Good morning gents! Time for another anecdotal and relatively useless POV write-up! Fun fun! haha
Yesterday, while sitting on the couch, I heard something slump against the front door just before my phone buzzed with a text message telling me that my Amazon order was delivered. After unboxing and inspecting, I was really anxious to give it a whirl.
So this morning was the maiden voyage. While loading the blade I could tell this was going to be a mild razor. I'm not necessarily for or against mild razors, just my observation. If you weren't aware already, Merkur recently redesigned the head on the 37, which people have said made it milder.
For this shave, I just kept right on going with the same Astra SP blade I've been using this week. It was the third shave on the blade. So, impressions....
Loading the Blade: Initially, I dropped the blade onto the cap and assembled like I would my 34, by holding the handle and tightening. The blade alignment was terrible, which is par for the course with slants, I hear.
After a bit of fiddling, I figured out the fix. After putting the cap on the razor, I put about a half a turn on the screw and then, holding the tightening knob, let go of the razor with my other hand and grab the blade tabs. Holding the razor by only the blade tabs, proceed to tighten, and blade alignment is flawless and effortless. Sweet.
The Shave: Finding the proper angle seemed to be rather intuitive for me. It shaves very similarly to the 34C, which I have extensive experience with, in terms of angle of attack. Don't mistake that to mean the shaves are similar. They're not at all.
The first pass is pretty boring for me, no matter what razor I use. They all feel pretty much the same IMO. Maybe more or less blade feel, but I'm not able to assess a razor accurately based on the first pass. Where this one differed was in starting at the sideburns, I had to pay a little more attention to the angle of the razor, so that I didn't make some goofy angle on my sideburns. I'm a stickler for even sideburns with straight lines. Not a big deal though.
Second Pass: (ATG), this is where I was impressed. On my chin area, my typical experience whether using a mild, medium, or aggressive razor, is that the stroke gets choppy. The razor chatters through the stubble for a couple of strokes, or I have to really zing the razor up my neck and off the tip of my chin to get enough energy behind the blade to actually cut smoothly, which I don't like doing for obvious reasons. The 37, much to my delight, tackled it competently without so much as a stutter. It glided smoothly right on through.
Third Pass & Cleanup: This is where the mildness of the razor became apparent. While the strokes were very friendly and comfortable feeling, I could tell it just wasn't cutting as close as I would like.
Conclusion: This was my first shave. This write-up is not the be all end all of my opinion. I'll spend some time getting to know it and follow up again. What I can say right now: If you like the 34, and you're looking for a slant, but you don't want to start with a super-aggressive slant, this one is friendly. Very friendly compared to the 34; it's milder by a good measure. At no point during my shave did I feel like I was in need of an attentive hand. But at the same time, it is readily capable of giving a good smooth shave. Definitely not R41 close, and maybe not even 34 close, but BBS is obtainable.
In the next week or two, I'll figure out if I can get as close as the 34.
Yesterday, while sitting on the couch, I heard something slump against the front door just before my phone buzzed with a text message telling me that my Amazon order was delivered. After unboxing and inspecting, I was really anxious to give it a whirl.
So this morning was the maiden voyage. While loading the blade I could tell this was going to be a mild razor. I'm not necessarily for or against mild razors, just my observation. If you weren't aware already, Merkur recently redesigned the head on the 37, which people have said made it milder.
For this shave, I just kept right on going with the same Astra SP blade I've been using this week. It was the third shave on the blade. So, impressions....
Loading the Blade: Initially, I dropped the blade onto the cap and assembled like I would my 34, by holding the handle and tightening. The blade alignment was terrible, which is par for the course with slants, I hear.
After a bit of fiddling, I figured out the fix. After putting the cap on the razor, I put about a half a turn on the screw and then, holding the tightening knob, let go of the razor with my other hand and grab the blade tabs. Holding the razor by only the blade tabs, proceed to tighten, and blade alignment is flawless and effortless. Sweet.
The Shave: Finding the proper angle seemed to be rather intuitive for me. It shaves very similarly to the 34C, which I have extensive experience with, in terms of angle of attack. Don't mistake that to mean the shaves are similar. They're not at all.
The first pass is pretty boring for me, no matter what razor I use. They all feel pretty much the same IMO. Maybe more or less blade feel, but I'm not able to assess a razor accurately based on the first pass. Where this one differed was in starting at the sideburns, I had to pay a little more attention to the angle of the razor, so that I didn't make some goofy angle on my sideburns. I'm a stickler for even sideburns with straight lines. Not a big deal though.
Second Pass: (ATG), this is where I was impressed. On my chin area, my typical experience whether using a mild, medium, or aggressive razor, is that the stroke gets choppy. The razor chatters through the stubble for a couple of strokes, or I have to really zing the razor up my neck and off the tip of my chin to get enough energy behind the blade to actually cut smoothly, which I don't like doing for obvious reasons. The 37, much to my delight, tackled it competently without so much as a stutter. It glided smoothly right on through.
Third Pass & Cleanup: This is where the mildness of the razor became apparent. While the strokes were very friendly and comfortable feeling, I could tell it just wasn't cutting as close as I would like.
Conclusion: This was my first shave. This write-up is not the be all end all of my opinion. I'll spend some time getting to know it and follow up again. What I can say right now: If you like the 34, and you're looking for a slant, but you don't want to start with a super-aggressive slant, this one is friendly. Very friendly compared to the 34; it's milder by a good measure. At no point during my shave did I feel like I was in need of an attentive hand. But at the same time, it is readily capable of giving a good smooth shave. Definitely not R41 close, and maybe not even 34 close, but BBS is obtainable.
In the next week or two, I'll figure out if I can get as close as the 34.
