dismal shaver (me) - please rate/help

[miffed]

I am somewhat ignorant when it comes to shave soaps, but my experience is also that they are easier to lather when spread flat at the bottom of a bowl.

Hi StewB,

thank you for your insight, i actually do try and generate lather like that, i have three or maybe even four ridges at the bottom of my 4.5 euro plastic wanda apothecary bowl, it has a little handle on the side, i squeeze some cream in the middle of said ridges, then i go in with my synthetic brush, having first ran it through some lukewarm water and then shaken off the excess water from it, i generate for about three mins tops, i get light to no lather when i don't push the brush down hard into the bowl, let's say the first half a minute of generating lather, once i start doing this (pushing the brush down into the bowl quite sternly) the lather comes along quite nicely, i was however making my lather too thick as one member pointed out to me so next time i lather up ill be aiming for thin yogurt consistency, as that was the analogy used and i don't like marshmallows at all (second analogy used)

sincere regards StewB

 

[PintoPlain]

I read you exfoliate before a shave. Personally, I don't as I know I will be running a blade across my face when I shave. Even using as little pressure as possible there will be some irritation from the sharp steel.

My suggestion is to ensure the angle of contact between the blade and skin is shallow so you are cutting the hair and not scraping. I found if I use the wrong angle my face is uncomfortable. I'm fortunate I don't really suffer from breakouts though.

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

I read you exfoliate before a shave. Personally, I don't as I know I will be running a blade across my face when I shave. Even using as little pressure as possible there will be some irritation from the sharp steel.

My suggestion is to ensure the angle of contact between the blade and skin is shallow so you are cutting the hair and not scraping. I found if I use the wrong angle my face is uncomfortable. I'm fortunate I don't really suffer from breakouts though.

The only kind of exfoliation that I do, is just rubbing a bath soap bar onto my face to deploy that sweet delicious lemon scented soap, then rubbing it into my whiskers with my fingers. I sure as heck don't scrape my skin if thats whats considered exfoliation lol!

 

[PintoPlain]

The only kind of exfoliation that I do, is just rubbing a bath soap bar onto my face to deploy that sweet delicious lemon scented soap, then rubbing it into my whiskers with my fingers. I sure as heck don't scrape my skin if thats whats considered exfoliation lol!

Ok, that makes more sense. I also wash my face with soap before a shave. I find it helps to hydrate and soften the hair.

I see you are using a King C Gillette razor. You might benefit from "riding the cap". This means starting with the handle at 90 degrees to your face and lowering the handle until the blade is just touching the skin. Try and keep that angle as you shave.

Just pay attention to the angle of the blade and the pressure. Once these are dialled in, you should have great, trouble free shaves.

 

[miffed]

Ok, that makes more sense. I also wash my face with soap before a shave. I find it helps to hydrate and soften the hair.

I see you are using a King C Gillette razor. You might benefit from "riding the cap". This means starting with the handle at 90 degrees to your face and lowering the handle until the blade is just touching the skin. Try and keep that angle as you shave.

Just pay attention to the angle of the blade and the pressure. Once these are dialled in, you should have great, trouble free shaves.

Hello PintoPlain,
very grateful for your insight.

Funny thing about soaps (bar), on Saturday we were on our way so the butchers, a little wayward in fact but there was and still is a large supermarket next door so we bought groceries beforehand, while there i noticed quite a few bar soaps by dove, quite cheap max 1 euro, as i was glancing around i noticed the word "gentle" on one...it also had the word "exfoliating" after, i thought to myself "nice" that this can be acquired here...and then i thought why not? i'll give this a try...

i have to say that i am very satisfied with it, and i might just be one for soaps...the bar in question is actually made in germany, and costs 0,80 euro, it cleans very well, you actually hear your skin squeak it gets it so clean...

i might have expressed myself unclearly as i read above that someone mentioned scraping ones face in regard to exfoliating...i personally have got this part idiotically wrong, having read what needs to be done pre shave, during the shave itself and of course post shave instead of actually "listening" to my face i got it all so terribly jumbled up...i ended up over exfoliating and as a result having worse whiteheads than i had before along with some discoloration et cetera...now having tried various combinations i do sincerely hope that i am doing things right...

allow me to describe my shave last night:

lukewarm to warm water face wash

dove gentle exfoliation soap bar wash

lukewarm to warm water face wash to rinse the soap off thoroughly, as i mentioned above, the skin actually squeaks

proraso white lather, i aimed for runny yogurt consistency as one member kindly pointed out, i actually got it there abouts

king c gillete with gillette platinum baldes, third shave with said blade, i seem to like it more than the king c gillette "stock" blade that came with the razor, or i might have gotten a tad better technique wise

i followed up with obligatory alum, some stinging but quite acceptable

after washing the alum off and pat drying my face i finished off with green proraso aftershave

quite a simple routine, in my opinion i looked sharp, i use the term sharp, i am sure many can relate, to describe the kind of look i have only gotten when being blade shaven, anything else pales in comparison, this "sharpness" is hard to put into words, as i am new to the game, i trust that there even might be a well known explanation for this occurrence...

anyway, i did, AGAIN, cut myself twice, pretty much the same place i did so once last time i shaved, yet again my concentration degraded enough to allow this to occur, to be fair, it stopped bleeding by it self the alum just killed off the bacteria (i hope)

in regard to angle and technique, i do hope i am improving, i actually "sense" every time the blade is on skin in a way that is "wrong", i have slowed down and am paying enough attention most of the time, which is a feat in itself for me, also i am letting myself off the hook a little because i again had a few drinks prior to shaving but i had slept before hand...not a total moron then...
it's day one, post shave, no white heads for now, day 2 has, for now been the day they appear, so we will see...

regards

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

Hello PintoPlain,
very grateful for your insight.

Funny thing about soaps (bar), on Saturday we were on our way so the butchers, a little wayward in fact but there was and still is a large supermarket next door so we bought groceries beforehand, while there i noticed quite a few bar soaps by dove, quite cheap max 1 euro, as i was glancing around i noticed the word "gentle" on one...it also had the word "exfoliating" after, i thought to myself "nice" that this can be acquired here...and then i thought why not? i'll give this a try...

i have to say that i am very satisfied with it, and i might just be one for soaps...the bar in question is actually made in germany, and costs 0,80 euro, it cleans very well, you actually hear your skin squeak it gets it so clean...

i might have expressed myself unclearly as i read above that someone mentioned scraping ones face in regard to exfoliating...i personally have got this part idiotically wrong, having read what needs to be done pre shave, during the shave itself and of course post shave instead of actually "listening" to my face i got it all so terribly jumbled up...i ended up over exfoliating and as a result having worse whiteheads than i had before along with some discoloration et cetera...now having tried various combinations i do sincerely hope that i am doing things right...

allow me to describe my shave last night:

lukewarm to warm water face wash

dove gentle exfoliation soap bar wash

lukewarm to warm water face wash to rinse the soap off thoroughly, as i mentioned above, the skin actually squeaks

proraso white lather, i aimed for runny yogurt consistency as one member kindly pointed out, i actually got it there abouts

king c gillete with gillette platinum baldes, third shave with said blade, i seem to like it more than the king c gillette "stock" blade that came with the razor, or i might have gotten a tad better technique wise

i followed up with obligatory alum, some stinging but quite acceptable

after washing the alum off and pat drying my face i finished off with green proraso aftershave

quite a simple routine, in my opinion i looked sharp, i use the term sharp, i am sure many can relate, to describe the kind of look i have only gotten when being blade shaven, anything else pales in comparison, this "sharpness" is hard to put into words, as i am new to the game, i trust that there even might be a well known explanation for this occurrence...

anyway, i did, AGAIN, cut myself twice, pretty much the same place i did so once last time i shaved, yet again my concentration degraded enough to allow this to occur, to be fair, it stopped bleeding by it self the alum just killed off the bacteria (i hope)

in regard to angle and technique, i do hope i am improving, i actually "sense" every time the blade is on skin in a way that is "wrong", i have slowed down and am paying enough attention most of the time, which is a feat in itself for me, also i am letting myself off the hook a little because i again had a few drinks prior to shaving but i had slept before hand...not a total moron then...
it's day one, post shave, no white heads for now, day 2 has, for now been the day they appear, so we will see...

regards

Talk about a major improvement! See, I knew you could do it, I believe in you! I think you should pat yourself on the back, you are doing alright, yes indeed. And as you've also learned, DE razors require your complete attention. When the mind begins to wonder, interesting things happen asunder hehe. You've already made a huge step in improvement, I have complete faith, you will make it all the way to the finish line in no time.

 

[miffed]

Talk about a major improvement! See, I knew you could do it, I believe in you! I think you should pat yourself on the back, you are doing alright, yes indeed. And as you've also learned, DE razors require your complete attention. When the mind begins to wonder, interesting things happen asunder hehe. You've already made a huge step in improvement, I have complete faith, you will make it all the way to the finish line in no time.

Good day SWCT (i've taken the liberty of using an acronym, unpronounceable though, much like my name in English)

Thank you very much for your kind words and all the continuous encouragement, very nice of you, i truly mean that.

It is quite incredible what marketing can achieve, I N C R E D I B L E.

For example, i have been an avid lover of timepieces since i was of voting age, around that time i got my first big boy watch, indeed a Rolex, i have since had many "big brand" timepieces, from Casio to Breitling and lots and lots of brands in between.
I did however become quite immersed in time per se, by this i mean that i had the conviction that if i owned something that tells time, the time on it should be reasonably accurate...now, the vast majority of automatic watches are atrocious performance wise, by this i mean even if they are COSC certified (COSC is just an acronym which stands for Contrôle Officiel Suisse des Chronomètres - aka the Official Swiss Chronometer Testing Institute. Essentially, this body is responsible for certifying the precision and accuracy of high-precision wristwatches made in Switzerland, typically found on luxury watch brands) they can, at best, achieve a deviation of -4/+6 seconds per day, what this in turn practically means is that, if you want your time piece to be within one minute of time deviance, the reference being atomic time, you have to adjust it once every 10 days (6 seconds x 10 = one minute) again, i reiterate, this is the best case scenario....just to put that in perspective, the clock you have on your kettle, stove, car, digital scale, deviates by a minute per YEAR, that's the worst case scenario, but it rarely ever does because you set the time twice a year because of daylight saving et cetera...

now we come to the jist of it, the marketing geniuses from Rolex and other top watchmaking brands claim that their products can achieve this nearly voodoo level of precision, Rolex for example claims to have achieved a deviation of roughly +/- 2 seconds a day, which again means setting the watch monthly for it to be within one minute of deviance from atomic time, which can, by some, be deemed ok, but the thing is, these things cost 10.000 euros and upwards, plus to get one you have waiting lists, a whole grey market selling new watches for more than their retail price, and all because of marketing...

i now wear a "smart watch", galaxy 4 classic by Samsung, it syncs with my phone which in turn is synced with the network time which in turn should be synced with the atomic clock, so you get pretty good precision, PLUS, you can swim with this watch, dive, take calls, send messages either SMS or other types like viber, messenger and so on, you have various widgets that provide, at least for me, relevant information, the weather, the date (remember certain conventional watches, both automatic and quartz, don't even have a date function) there are other benefits form owning a smartwatch as opposed to an infinite amount of coils and springs that roughly tell you the time...we must not forget that this type of smartwatch be it apple, samsung or whatever does not exceed a price of roughly 500 euros where as top tier conventional watches, as mentioned above start from 5.000 euros, depending on various factors, some can be found for as "little" as a couple of thousand euros up to millions, it just depends how shallow you are.

I say shallow very freely as, 98% of owners of these types of expensive watches dont buy them for their timekeeping ability but rather for those magical 5 letters (in the case of Rolex) a vast majority of these timepieces are second hand, keeping in mind that these marvels of engineering have to be serviced regularly to achieve anything near stated accuracy, the servicing starts from 500 euros and spirals upwards, so as these types of owners sadly fall into the "wannabe" category they dont have the funds required to own and maintain these timepieces...

If we compare the marketing gimmicks used by the watch industry, where we as well have the deliberate generation of "shortages" of stock in order to drive up demand, with the shaving industry's gimmicks and general state of things, in my humble opinion, one can definitely see certain but clear similarities, primarily paying for products multiple times more than they can reasonably and comparatively be worth.

a plain example of this type of "dishonest marketing" are my very own tools for shaving (i will list the prices in euros for easier comprehension):
- philips hair timmer hc 5500/15 (i think the model is wrong but there about's) - roughly 60 euros bought during the pandemic on a hefty sale...
- wilkinson sword hydro 5 just the handle and one cartridge, around 4 euros, again i shopped around some to get it at this price
- mach 3, have not used this in well over a decade, but it is the most common tool for shaving here, sets you back around 13.5 euros the handle and about 3-4 cartridges, a pack of 4 cartridges is about 15-20 euros depends really
- andis profoil lithium - 130 euros
- philips one blade , 4 hour charge one hour of use veriosn, lithium battery version, 45 euros

in terms of shaving, it is really childish to compare any of these tools to a blade, to be clear i know that cartridges use blades and lots of them, but they, again in my opinion, they represent a lot that is wrong with the shaving world and anything consumer/marketing oriented really, the "sharpness" one can achieve with a DE razor and/or single blade razor is immeasurable and in my case can and only was achieved with proper single blades, be it safety on cut throat or even shavettes

as opposed to all this, a king c gillette razor with 5 blades and king c gillette transparent shave gel, which is technically all you need to shave, cost me roughly 17 euros, maybe a tad less even, i can easily get around a month out of each blade so...it really is incomparable...

i hope i haven't gone on for too long

if my wet shaving results remain satisfactory i will most probably get myself the merkur 34 in rose gold, it is about 40-ish euros directly from Germany (i will not be ordering it to my home but rather to a very close frined in Vienna who will in turn bring it to me as early as june even), but we'll see i still have BIC blades to try and also i plan on using a new king c gillette blade in about 3 shaves as i use blades for about 5 shaves, i know i can get much more out of a blade, longevity wise, i am quite fair haired and i do two passes (WTD & XTG) per shave...

Anyway, thanks again SWCT, i really would have not gotten to this point (stuck with it, to put it plainly) if it was not for your kind words and all the support and kindness from our other dear members!! 4 real

sincere regards from Sarajevo

 

[Old Hippie]

quite a simple routine, in my opinion i looked sharp, i use the term sharp, i am sure many can relate, to describe the kind of look i have only gotten when being blade shaven, anything else pales in comparison, this "sharpness" is hard to put into words, as i am new to the game, i trust that there even might be a well known explanation for this occurrence...

That right there is why we shave! Or at least why I do. I just love that feeling of putting away the tools at the end of a nice luxurious shave, with my skin feeling well-toned and clean, and a gentle scent of peppermint in the air.

Kinda funny considering my next move is usually to put on my work clothes and go outside to get dirty.

O.H.

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

Kinda funny considering my next move is usually to put on my work clothes and go outside to get dirty.

O.H.

I can relate! We shave so we can look good for getting dirty. Nobody wanna look at no scruffy looking nerf herder. We work hard to look the way we do. And we wouldn't have it any other way.

 

[miffed]

That right there is why we shave! Or at least why I do. I just love that feeling of putting away the tools at the end of a nice luxurious shave, with my skin feeling well-toned and clean, and a gentle scent of peppermint in the air.

Kinda funny considering my next move is usually to put on my work clothes and go outside to get dirty.

O.H.

Hi OH,
thanks for chiming in, i am very glad that you share my view, so to speak.

I do wonder why one looks that sharp after shaving with a blade, i really have tried other methods, be it clippers, foils and even hybrid shaves in the guise of the Philips Oneblade, apart from the dastardly whiteheads that are inevitable with the aforementioned methods, you just don't look as sharp, wonder what the science behind that is...maybe placebo, although my wife does compliment me after i shave with a blade, nearly every time, to put things into perspective a little, she is as tough as nails by nature, i actually wrote a book that is not even in my filed of expertise so to speak and she didn't congratulate me, she asked me "am i meant to? really?", so if she does notice the shave it has to be quite obvious really

In regard to getting dirty when you work, i can look as neat or as scruffy as i care @ my day job, since i am completely removed, i had a sort of position of responsibility where i kinda should have been neat shaven et cetera, opposed to the "kinda should of" i had hair just a tad below my ears in length and i used to shave once a week at best, on average once every two weeks (electric + touch ups with a cartridge) i was responsible for 55 people in total, thus, i had and did manage to look neat, but nowhere as neat as with a blade, it's like comparing the same person, "electrically shaved" i at best looked like a has been rock star, blade shaven it's like james bond stepped in the room, and i mean the real bonds, Moore, Connery, Brosnan, not the modern, buffed up crying, sullen bond...

anyway, have a great day
regards

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

Hi OH,
thanks for chiming in, i am very glad that you share my view, so to speak.

I do wonder why one looks that sharp after shaving with a blade, i really have tried other methods, be it clippers, foils and even hybrid shaves in the guise of the Philips Oneblade, apart from the dastardly whiteheads that are inevitable with the aforementioned methods, you just don't look as sharp, wonder what the science behind that is...maybe placebo, although my wife does compliment me after i shave with a blade, nearly every time, to put things into perspective a little, she is as tough as nails by nature, i actually wrote a book that is not even in my filed of expertise so to speak and she didn't congratulate me, she asked me "am i meant to? really?", so if she does notice the shave it has to be quite obvious really

In regard to getting dirty when you work, i can look as neat or as scruffy as i care @ my day job, since i am completely removed, i had a sort of position of responsibility where i kinda should have been neat shaven et cetera, opposed to the "kinda should of" i had hair just a tad below my ears in length and i used to shave once a week at best, on average once every two weeks (electric + touch ups with a cartridge) i was responsible for 55 people in total, thus, i had and did manage to look neat, but nowhere as neat as with a blade, it's like comparing the same person, "electrically shaved" i at best looked like a has been rock star, blade shaven it's like james bond stepped in the room, and i mean the real bonds, Moore, Connery, Brosnan, not the modern, buffed up crying, sullen bond...

anyway, have a great day
regards

In my experience, electric shavers never do, as good as a DE bladed razor. An electric foil razor, such as that of the Panasonic Arc 4, can give you a DFS shave, but your never really going to achieve a proper BBS shave. Everytime I tried to achieve a BBS shave with a foil shaver, I got major razor burn in doing so. Of course, I learned towards the very end, to use a non foaming shave gell, to help aid in making my skin slick, for the Arc 4. This does indeed help, but I still find a proper DE, is going to do better each time, as long as the blade is sharp.

And in regards to carts, well, I never could get a BBS shave with a cart, unless I wanted red bumps all over, especially in the moostash area. With a 5-bladed cart razor, your raking your skin 5 times per pass with one of those, so it makes it easy to cause razor burn. The only time I've had razor burn with a DE razor, is if I got the lather wrong, which I unfortunately did on my last shave. I still didn't look as bad as what an electric shaver would do, but it wasn't good.

But overall, with most of the DE shaves that I've done, as long as I haven't screwed up my lather, I usually turn out pretty ok. There's lots of ways one can go, in regarding to their shaving journey. But I tell you what, with my course whiskers, I will take a DE anyday over that of an electric, or cart.

 

[miffed]

In my experience, electric shavers never do, as good as a DE bladed razor. An electric foil razor, such as that of the Panasonic Arc 4, can give you a DFS shave, but your never really going to achieve a proper BBS shave. Everytime I tried to achieve a BBS shave with a foil shaver, I got major razor burn in doing so. Of course, I learned towards the very end, to use a non foaming shave gell, to help aid in making my skin slick, for the Arc 4. This does indeed help, but I still find a proper DE, is going to do better each time, as long as the blade is sharp.

And in regards to carts, well, I never could get a BBS shave with a cart, unless I wanted red bumps all over, especially in the moostash area. With a 5-bladed cart razor, your raking your skin 5 times per pass with one of those, so it makes it easy to cause razor burn. The only time I've had razor burn with a DE razor, is if I got the lather wrong, which I unfortunately did on my last shave. I still didn't look as bad as what an electric shaver would do, but it wasn't good.

But overall, with most of the DE shaves that I've done, as long as I haven't screwed up my lather, I usually turn out pretty ok. There's lots of ways one can go, in regarding to their shaving journey. But I tell you what, with my course whiskers, I will take a DE anyday over that of an electric, or cart.

Hi SWCT!!
i agree with you totally, i have not dared to try another foil shaver since the andis profoil lithium, with which i had and identical experience to you, i got bbs smooth on some parts of my mug, but the irritation, man o man, the worst i had with any shaving tool, i actually have a video of just how bad it was, but alas this site does not allow the posting of videos, or i dont know how to post them, either way...very bad
in my exploratory phase i tried to read as much as i could about electrics, the consensus being that panasonics give a close shave and brauns give more comfortable shaves...for some reason the 30 day money back braun return policy does not apply here, for if it did, i would have probably got and tried the series 7 or 9, the best model you can get here by panasonic is an arc 3, and i am not even sure that the model in question is an arc 3, it does not say it is an arc per se but the blades are arched there are three of them and so on...
i actually decided to go with the andis based on videos of how each unit performed "live", how it cut hair to put it plainly...i seemed to notice that the brauns (3, 7 and 9 series) as well as the panasonic (arc 3ish, only one model i could get my hands on here) needed multiple, and when a say multiple i mean lots and lots, passes over the same area to actually cut all the hair off, the andis seemed to achieve this in fewer passes at least on the videos...
the reality after using the unit was apocalyptic (andis), i had purple patches on my faces, it was sore, it stung, in a word horrible, but for me, the worst part was that i had around 4-5 isolated hairs that the damn thing could not touch, no matter how many times you went over the same area, if the hair decided to lay flat, that was it, it would remain so...imagine the horrid scene of having partly bbs shaven skin and then the odd hair saying hi to you from across the mirror, just laying there, flat...

the oneblade did pleasantly surprise me in the sense that it does a rather good job, but i did have quite a few whiteheads afterwards i have to admit and the size of the part that cuts hairs is too narrow for me, in turn meaning i have to do multiple passes, and funnily enough the two times i did manage to use the device i cut myself each time more so than i do with a proper blade...so as far as i'm concerned it's a no brainier...single blades all the way (DE and cut throat just to clarify)!! safety (DE) for now and later on in my life if and when i do master safety's sufficiently i will definitely give cut throat razors a try (cant get a proper strop here but its way way too early for cut throats for me, i give myself two more years at least with DE razors)

i had no idea lather could cause irritation? i presume when it's too dry/thick that it does not facilitate the gliding of a blade so well and that messes things up considerably, in turn causing irritation and such...

i am overjoyed to report, day two since my last (proper) wet shave, zero whiteheads anywhere, and i applied an ointment that is very oily last night to alleviate quite a severe headache i had, i had to pop two pills on top of the natural stuff i ingest daily...
the closest i personally actually got to a bbs was with the same DE razor i use today, with the proprietary king c gillette blades when i went against the grain in a total of three passes, the irritation and whiteheads i got from that endeavour were still present to a lesser extent than i got with the andis, so again, wet shaving, at least for the nearly blonde me, is healthier in comparison to everything else...
i really think that i will never get a bbs with a cartridge firstly because i have no intention of using 3+ blades on my skin again, if left to my free will, let alone against and across the grain?!

cheers EVERYONE!!

enjoy yourselves not matter what you are doing!

 

[PintoPlain]

i will definitely give cut throat razors a try (cant get a proper strop here but its way way too early for cut throats for me, i give myself two more years at least with DE razors)

i had no idea lather could cause irritation? i presume when it's too dry/thick that it does not facilitate the gliding of a blade so well and that messes things up considerably, in turn causing irritation and such...

I'd recommend giving straights a go. I have used a DE maybe a dozen times in the last 4 or 5 years since switching to straights.

Without knowing where you are, Heirloom strops by Tony Miller are a good bet, especially if you're in the US. Foreign postage is pricy though. Tony is on the forums quite frequently. I made my own strop from veg tanned kangaroo skin. Cow hide works too.

Lather matters with straights. Slickness is key, cushion (whatever that is), not so much. Search for the newbies guide to straight razor shaving thread for a lot of helpful information.

Whatever you decide, enjoy your shaves.

 

[miffed]

I'd recommend giving straights a go. I have used a DE maybe a dozen times in the last 4 or 5 years since switching to straights.

Without knowing where you are, Heirloom strops by Tony Miller are a good bet, especially if you're in the US. Foreign postage is pricy though. Tony is on the forums quite frequently. I made my own strop from veg tanned kangaroo skin. Cow hide works too.

Lather matters with straights. Slickness is key, cushion (whatever that is), not so much. Search for the newbies guide to straight razor shaving thread for a lot of helpful information.

Whatever you decide, enjoy your shaves.

Hi Pinto,
i agree with you, straights are awesome, the pinnacle of manliness the only thing more manly i can think of is chopping wood with an axe, shirtless, whilst being ripped LOL (Mars is nearer than this sceanrio playing out, for me at least )

i am in central Europe, Sarajevo, the market for straights varies here quite a bit, you can get a decent "proper" straight for about 50 euros, you can get shavettes as well, quite a few options, i haven't had a proper look as i am still in the process on learning what is good for my skin and what is not...in the field of DE's till 2024 at least i hope, by then i should be decent at blade shaving my face I definitely have to get my technique down some more and then hopefully i'll delve into straights

Germany is most probably the best place to get a respectable blade, as for the strop, i think i can get that easily enough from Serbia, the wife loves Belgrade so i'll just get the strop sometime when we decide to visit again...

i shaved last night, first and foremost, i enjoyed it

did not cut myself once, i do today have two whiteheads on my chin, the only deviation from the whitehead free shave i had was the aftershave...i used the turkish awesome smelling "red one", next shave im going back to the proraso green splash in the hope of going back and maintaining irritation free shaving, although i have to pat myself on the back for not rushing

Regards

 

[dmshaver]

You’re already getting a lot of good advice from many, so I’m merely jumping in to welcome you to B & B!

 

[miffed]

You’re already getting a lot of good advice from many, so I’m merely jumping in to welcome you to B & B!

Hello DM!!
Thank you very much for saying hi and of course for welcoming me
Have a lovely day !