Feather AS-D2 shave angle

[tm3]

I'm going to put the razors that disagree with my face in a box, and reintroduce them in a year. If they still don't play nice after a year of working on my technique, I'll consider PIF'ing and gifting them.

Good move on building up to using a Feather in the Feather, and good move on giving those razors a rest then revisiting.

Of course there is the YMMV and all that, but, after my ASD2 epiphany I thought that maybe I should just ditch all my other weapons of destruction -- the ASD2 seemed that good. But at some point I decided on a whim to revisit the 34HD and was blown away -- using the "Feather technique" and a Voskhod blade I easily got the best shaves I've ever had; even better than a Mach 3, which for me had been the pinnacle.

Now the ASD2 is on the bench. Oh well.

 

[gpjoe]

Good move on building up to using a Feather in the Feather, and good move on giving those razors a rest then revisiting.

Of course there is the YMMV and all that, but, after my ASD2 epiphany I thought that maybe I should just ditch all my other weapons of destruction -- the ASD2 seemed that good. But at some point I decided on a whim to revisit the 34HD and was blown away -- using the "Feather technique" and a Voskhod blade I easily got the best shaves I've ever had; even better than a Mach 3, which for me had been the pinnacle.

Now the ASD2 is on the bench. Oh well.

I'm sure that over time we will all find a razor or two that is universally loved by the community but we can't seem to get along with, but for me it's just too soon to blame any of my hardware for a bad shave.

I've acquired quite a few popular razors - both new and vintage - and will carefully make my way through them all, but if I stopped right now, I could be perfectly happy using the Feather or any of my vintage Gillette Techs.

 

[tm3]

but for me it's just too soon to blame any of my hardware for a bad shave.

That's a great attitude and I encourage you to hold on to it. I thought that I had technique nailed at some point and in retrospect how wrong I was.

 

[gpjoe]

So, my one week follow-up:

I have four shaves (shaving every other day) on the AS-D2, using the same Astra SP blade, and am loving it. All were 3-pass shaves with no irritation.

I would consider my beard average in every way, and this razor just works for me. I think the detractors are looking for a razor that eliminates their stubble more completely on the first pass, and that's fine, but I'm happy to do it in three - maybe because I'm a big fan of my vintage Gillette Techs, which behave very similarly.

I am much happier with the performance of tha AS-D2 versus the EJ DE89 and Merkur 34c HD, but intend to revisit those later.

Anyway, just wanted to go on record to say that this is a fantastic, mild razor that will give a very nice irritation-free shave if given a fair shot...at least it does for me.

 

[tm3]

At some point (no rush as it clearly is working well now) give it a try with a Feather blade.

 

[gpjoe]

At some point (no rush as it clearly is working well now) give it a try with a Feather blade.

I have several tucks of Feather, along with 100 Nacent and 100 Gillette Platinum and will try them all for sure, but the large bulk of my blade stash is Astra, so I'm happy at this point that those seem to work very well.