I have been emailing my two sons for several months about my returning to de / wet shaving after a 30 year "hiatus" & some links to various BB Wiki shaving tutorials that were interesting. They made no comments as they are in their late 30s & early 40s and have been multi bladed, cart shavers for years and probably were wondering what in the world has gotten into dear old dad 
So this week was SHMBO's birthday and the oldest son came up from NYC (lives near Pasteur!) for a surprise visit that he planned & I was aware of that was a success. Since yesterday was my shave day, we got to talking about many aspects of de & wet shaving and since he does the majority of his shaving in the shower & has a tub of Kiehl's shaving cream, he is familiar with the advantages of having a really wet face for shaving etc.
I mention the facial mapping page of Mantic59, showed him what I had done for my beard growth as I had to relearn much after a few bad shaving experiences. This resonates as he is aware of the different twists & turns his own beard takes, reverse directions & the irritation issues that are caused by razors & blades etc. He did see a couple of the Mantic59 Youtube videos that I had sent links along to him as well as some on lathering so now it is all starting to click in.
So I chatted some more about my journey thru various BB threads etc the last few months and I asked if he wanted me to show him what I do & how and why I like de / wet shaving and he said , "sure."
This was good for me as I now have to make my shaving points succinctly & get to the point and so I went upstairs ahead of time to organize the "shaving area" (no separate den here!) as since I'm going to be shaving live, I don't want to talk a lot while doing the actual shaving.
He arrives & I go over it all from start to finish - EJ Best Badger brush, EJ DE89L with a Gillette Dark Blue blade (3rd shave coming up) some HB Lime soap for lathering and show him the lineup along the wall for post shave - alum block, TWH Rose Aloe, Nivea ASB and today's AS, OG Lime & Peppercorn that I had received this week.
The shaving itself went incredibly well, nice whipped cream like lather, nice short shaving strokes with the right angle and all in all it took 25 minutes from start of lathering to completion with 3 passes - WTG, XTG a couple of ATG areas.
Guess what? It was the BEST shave so far and was for me, a BBS!
Not a single bit of irritation was to be found anywhere from alum thru AS. We went over my remaining 6 packs of sampler blades and he took a few iPhone photos of them. Then we checked out all the HB, EJ and KMF soaps and a few sniffs of the AS in the rotation that are a pleasure to "splash" when done - classics like AQ Blue, Musk, OS, Mennen Skinbracer. He spotted the Pinaud Club he remembered from his own college days along with the new OG BR Bonanza sampler & Captain Choice BR that came this week and liked what he smelled!
So I sent him back today with a Omega 8097 boar brush, bottle of Nivea ASB and VDH Deluxe soap as a gift and he will be visiting Pasteur's to maybe start his own de / wet shaving journey : -)
Gene
So this week was SHMBO's birthday and the oldest son came up from NYC (lives near Pasteur!) for a surprise visit that he planned & I was aware of that was a success. Since yesterday was my shave day, we got to talking about many aspects of de & wet shaving and since he does the majority of his shaving in the shower & has a tub of Kiehl's shaving cream, he is familiar with the advantages of having a really wet face for shaving etc.
I mention the facial mapping page of Mantic59, showed him what I had done for my beard growth as I had to relearn much after a few bad shaving experiences. This resonates as he is aware of the different twists & turns his own beard takes, reverse directions & the irritation issues that are caused by razors & blades etc. He did see a couple of the Mantic59 Youtube videos that I had sent links along to him as well as some on lathering so now it is all starting to click in.
So I chatted some more about my journey thru various BB threads etc the last few months and I asked if he wanted me to show him what I do & how and why I like de / wet shaving and he said , "sure."
This was good for me as I now have to make my shaving points succinctly & get to the point and so I went upstairs ahead of time to organize the "shaving area" (no separate den here!) as since I'm going to be shaving live, I don't want to talk a lot while doing the actual shaving.
He arrives & I go over it all from start to finish - EJ Best Badger brush, EJ DE89L with a Gillette Dark Blue blade (3rd shave coming up) some HB Lime soap for lathering and show him the lineup along the wall for post shave - alum block, TWH Rose Aloe, Nivea ASB and today's AS, OG Lime & Peppercorn that I had received this week.
The shaving itself went incredibly well, nice whipped cream like lather, nice short shaving strokes with the right angle and all in all it took 25 minutes from start of lathering to completion with 3 passes - WTG, XTG a couple of ATG areas.
Guess what? It was the BEST shave so far and was for me, a BBS!
Not a single bit of irritation was to be found anywhere from alum thru AS. We went over my remaining 6 packs of sampler blades and he took a few iPhone photos of them. Then we checked out all the HB, EJ and KMF soaps and a few sniffs of the AS in the rotation that are a pleasure to "splash" when done - classics like AQ Blue, Musk, OS, Mennen Skinbracer. He spotted the Pinaud Club he remembered from his own college days along with the new OG BR Bonanza sampler & Captain Choice BR that came this week and liked what he smelled!
So I sent him back today with a Omega 8097 boar brush, bottle of Nivea ASB and VDH Deluxe soap as a gift and he will be visiting Pasteur's to maybe start his own de / wet shaving journey : -)
Gene
