New Member Shave Kit Giveaway: The Review

[Dave Colangelo]

First off I would like to thank Mike for putting together the new member shave kit giveaway. I have never been so warmly welcomed to a forum before and look forward to the coming years of great information and shaving stories. Anyway to the point, much to my surprise I won the new member giveaway (I never win anything) which was a pleasant surprise when I found out. As an avid wet shaver and collector of all things wet shaving new toys are always an exciting thing. I waited patiently for the box to arrive in the mail, unfortunately my apartment building only allows package pick up during the week so although it came on Saturday I did not get it until I arrived home today. I was like a little kid on Christmas and the first think I did when I got to my apartment was open up the box. The kit was neatly packaged inside the blade holder, it contained

• Silver Gillette Tech in very good condition
• 10 new Astra Blades
• Semogue 610 Boar Brush
• Arko Shave Stick
• Lea aftershave balm
• Blade Bank (Re-purposed Clubman Hair Gel container)

I unpacked everything and got ready for the shave



Unwrap the Arko Stick


Apply the Arko the my wet face


see next post (It seems I can only upload so many photos to one post)

 

[Dave Colangelo]

The brush (dry)

(wet)

After the first round of face lathering

First Round of Lather

First Pass Done

 

[Dave Colangelo]

Lather Up for the second pass

This was all the lather left in the brush after the second pass

Clean the rest of the cream off

This was how much of the balm I used, I was not sure what the right amount was but this seemed to work well

 

[Dave Colangelo]

Thoughts:
I dont know if Mike picked these things because he uses them, he likes them together, he likes the individual components or he just had them lying around. On any note they all came together or a very nice shave. Ill go through each item here.

The Astra blades were very nice. I usually use Darby or Wilkinson Sword so this was a nice change. I felt they outperformed the Darby blades I use and were similar to the Swords but over all I was very impressed with them.

This tech was nice, I typically use a slim set to 3 which I felt was similar to this tech. It was not to aggressive which I like in a razor. it preformed quite nicely and may very well make its way into my rotation.

The Arko stick was very interesting. I dont know what to make of it yet as it was my first experience with a shave stick. It was different than the cream I am used to. As for the sent it was nice, pleasant and more mainly than my AoS lavender cream. The lather was a bit runny but I think that was the result of a wet brush and not really understanding the shave stick to well.

The LEA Balm was very nice and quite soothing. I have sensitive skin and have tried a few balms with little luck. This one has a certain cooling feel the others did not. I may put this in to my daily routine for the next week and build up a better opinion on it but for now I will say it is quite good.

The highlight was by far the Semouge. When I got into wet shaving I began with an Edwin Jagger Boar brush that was $12 it was cheap and at the time I did not know if I would like the whole wet shaving thing. After replacing that brush with a very nice silver tip I was thought Boar was terrible. I would try that brush every so often just for rotation and thought it was just plain bad every time I tried to go back to it. This Semouge, considering it is about the same price point is in a whole other league. It preformed well beyond my expectations and was a delight to use. This may very well become my travel brush or find its way in to my rotation. It was truly the highlight of the shave and I may go out and try some of the other Semouge boar brushes now. It held water very well, was softer than expected and had a very comfortable handle.

All in all the shave was quite nice. I think every thing came together well (even if that was not the intent of the package) I got a lot of exposure to items I dont think I would have otherwise tried. I may give the whole set up my attention for the week and see how I feel after that, but over all it is a great combination of items, and I would suggest any of the items alone or all of them together.

I would like to thank Mike again for everything!

Regards
Dave

 

[JCinPA]

Nice writeup, thank you very much!!

If you wet the Arko stick a lot while applying and really rub on a lot of product, then start with a slightly less wet brush, you'll dial that in. Lather on your face for a bit, then dip JUST THE TIPS of the brush in water, slather that all over and get back to building lather. You'll love it.

Thanks again for the great writeup! The Astras in the Tech are what my son uses, and he loves it.

 

[grendel]

What an awesome kit!

 

[Jeff_H]

Yeah, that was a really nice, detailed write up. Most of the people that all of us know in our everyday lives would likely think it's a bit creepy to share grooming habits with perfect strangers or even God forbid take pictures of it. It might as well be illegal porn for gosh sakes. What I've liked about this place so much is how inclusive it is, and how non-judgemental. Just a place with a lot of really nice people hanging out talking about shaving, shave products, technique.

Oh crap, we ARE creepy aren't we?

 

[Dave Colangelo]

It is interesting that people would so openly discuss this stuff however these days you can find a forum for just about everything. I am a big time driver/racer/restorer of old german sports cars (Porsche mainly) and the dedicated forums for them are great. The internet has created this amazing collective knowledge base. In regards to shaving I was only able to get into wet shaving thanks to places like leesrazors.com and westcoastshaving.com for still supplying the stuff. Without them I would have never started wet shaving.

Regards
Dave