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2022 Shave Purchase Sabbatical - Shave Trek Season 2

Still in! I am enjoying this thread along with the 365 in 2022.

I just finished my first product of 2022: Zingari Unscented ASB. Highly recommended. I generally 3017 both soaps and aftershaves. Next up: Aveda ASB.

My Leviathan soap formed a hole in the center today, but we'll see how long that takes to finish off.

To keep myself in check I am keeping a fantasy list of items to buy or perhaps order in 2023. More of this soap will definitely be on there.
Leviathan is on my fantasy list too, although I've not tried it yet.
 
Wow, as I'm waiting for my Feather shavette to arrive I decided to look into straight razors...so much to learn.
Mine arrived yesterday.

Today - against all odds - I found a proper angle almost by intuition and completed a full two pass shave (wtg and atg, the latter in Kamisori shave style) with only one tiny nick and just a tad of redness on my neck (the psb took care of it quickly).
Whilst being a nice addition to my shaving gear setup (really something different), I likely won't fall down the SR rabbit hole completely (all the honing/maintenance stuff is just not my cup of tea, I'd say).

Hope you'll get yours soon!

#40 still in.
 
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Still going. 2-pass head shave, #3 with the Müster blade. I am pleased, it did well. I had no expectations on performance, so kudos. Will it replace my top blades, no. But I could happily use them otherwise. Binned after 3 uses as I do most blades. The hole in the bottom of my Stirling is getting bigger, and starting to spin when I load the brush, so a few more weeks most likely. This will also be the last shave with my Soviet Rubin for a while as my daughter got me a birth year Gillette slim for my birthday, so I'll try that out and see what I think, curious how it compares to the Rubin.

Soviet Rubin - setting 6
Müster Platinum (3 & bin)
Stirling Bay Rum
Omega Boar

shave.jpeg
 
Today I used this little gem, a Gillette Fat Handle, the Tech give me the nicest and most accurate shave of any other razor.
Brush: Omega 80067
Blade: Personna Platinum (3)
Soap: Cella Red mixed with Noxzema Shaving Cream for a spicy kick.
AS: Clubman Brandy Spice.

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Still in. 2-pass head shave. Used my birth year Gillette Slim Adjustable (J) for the first time today. Nice razor, overall positive experience. I am comparing this to my Soviet Rubin Adjustable. Not a fair comparison as I've used the Rubin for decades and this was the first use on the Gillette. It seems that the efficiency of the slim at equal levels is lower than for the Rubin. The Rubin is more efficient (for me) at 5 than the Gillette at 5. Same for level 6. I will use setting 7 for the next shave to see how that compares. I will say the Gillette is a beautiful shaver, I just need to dial it in, literally. The weight is excellent (heavier than the Rubin) as is the handle length (shorter than the Rubin). I used a fresh Müster Platinum blade, again the blade is very nice, much better than I expected. The Stirling soap continues to deliver excellent shaves. Overall a very pleasant shave.

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Still in - trying not to fall headlong into the straight razor rabbit hole. I've been reading a lot about honing/stropping and thankfully I have a year to decide what I plan to do. Thankfully I have a set of lapping films for lapping hand planes which should work for the inexpensive approach to honing straight razors. I've watched a bunch of videos on that, so once the Red Deer cheapo straight razor shows up I'll try my hand at putting an edge on that. I do have my grandfather's old straight razor which I could attempt to hone, but I don't really want to screw that up so I'll probably hold off on that until the sabbatical ends.

Still in - seat belt keeps loosening, need to have engineering take a look at it. :)
 
Mine arrived yesterday.

Today - against all odds - I found a proper angle almost by intuition and completed a full two pass shave (wtg and atg, the latter in Kamisori shave style) with only one tiny nick and just a tad of redness on my neck (the psb took care of it quickly).
Whilst being a nice addition to my shaving gear setup (really something different), I likely won't fall down the SR rabbit hole completely (all the honing/maintenance stuff is just not my cup of tea, I'd say).

Hope you'll get yours soon!

#40 still in.
Hey, congrats on your first shavette shave! My Feather SS is now somewhere within the country, yet the delivery date is still set for 1/24. Hopefully I don't fall in love with it right away and then feel the need to move to straights...please no. I keep telling myself it's just shaving, but my mind isn't having any of it. I haven't had much temptation in shaving gear for the past four years, but now it's hitting pretty hard.
 
Still in.

Today's shave:

Astra SP
Gillette Fatboy set on 5
Simpsons Emperor 1
Antica Barbieria Colla Almond Pre-shave, Cream and after-shave.

The ABC product line truly offers great performance, refined and subtle scents.

I've been having a break from SR shaving aside from a couple of shave this month, I've been time poor and are just enjoying my current DE rotation:
WR2 1.35 SB, WR2 1.45 OC, Rocnel Sailor 2021, Gillette Fatboy, Gillette New Deluxe, Gillette New Improved
 
I just saw that the Feather SS was delivered. It must be down at the mailbox, I'll check tonight or tomorrow morning. If it's there I plan on not blood-letting tomorrow, but hopefully having a wonderful shave.
That's great news. Excellent!

I hope you'll have a splendid debut shave with it! Let us know how the shave went.

And, despite wishing you great joy, I hope you'll stay with us here 😉 :thumbsup:
 
Still in, no pic.

Razor - 1964 Gillette Slim Adjustable (setting 7)
Blade - Müster Platinum (2)
Soap - Stirling Bay Rum
Brush - Omega Boar
Post Shave - Alba Botanica 98% Aloe Vera

Head shave S-N, 2 pass. Second is just a clean up. Excellent shave from the Gillette on its second use by me. I'm liking it. Still pleased by the blades as they are performing much better than expected.
 
That's great news. Excellent!

I hope you'll have a splendid debut shave with it! Let us know how the shave went.

And, despite wishing you great joy, I hope you'll stay with us here 😉 :thumbsup:
I just had my debut shave with the Feather SS. Not the best shave I've had, and there were a few hiccups. I started with a Feather Pro Guard blade, hoping to preemptively staunch the flow of blood. For those that don't know the Feather Pro Guards have a thin wire wrapped around the edge to reduce exposure. My experience was that the wire grabbed annoyingly. Not sure if it was my angle or what, I decided to swap that blade out for one of the Kai Titan Mild blades (I'm not a Feather blade fan, so I'd decided to see how Kai's offerings went). That was better, but I nicked myself twice, at which point I decided that I needed to have my full concentration available instead of wondering if anybody at work was pinging me. So I'm sitting here with a significant amount of stubble left on my face, and have stopped the nicks from their crying.

First impressions - the shavette blade still feels like using a DE blade and didn't have a smooth feel. Obviously I need to try this again. On a good note this has tempered my immediate interest in straight razors - so that's a good thing from a restraint viewpoint.

TLDR; Had my first shave with the shavette - wasn't excellent and I still need a shave :)
 
Fatip/clubman Friday
Still in.
If you want help on how to stay away from buying new soaps, just use the same soap for a week or two and see how it goes down. For me it made me realize it will take over a decade (or 3) to go throught all of them. This soap was at about 50% in November when I decided to use it exclusively excepted on MdC Mondays. Still haven't finished it shaving every 2-3 days. Since I started wetshaving I never finished a soap. Now that I know how long it takes to finish one, it's lot easier to stay away from buying new soaps.
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