5/8 Dovo Desert Ironwood - Stainless Steel

Beauty, it is said, is in the eye of the beholder.

I keep one of these at my summer place, in a stainless stand paired with a handcrafted cocobolo brush. The simplicity of the desert ironwood and the aging cocobolo are quite pleasing to me. Neither wood requires the glossy finishes often seen on less dense woods used for brushes and scales. Their very simplicity in their austere stainless stand evokes a calm, utilitarian, natural aura of byone days.

The shave is not as close as the shave some of my antique carbon steel blades give, nor does it touch up on a hone quite as quickly as they do. None-the-less, I find it to give a quite satisfactory shave.

Something is worth what someone will pay for it. I do not begrudge Dovo the money I spent on this razor. It has given me a lot of pleasure and many fine shaves that have been well worth the price for me. There may be others of my pecular bent who will also find satisfaction with this tool.

I really like simple, elegant, refined razors. In fact... my favorite razors seem to be those with plain jane blades, and unmarked/one material scales. My japanese razors, my horn handled TI's and so on and so forth... quite "plain" looking, yet just rub me the right way. Now, while I do like plain razors... these desert ironwood razors have never done much for me in pictures, and I was always a bit curious as to why they were so costly.... now that I have had the opportunity to sharpen one, hold one, and shave with one.... I wonder even more... why so costly?







Price....
Alright.... I guess my big beef here, is that as the second most expensive razor in the Dovo line (it's tied in second place with the genuine MOP dovo, and is only surpassed in price by the $400 Mammoth Ivory singing dovo) I expect a lot more from this razor. The stamping and finishing on this razor is just "eh" and the quality of the scales is a big time "eh" and the desert ironwood isn't really good looking.... well.... at all. Now, don't get me wrong.... it isn't BAD looking, but we are talking about a $190 razor - which is WELL into mid range Thiers Issard territory, is the same cost as the stunningly beautiful Genuine MOP Dovo, and is a whopping $30 more expensive than a Dovo Bergischer Lowe, Genuine Buffalo Horn (in stainless), or a 5/8 Snakewood Stainless. In fact... for about the price of this razor - you could buy a Genuine Ebony Dovo 5/8th's in Stainless steel (that will shave as well, has better balance, and looks much nicer in my opinion), as well as a 6/8 Dovo Bismarck! OR - if you went the TI route, you could go with a Frameback, and art deco, a Leaf and vine, or literally - 20 other options.... of which will be better looking... and shave as good - or better!

Scales...

Pretty damn plain and uneventful. For a $100 razor.... eh, it'll work, but for a $190 razor? Come on now.... really boring....





Insult to injury - the spacer is a "gumby gold" plate - which looks a little silly, and my big gripe.... the scales are 4 pieces which makes them both cheap looking, and incredibly wide. For me this razor is incredibly unbalanced, and borderline difficult to use as the heavy scales always seem to "fight" with you when shaving. This razor certainly is not "light on its feet." Add that to the right scale (see pic below) being oversanded, and thus smaller than the left side, make somewhat of a frankenstein set of razor scales. This razor does not impress me.....



Blade....

Satin polished, "ok" stamp job, shaves well. Not too much to say in that regard..... it's a good shaver, and every bit as good as other Dovo Stainless blades.... albeit nearly 2X the cost of some of the other stainless offerings, without the beauty of price justification of say, the genuine MOP dovo.



Overall....

It's a good shaver..... but honestly.... it isn't worth the $. If you simply must have a desert ironwood stainless dovo, and desert ironwood really does it for you - get one of the $100 dovo stainless bladed razors and have custom scales made/put on it for about $35... which will look much nicer, be thinner, and will be better balanced. Oh yeah..... and you save a whopping $55.

Sorry... to each their own, and YMMV and all that jazz.... but this razor just does NOT do it for me, and I don't understand, or see its value.

TO DISCUSS THIS REVIEW, PLEASE SEE THIS THREAD!