Hi All!
I've been reading lots of posts trying to figure out DE shaving. I was an electric shaver for about 25 years, but got sick of the time it took to shave if I left growth longer than one day. My beard is very thick. Moved back to cartridges for a few weeks, and found them time wise a lot more efficient, and decided i was done with the electric. It's in the bin...But the cost of the replacements then annoyed me... So I bought a budget Yaqi DLC and Yaqi synthetic brush. I could see this was a good move, but far too many cuts, and irritation around my neck. Then I tried a ming shi 2000s thinking I needed adjustable to tame it - didn't really help. Then reading the Yaqi DOC was a lot less agressive, I gave that a shot. And wow it's great. This has to be the ultimate beginner razor. I could do just about anything with this, and wouldn't get ANY irritation or cuts. This was with my favourite blade Voskhod. I gave it a few weeks, and while it was smooth and irritation free, it began to annoy me that I needed to do 4 passes to get a close enough shave, and thought there had to be something better. At this stage, I decided to give the yaqi dlc another try. And to my surprise I could now shave with this razor without cuts, but still a bit of irritation around my neck. It showed me I had improved technique with the risk free DOC, and that i could now handle something like the DLC. Next issue I had was the yaqi DLC blade didn't align perfectly every time like the DOC did. So figured I needed something similar to the Yaqi DLC, but better quality. I got a game changer 0.84 open comb (I was looking for quality at a reasonable price). I'm very pleased with it. I wouldn't say it's stunning to look at, but manufacturing is perfect. I'm happy to say this will be my last razor purchase. Only problem I had left now was some irritation around my neck. I'm sure it's technique related, and making sure i stick with the grain only on my neck (which can be a bit difficult in some spots). I'm confident this will get better. My last discovery two days ago is aftershave, which I have never used before. I was using Nivea balm once I moved to wet shaving, but didn't seem to do much for my irritation. Then I tried Nivea Deep aftershave (because it was cheap as...), and to my surprise this really got my neck irritation under control to the point I am now more satisfied than the results I achieved with the DOC. That's because I can do 3 passes, and get an better shave than the DOC everywhere but my neck which gets a very good shave. I'm looking forward to more discoveries, and wondering if I will ever get to the point where I can use some of the other sharper blades I have - but also very content with where I'm at now. Thanks for the website and the very useful forum posts for getting me to where I am now.
I've been reading lots of posts trying to figure out DE shaving. I was an electric shaver for about 25 years, but got sick of the time it took to shave if I left growth longer than one day. My beard is very thick. Moved back to cartridges for a few weeks, and found them time wise a lot more efficient, and decided i was done with the electric. It's in the bin...But the cost of the replacements then annoyed me... So I bought a budget Yaqi DLC and Yaqi synthetic brush. I could see this was a good move, but far too many cuts, and irritation around my neck. Then I tried a ming shi 2000s thinking I needed adjustable to tame it - didn't really help. Then reading the Yaqi DOC was a lot less agressive, I gave that a shot. And wow it's great. This has to be the ultimate beginner razor. I could do just about anything with this, and wouldn't get ANY irritation or cuts. This was with my favourite blade Voskhod. I gave it a few weeks, and while it was smooth and irritation free, it began to annoy me that I needed to do 4 passes to get a close enough shave, and thought there had to be something better. At this stage, I decided to give the yaqi dlc another try. And to my surprise I could now shave with this razor without cuts, but still a bit of irritation around my neck. It showed me I had improved technique with the risk free DOC, and that i could now handle something like the DLC. Next issue I had was the yaqi DLC blade didn't align perfectly every time like the DOC did. So figured I needed something similar to the Yaqi DLC, but better quality. I got a game changer 0.84 open comb (I was looking for quality at a reasonable price). I'm very pleased with it. I wouldn't say it's stunning to look at, but manufacturing is perfect. I'm happy to say this will be my last razor purchase. Only problem I had left now was some irritation around my neck. I'm sure it's technique related, and making sure i stick with the grain only on my neck (which can be a bit difficult in some spots). I'm confident this will get better. My last discovery two days ago is aftershave, which I have never used before. I was using Nivea balm once I moved to wet shaving, but didn't seem to do much for my irritation. Then I tried Nivea Deep aftershave (because it was cheap as...), and to my surprise this really got my neck irritation under control to the point I am now more satisfied than the results I achieved with the DOC. That's because I can do 3 passes, and get an better shave than the DOC everywhere but my neck which gets a very good shave. I'm looking forward to more discoveries, and wondering if I will ever get to the point where I can use some of the other sharper blades I have - but also very content with where I'm at now. Thanks for the website and the very useful forum posts for getting me to where I am now.
