how to use Pivot tables, this is a great way to access the data -- otherwise you can always sort by the various columns to see the data in different ways as well.
  
  And don't worry about messing up the spreadsheet -- it (should) only allow you to look and copy the data, but not edit/change it at the source. Let me know if I've made a significant mistake and I'll make the change.

Shave on and shave well!!!!

Oh and please feel free to ask questions, make comments, observations, and/or predictions. For example, I predict that it will take me another 10 or 11 months before I'm ready to obsessively document another thread

Best regards,
Fred

Excellent and thoughtful analysis. A great conclusion to a fun month. Thank you for your time and effort in hosting. Best wishes

 

[Cepasaccus]

Added some comments in the table in my data to add missing data and standardized razor names. I know now more about how razors are called.

 

[kjbarth]

Thank you to @Flintstone65 for all of your work this month.


- Ken
[emoji1690]

 

[Rusty Shaver]

Another big 'Thank you' to Flintstone65! All that time, work and data collection is appreciated. A pleasure to have participated

 

[Flintstone65]

Added some comments in the table in my data to add missing data and standardized razor names. I know now more about how razors are called.

Thank you, very helpful!!!

 

[SucKO]

B&B:
You've done a man's job, sir. I guess you're through, huh?

Flintstone65 :
Finished.

B&B:
It's too bad the thread won't stay on the first page! But then again, what thread ever does?

Couldn't resist. Gold star to who can tell the movie this is from.
But once again, just a great job Flintstone65!!


I was surprised by the Nacet blade, it also showed up as one of the most popular in Slantember. Based on the various recommendations on B&B, I would have expected the Gillette Silver Blue to be there instead. You gathered some very interesting data, once again, well done!

Have a Great One!!

 

[Flintstone65]

B&B:
You've done a man's job, sir. I guess you're through, huh?

Flintstone65 :
Finished.

B&B:
It's too bad the thread won't stay on the first page! But then again, what thread ever does?

Couldn't resist. Gold star to who can tell the movie this is from.
But once again, just a great job Flintstone65!!


I was surprised by the Nacet blade, it also showed up as one of the most popular in Slantember. Based on the various recommendations on B&B, I would have expected the Gillette Silver Blue to be there instead. You gathered some very interesting data, once again, well done!

Have a Great One!!

Blade Runner -- good use of a movie quote! And I too was surprised by the Nacet....I went out and ordered a 100 based on the data. I'm either going to love them, or there are going to include in PIFs, or maybe both.

Thanks for the kind words and for participating in both Slantember and OCtober. I thought about tagging all of the participants so they would know the stats are up -- but I have a feeling that may not be appreciated by the Forum-Gods, so I've held off.

 

[SucKO]

Blade Runner -- good use of a movie quote! And I too was surprised by the Nacet....I went out and ordered a 100 based on the data. I'm either going to love them, or there are going to include in PIFs, or maybe both.

Correct on Blade Runner!
If you really like the Gillette Silver Blue, you will love the Nacet. My opinion (such as it is) is the Nacet is everything a GSB is, but a little bit better. Its smoother, sharper, and lasts longer. BUT, it's not as sharp or aggressive as a 7 O'Clock Black or Feather. I find in mild razors like an EJ89 or milder, I can not tell the difference between a Nacet or GSB, but in more aggressive razors like a New OC or Old Type, you can tell the Nacet is a cut above.

Have a Great One!!