What an interesting experience! Here's what really stood out to me:
Boy, my hand was shaky at first! I wasn't scared, but as soon as I raised the razor to my face I realized my hand was shaking... So I started out in what I thought would be the easiest part of my beard and with that patch done I started to calm down and get some confidence. The blade wasn't licking the hairs off my face, but unlike the Derby and Merkur blades the effort it took to get through them did not result in discomfort, which was a real surprise. As soon as I felt resistance I thought I was in for a bad day full of razor burn. With the increased sensory feedback I got a lot of information about how tough different parts of my beard are. I already knew my chin had some tough hair, but my mustache was much tougher in fact.
I caught myself a couple of times approaching my face at a bad angle and stopped before trying to slide the blade across my skin. It took a lot of focus to get the skin stretching right, blade angle, make sure there were no obstacles in the way and move around contours. But, all of that made it so much more fun!
Seeing the full blade exposed as I controlled each aspect of the shave was very satisfying. I always felt with my DEs that it was a bit of a mystery exactly what the blade angle was and I mostly went by shaving efficacy.
In the end I didn't achieve DFS, but I was satisfied with the experience and pulled out my 34C so that I could have a very clean shave for when I fly home today. Only doing one pass with the feather in my 34C didn't add much of any irritation either. Very nice shaving experience.
I've got W&B coming in the mail, which is being restored by Ken and I can't wait to try that blade out too. I'll be interested to see how sharpness compares as well as the added benefit of a symmetrical bevel at the potential cost of a longer, less maneuverable blade.
- Maneuvering the one sided blade around my face was a real challenge.
- There is much more sensory feedback between your fingers and the blade
- The short length of the razor seems to suit my face. There are lots of tricky areas that are hard to flatten and I imagine a western style straight will not be as easy.
- While the blade was no where near as sharp as a feather, it was sooo smooth. No irritation.
- While paying very close attention, I found that it was forgiving and I only managed to get a small nick on my mustache area.
Boy, my hand was shaky at first! I wasn't scared, but as soon as I raised the razor to my face I realized my hand was shaking... So I started out in what I thought would be the easiest part of my beard and with that patch done I started to calm down and get some confidence. The blade wasn't licking the hairs off my face, but unlike the Derby and Merkur blades the effort it took to get through them did not result in discomfort, which was a real surprise. As soon as I felt resistance I thought I was in for a bad day full of razor burn. With the increased sensory feedback I got a lot of information about how tough different parts of my beard are. I already knew my chin had some tough hair, but my mustache was much tougher in fact.
I caught myself a couple of times approaching my face at a bad angle and stopped before trying to slide the blade across my skin. It took a lot of focus to get the skin stretching right, blade angle, make sure there were no obstacles in the way and move around contours. But, all of that made it so much more fun!
Seeing the full blade exposed as I controlled each aspect of the shave was very satisfying. I always felt with my DEs that it was a bit of a mystery exactly what the blade angle was and I mostly went by shaving efficacy.
In the end I didn't achieve DFS, but I was satisfied with the experience and pulled out my 34C so that I could have a very clean shave for when I fly home today. Only doing one pass with the feather in my 34C didn't add much of any irritation either. Very nice shaving experience.
I've got W&B coming in the mail, which is being restored by Ken and I can't wait to try that blade out too. I'll be interested to see how sharpness compares as well as the added benefit of a symmetrical bevel at the potential cost of a longer, less maneuverable blade.
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