Hello gentlemen,
I had my first wet shave today. I had picked up one of the Van der Hagen badger brush/soap/mug kits a couple of months ago and I had been using it with my normal disposable Gillette three blade torture devices, but last week I sprung for a DE razor and some blades. I threw out my last disposable to "burn the boats", and waited a few days for the irritation and bumps on my neck to die down. In the meantime, I found this forum and voraciously read the attached wiki. I wish I had found it before making any purchases (more on that later), but better late than never and the instruction was very helpful; I had been misusing both the brush (by just running it under hot water rather than soaking it) and the soap (by leaving it in the mug and lathering on top of it rather than loading the brush and lathering in the mug) and without correcting these misconceptions I expect my first shave would had been worse.
The opportunity to take the plunge presented itself when I changed my oil after work this afternoon and needed to take a shower after. I followed the consensus technique from the many guides here of letting the brush soak during the shower. For the shave itself, I went pretty slow using as little pressure as I could and I did two WTG passes followed by a final pass where I shaved XTG for the chin and neck and ATG for the easy parts on the face. I'm very pleased with the results - a CCS that my wife really liked, no nicks, and for the first time that I can remember I have zero neck irritation. Consider me sold on wet shaving! I was also kind of surprised at how pronounced the difference was in the sound when shaving WTG vs XTG or ATG.
The only problem I had was that I had some trouble getting the right angle for the blade, especially around the curve of the neck. Is there a trick to this, or is it just something that comes with practice?
Wrt. equipment, I used my new Edwin Jagger DE89L with one of the Derby blades that it came with. I'm really pleased with the razor (it felt great in my hand and the chrome is fantastic, and I think the minimal blade exposure in the DE89 head is part of the reason I didn't cut myself when my angle was off), and the blades felt pretty good too - not very much tugging or skipping, and I figure that what tugging and skipping there was probably came about due to my deficient technique rather than due to the Derbies. I was very pleased with the Perfecto chrome razor and brush stand I picked up with the razor - it looks attractive, the knurling is nice, it's heavy and stable, and all in all the opposite of the useless acrylic stand the VDH kit shipped with (which I even had to glue together, as it came broken in the box and VDH's customer service never responded to my emails). The Van der Hagen badger brush was a little scritchy but serviceable; maybe I'll get a Parker chrome-handled silvertip brush in a few months to match my chrome razor and chrome stand, haha. I have no complaints about the VDH mug. The VDH soap seemed OK although I'll probably look into another brand when that puck runs out; Proraso and Col. Conk are on my radar - are there any companies that have sampler packs for soaps?
I bought a hundred pack of the Derby blades when I ordered the razor from Amazon because they were ten dollars and were rated highly there, but it seems like the most recommended course of action is to get a blade sampler pack and try out different types in a month or so once I've got the technique down reasonably well. Are there any particular brands that tend to work well with a mild razor like the DE89 that I should check out? I figure that $10 isn't too bad a sunk cost if I end up shaving better with some other DE blade.
Finally, if I had found this forum earlier I probably would have done a few things differently. I would have skipped the Van der Hagen kit entirely and picked up the CE BBB and some Col. Conk and just used a spare mug from the kitchen. I also would have bought a blade sampler rather than a hundred pack of Derby blades. With this in mind, I'll definitely send any friends interested in wet shaving here so they can read up before they pony up.
I had my first wet shave today. I had picked up one of the Van der Hagen badger brush/soap/mug kits a couple of months ago and I had been using it with my normal disposable Gillette three blade torture devices, but last week I sprung for a DE razor and some blades. I threw out my last disposable to "burn the boats", and waited a few days for the irritation and bumps on my neck to die down. In the meantime, I found this forum and voraciously read the attached wiki. I wish I had found it before making any purchases (more on that later), but better late than never and the instruction was very helpful; I had been misusing both the brush (by just running it under hot water rather than soaking it) and the soap (by leaving it in the mug and lathering on top of it rather than loading the brush and lathering in the mug) and without correcting these misconceptions I expect my first shave would had been worse.
The opportunity to take the plunge presented itself when I changed my oil after work this afternoon and needed to take a shower after. I followed the consensus technique from the many guides here of letting the brush soak during the shower. For the shave itself, I went pretty slow using as little pressure as I could and I did two WTG passes followed by a final pass where I shaved XTG for the chin and neck and ATG for the easy parts on the face. I'm very pleased with the results - a CCS that my wife really liked, no nicks, and for the first time that I can remember I have zero neck irritation. Consider me sold on wet shaving! I was also kind of surprised at how pronounced the difference was in the sound when shaving WTG vs XTG or ATG.
The only problem I had was that I had some trouble getting the right angle for the blade, especially around the curve of the neck. Is there a trick to this, or is it just something that comes with practice?
Wrt. equipment, I used my new Edwin Jagger DE89L with one of the Derby blades that it came with. I'm really pleased with the razor (it felt great in my hand and the chrome is fantastic, and I think the minimal blade exposure in the DE89 head is part of the reason I didn't cut myself when my angle was off), and the blades felt pretty good too - not very much tugging or skipping, and I figure that what tugging and skipping there was probably came about due to my deficient technique rather than due to the Derbies. I was very pleased with the Perfecto chrome razor and brush stand I picked up with the razor - it looks attractive, the knurling is nice, it's heavy and stable, and all in all the opposite of the useless acrylic stand the VDH kit shipped with (which I even had to glue together, as it came broken in the box and VDH's customer service never responded to my emails). The Van der Hagen badger brush was a little scritchy but serviceable; maybe I'll get a Parker chrome-handled silvertip brush in a few months to match my chrome razor and chrome stand, haha. I have no complaints about the VDH mug. The VDH soap seemed OK although I'll probably look into another brand when that puck runs out; Proraso and Col. Conk are on my radar - are there any companies that have sampler packs for soaps?
I bought a hundred pack of the Derby blades when I ordered the razor from Amazon because they were ten dollars and were rated highly there, but it seems like the most recommended course of action is to get a blade sampler pack and try out different types in a month or so once I've got the technique down reasonably well. Are there any particular brands that tend to work well with a mild razor like the DE89 that I should check out? I figure that $10 isn't too bad a sunk cost if I end up shaving better with some other DE blade.
Finally, if I had found this forum earlier I probably would have done a few things differently. I would have skipped the Van der Hagen kit entirely and picked up the CE BBB and some Col. Conk and just used a spare mug from the kitchen. I also would have bought a blade sampler rather than a hundred pack of Derby blades. With this in mind, I'll definitely send any friends interested in wet shaving here so they can read up before they pony up.
