May 2021 Gentlemanly Restraint Until Month End (GRUME)

[MtView]

Still in.

Crown Shaving Co. pre-shave
Muhle 23mm STF
RR Hawk v3 SB w/Titan mild blade - 1st use of razor ever (inspired by @SharpieB )
P&B Spitfire soap and splash

I decided to take the RR Hawk v3 out for a spin today. This was my first use of the razor ever and my first SE shave ever.

I don't have the angles figured out yet. I'm playing with the handle 15 - 30 degrees away from my face. The shave was close to BBS, but no cigar. I had a little irritation that went away quickly on my neck from touching up sensitive areas that I don't need to touch up with the Wolfman.

 

[redrako]

You'll have to get in on Shark Week this summer- a week of using Shark blades. The real die hards combine Shark Week and Arko August and do a solid month of Arko-Sharko.

I could go for that.

 

[redrako]

Still in

My late delivered March acquisition of ABC did not live up to my expectations. I wanted to like it and there is certainly lots to like. Unfortunately it seems that I have a mild reaction to this one that gets worse by the day. The balm is great but there’s something not quite right about the soap. I’ve also settled on creams and despite what it says on the label, there is no way this can be described as a cream. A putty maybe but certainly not a cream.

There is a lesson in this for our fellow GRUMERs. Once you’ve tried dozens of products and settled on your favourite four, it is highly unlikely that a new acquisition will match your current favorites. After a while it becomes increasingly unlikely to discover new gems.

As Owen said. hard won lesson. I'll add that we are like moths to a flame, which is why GRUME is important.

 

[cryhavoc]

Still in!
I shaved tonight after receiving my stainless steel Stirling razor.

The razor is very nice looking, it has a beautiful polish put on it. The handle grip is fine for those of us that like to hold up on the handle a bit, the knurling in the middle is quite grippy. Works quite well.

The standard plate is very nice and smooth it has a fair bit of blade feel but I like it. It's definitely joining my rotation.

The HA is wild, blade feel untamed. If I ever need a one pass dfs it is up to bat, but for multi-pass standard shaving I have met my match. The Blackbird and my Yates EH feel like techs or maybe even blue tips in comparison. It's almost impossible to find the base plate or the cap, they are so far behind the edge. Very wild to use.

This is sort of my birthday shave, I turn 25 tomorrow but I won't be shaving. It was a very very good one.
View attachment 1263513

Happy Birthday!

 

[redrako]

Still in.

Pre-Shave: None
Lather: Mitchell's Wool Fat
Brush: Plisson L'Occitane Synthetic
Razor: SABI Gillette NEW
Blade: Gillete 7 o'clock Super Platinum (3)
Post-shave: RR After Shaving Splash

As the warm days of spring move across the land, Mitchell's Wool Fat has been calling out to me. Today, I answered that call and it was every bit as good as I remember it

An easy, slick lather with the groundbreaking Plisson L'Occitane Synthetic brush, made face lathering a breeze. For me, it's still hard to beat MWF.

 

[tjsgarden]

Still in.

Crown Shaving Co. pre-shave
Muhle 23mm STF
RR Hawk v3 SB w/Titan mild blade - 1st use of razor ever (inspired by @SharpieB )
P&B Spitfire soap and splash

I decided to take the RR Hawk v3 out for a spin today. This was my first use of the razor ever and my first SE shave ever.

I don't have the angles figured out yet. I'm playing with the handle 15 - 30 degrees away from my face. The shave was close to BBS, but no cigar. I had a little irritation that went away quickly on my neck from touching up sensitive areas that I don't need to touch up with the Wolfman.

I have a similar experience. I've used the Hawk V2 three times and it is still difficult to find an angle that feels comfortable... but I am still new at wet shaving. There may be some wisdom in using only one or two razors in rotation for a while to gain experience and improve my technique, BUT changing razors is so much fun!

 

[cryhavoc]

Still in

Schick Injector Type G4 - Schick 66
Schick Injector (3)
Stirling Baker Street
Vie-Long BGS 2012 Butterscotch Beehive in Natural Horse
The Veg

A wonderful BBS shave today and topped it off with The Veg.

I finished off the Stirling Baker Street tub, so I'm making progress in working through my inventory!

 

[redrako]

Still in

Schick Injector Type G4 - Schick 66
Schick Injector (3)
Stirling Baker Street
Vie-Long BGS 2012 Butterscotch Beehive in Natural Horse
The Veg

A wonderful BBS shave today and topped it off with The Veg.

I finished off the Stirling Baker Street tub, so I'm making progress in working through my inventory!

Every time I see your post. I'm reminded that I need to revisit my Schick Injectors.

 

[tjsgarden]

On The Eighth Day Of GRUME-ER-ING

Still In

Pre-Shave: Shower and Proraso Red pre-shave cream
Jagger 89 with Nacet blade(new) Two passes WTG
Proraso Red shaving cream
Fendrihan synthetic brush
Pinaud Clubman on hands and arms

Summary
I wanted a comfortable shave to start the Mother's Day weekend.
The Proraso creams hit the mark. I enjoyed the Jagger razor matched with the Nacet blade. I understand why the Jagger is recommended for beginners or anyone wanting a mild, smooth and efficient razor. I think I should try the Nacet in the Feather AS-D2 and see if it will allow a mild and smooth shave (more mild than using a Feather blade). I like a soft smooth brush to paint lather on my face. I think the Fendrihan is softer than the RR plissoft synthetic brush.
I have been on the wet shaving bandwagon or down the rabbit hole for about three months.
This may have been my best shave to date.

Good Day

 

[Herrenberg]

Still in.

After the wonderful shave with the Ralf Aust, I made the unfortunate choice to choose "razors that I am not entirely happy with the shave, probably because I didn't do a full hone on them" for my shaves, hoping in this way to fix some issues, learn some things, and approach perfection in my shave den.

Now I'm preoccupied with a previously-undiscovered ding in the edge of my Max Sprecher, and with a rehab Iwasaki that has never lived up to its potential. And with another Iwasaki that I honed to perfection, then took to the pasted balsa strops, and when I was done, and ready to gloat, I saw a really messed-up place on the edge. I think I knocked it against the end of the strop, which is balsa glued to Plexiglass. I have rarely been more angry with myself.

Add this to an unusual razor I've been honing for someone, and it makes for quite a backlog of work. I'm surprised I'm even shaving, let alone taking pictures. I'll go back to pictures soon. Especially since, um, I might have bought another brush or two, back when I fell out of the April GRUME. Posting pictures of them will be good for my resolve, reminding me that I am so fortunate in the area of shave stuff that I could not possibly need another thing. There's one that is so embarrassingly opulent that I don't even want to share, but I'm sure I'll get over that eventually.

 

[Roedeer]

Still in, 25.8% complete.

Preshave: Hot washcloth
Soap: MWF
Brush: Men-U boar
Razor: Rockwell 6S R3, Astra SS #2, Mach 3 played supporting role
Post-shave: Nivea Balm.

Second try with an Astra SS. The R3 plate did a reasonable job of taming it. I liked the pass 1 WTG performance. It's sharper than an Astra Green, but a lot less smooth. Face shave was a DFS.

After doing my neck WTG, and not liking it, I baled out, and used a Mach 3 (use count unknown) to finish.

It's surprising how much difference there is between the Astra SS and SP.

 

[SharpieB]

Still in but no shave today.

Had a super close SE shave yesterday and got caught up all day cleaning the backyard, opening the pool, smoking a nice cigar, having a couple of beers, BBQing steaks, watching baseball, watching hockey.... you know the drill. Sometimes shaving has to wait a day.

Chubby 2 Silvertip makes an appearance tomorrow though.

 

[linty1]

May I still join this one?
1) FoolishMortal
2) Doti B
3) MtView
4) wmadoty
5) Herrenberg
6) La Malice
7) cryhavoc - GRUYERE
8) henrickd - GRUYERE
9) Heavy_Metal_Hound
10) Roedeer
11) Chef455
12) Jmp63 - GRUYERE
13) Owen Bawn
14) Contact_vs_Feedback - GRUYERE
15) Schnitzel52
16) ‘Bout Time
17) AZBronco
18) Cahoots
19) SeinfeldNoir
20) tjsgarden
21) pdieten - GRUYERE
22) Timeclo
23) Kyle89
24) Sinnbad11
25) Cino
26) redrako
27) Sandorfi
28) SharpieB
29) Sotiris_A
30) Tomo
31) FL shaver
32) linty1

I don't know if its because it's 3am and I'm having an epiphany, but this will be good for me.

 

[Schnitzel52]

Still in
Fat Handle Tech
Personna Platinum (1)
RazoRock Boar
Schafmilch will 3017 this week

 

[cryhavoc]

Every time I see your post. I'm reminded that I need to revisit my Schick Injectors.

I hadn't used mine in about a year so decided to start using them again in March. I think after this blade is finished I'll change to another Schick injector, maybe a Type E or I.

 

[redrako]

Still In

Pre-Shave: None
Lather: C.O. Bigelow
Brush: Shavemac 23 mm Blue Marble Finest Fan
Razor: Maggard MR1 V3
Blade: Super-Max Super Platinum (3)
Post-shave: Bootlegger's Green Freeze

In the spirit of spring, I saw an old small tube of C.O. Bigelow that would be fun to bowl lather this morning and give me a chance to try a bottle bootleggers Green Freeze that I mixed this winter.

Like many of us, I mostly face lather shave soap, so it's a treat to whip up a lather of shave cream.

Green Freeze is a 50/50 mixture of Mennen Skin Bracer and Osage Rub, It still has the Barbershop smell of Skin plus the menthol zip provided by Osage Rub while minimizing the medicinal scent in the Osage Rub, a win/win.

 

[Chef455]

Still in-

Broke out the Gillette Heritage this morning just because I felt like changing things up from my normal 3 razors. Nothing wrong with the razor, but kinda "meh". I should probably PIF this one. I don't see revisiting any time soon.

Razorock BC
Electric Sheep
Lucky Tiger and a splash of Whiskey Bar

 

[pdieten]

You'll have to get in on Shark Week this summer- a week of using Shark blades. The real die hards combine Shark Week and Arko August and do a solid month of Arko-Sharko.

I've been working on a partly used stick of Arko lately, and that is good soap that I have no problem with, but my relationship with Shark blades is such that there is no way in everloving h e double hockey sticks that I'm breaking GRUYERE just to buy some even if it does rhyme.

If we're really lucky I might be willing to load one of my excess of Silver Star blades, but that's as far as I go. Arko-Starko. Done.

 

[MtView]

Still in.

I used the RR Hawk v3 with the Titan mild blade again today and it was kind of meh. I achieved BBS, but only for about 2-3 hours and I had to do a lot of touch ups. If I weren't in the GRUME I would be ordering a more aggressive blade to see if it made a difference. I'm going back to the Wolfman tomorrow.

Crown Shaving Co. pre-shave
RR Hawk v3 with a Titan mild blade
Muhle STF 23 mm
Seaforth! Spice soap and splash

 

[Herrenberg]

Still in. Still on picture hiatus. Today's addition to the task list was the discovery that two of my diamond-pasted balsa strops were no longer sufficiently flat, and need to be sanded down and re-pasted.

With my own leisure time turning into Razor Rehab Clinic, I decided to pick a very normal razor, one with a nice boring back story with no speedbumps: an Iwasaki I bought new, honed to my favored edge, and that's it, that's the whole history, except for a bunch of excellent shaves. Todays was no exception. Comfortable edge, good keenness, and I was enjoying the shave so much that I did some XTG on the cheeks (easy) and the neck (impossible, so it's more like saying "I deviated from horizontal as much as I could). No blood, no alum sting, just a nice enjoyable immersive shave.

For a soap, I pulled out the first of the sample set I got in April, West Coast Shaving's duck fat soap sampler. I don't know whether duck fat does anything for a shave soap, but the concept worked to get me interested, with visions of crisp-skinned Peking Ducks dancing through my head.

I liked the soap a lot. There are some soaps for which you need to find the elusive place between thick lather and lather that just drips off your face, that place I want my lather, where I can still see the skin, but there's a nice slick layer covering everything. This one made that easy.

I was less fond of the scent, which was Cologne. I'm not saying there was anything wrong with it. For all I know, it is a perfect re-creation of the original water of Koeln. But it is not for me. Ever have that reaction? Where a scent is perfectly nicely done, but your whole being rises up against it and says, no, I was not made to smell like that. I will try the others scents in the sample kit, of course. Maybe one of them will ring the bell.

For a brush, I used my Panta Rei green GRUME-wrecker again, this time giving it a minute in water. It's a bit scritchy for my taste, and a bit less dense than I prefer, but it performed well enough, and anyway, I like the handle so much I am inclined to give it the benefit of the doubt. If the knot never breaks in to where I can have actual affection for it, well, knots can be replaced.