I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about using a slant as I know they can be quite aggressive so thought I'm doing a traditional 3 pass shave but to be safer I wanted to do my skin stretching short stroke technique on the first pass just to feel it out before taking long strokes as I didn't want any weepers today.
So as you see in the photos I used.
Soap - Pure 2 o Dam Fine from PannaCrema
Blade - Kai
Brush - Fine stout
Bowl - Fine
AS - Thayers Lemon
Oh and if there are any Hoffritz guys out there that can fill me in on a little history on this razor it would be much appreciated. I've read a little on it and it seems like it was made by Merkur in Germany. Don't know the year it might have been made.
Anyway on with the shave.
1st pass: lathered up a nice thick later so I had some protection between me and a nick. This is like the 3rd time I've used this soap and to me it's a sleeper. I've got two of the other much more expensive soaps by PannaCrema but this is just about as good IMO as it offers good glide and although a little thirsty which is ok I really like the after shave feel. So as mentioned I started WTG using the short strokes and I was surprised how fast I found the angle and I'm thinking to myself this razor seems like a smoother shaver and yet I got a lot of audible feedback as it was really taking down my growth. At the end of the pass I rinsed and felt my face and I was like wow! I was very close to a solid DFS! But I thought no I'm going to stick to my plan of a 3 pass shave.
2nd pass: So after the surprising 1st pass I thought lets continue with the short strokes and not get to cocky on this first shave. I decided to do a progressive back and forth stroke going XTG back and forth while stretching my skin in more of a straight razor technique going a little ear to nose and then come back up and go nose to ear in a continuous movement only stopping to rinse the razor when it needed it and it didn't need it much as the lather seemed to flow through the head nicely. Kept this technique and low and behold at the end of the 2nd pass I was definitely at a BBS shave on my face and only my bad cowlick on my one side of my face needed a little buffing to get there on that spot. There was no need to go ATG which also impressed me. I used an Alum block and had very little feedback and then rinsed with cold water
So to sum it up I really like this razor a lot and it gave me not only a great 2 pass plus touch up BBS shave but is was so smooth getting me there. I never felt like it was going to bite me although I'm sure it would if I got sloppy with my technique. I mean this is no OB or O Ring clone where you can pretty much shave with reckless abandonment and not cut yourself. So for me this razor has earned a spot in my rotation. I've also decided to send it out to Cap to disassemble and and then to Delta Echo as I've decided to have just the knurling coating in a gunmetal finish. No need to touch the other parts of the razor and especially the head as you can see from the photos it's near perfect. Go very luck on this one as I picked it up at a reasonable price and based on the photos from the seller I didn't expect it to be in as good of conditon as it is. So this one is a keeper for sure.
