I am still relatively new to DE wet shaving, and I have had a weird week of three shaving experiences that included one of the strangest yesterday. On Monday, I ventured into the realm of vintage blade shaving with a 1950 Gillette Blue blade. It was a very tug-filled irritating shave (Blue Blade Shave). The next day, I tried to get back to "normal" by using a brand new Personna Platinum in a Gillette Super Speed. Essentially, I shredded my face (Shredding Save).
Yesterday (Thursday), I thought I needed to go mild to protect my still angry face, and I wanted to give the Personna Platinum another chance. So I put that blade into my Merkur 34C and lathered my face with my Semogue 820 boar brush loaded with some French Monsavon hard, tallow-based soap that I bought in Marseilles on my recent vacation. My theory was that I just needed a decent shave without any more shredding or irritation. I eventually finished in FOUR passes but I felt compelled to switch the razor and blade during my shave. Here is the stuff I used in various combinations (Semogue 820 not pictured).
I would like to learn something from this experience, but I'm just a little confused. I lathered for every one of my four passes. Here is the blow-by-blow:
Thoughts?
Yesterday (Thursday), I thought I needed to go mild to protect my still angry face, and I wanted to give the Personna Platinum another chance. So I put that blade into my Merkur 34C and lathered my face with my Semogue 820 boar brush loaded with some French Monsavon hard, tallow-based soap that I bought in Marseilles on my recent vacation. My theory was that I just needed a decent shave without any more shredding or irritation. I eventually finished in FOUR passes but I felt compelled to switch the razor and blade during my shave. Here is the stuff I used in various combinations (Semogue 820 not pictured).
- First pass with the Personna/Merkur 34C going WTG was "noisy" and felt like it barely removed any whiskers. It was very comfortable though.
- Undaunted, second pass with the Personna/Merkur 34C going XTG. It felt like NOTHING got removed but, again, was very comfortable.
- I thought something isn't working with either the 34C or the Personna blade, so I put that blade into my Rockwell 6S with plate #2 (prioritizing comfort and using a razor that I "know" better). I went XTG but in the other direction and made some progress knocking my stubble down. Still very comfortable, but still very slow "progress." I had not yet reached DFS closeness (perhaps SAS). I thought, is the blade the problem?
- On my last pass, I switched back to the 34C, but with a twice-used Wilkinson Sword blade (the blade I probably know the most about). I went ATG on this pass and did some very minor touch ups. Still very comfortable. This pass seemed to finish the job at a DFS level of closeness. I thought going for a fifth pass to chase BBS was just asking for trouble, so I stopped.
Thoughts?