Newbie Check in and Advice

[RMshave]

Welcome to the forum !!

Thank you for the Warm Welcome !

 

[Saxonbowman]

Welcome from Virginia! Since I'm mostly a vintage guy I haven't tried any of those razors. I would agree with the advice to pick one razor and blade combo and stick with it for a little while. It's hard to develop good technique when you change other variables.

 

[DesertIguana]

Someone said Gillette Tech, I have two One Post WorldWar2, One PreWorldWar2, Both shave well.

Can not go wrong with a Vintage Gillette, Tech, super Speed, or Flair, none are pricy.

 

[WThomas0814]

I'm late, but, welcome to B&B. The members here are very helpful and you'll learn a lot.

If you haven't yet pulled the trigger on a razor, I can enthusiastically recommend the Blackbird Titanium Lite. It is far and away the finest shaver I own. If you are able to get the standard plate as well, even better. You can experiment and, if you wish, sell off the one you didn't care for.

Jump into the forums and journals and have fun!

 

[dmshaver]

Glad you’ve joined, welcome!

 

[RMshave]

Welcome from Virginia! Since I'm mostly a vintage guy I haven't tried any of those razors. I would agree with the advice to pick one razor and blade combo and stick with it for a little while. It's hard to develop good technique when you change other variables.

Thank you for the Warm Welcome ! I agree with these points, glad I put it up on the forum. Sticking to my Bevel Clone for a bit longer and working on the technique.

 

[RMshave]

Someone said Gillette Tech, I have two One Post WorldWar2, One PreWorldWar2, Both shave well.

Can not go wrong with a Vintage Gillette, Tech, super Speed, or Flair, none are pricy.

Thank you ! trying to stick to the current razor for a couple of months and will pick up something then !

 

[RMshave]

I'm late, but, welcome to B&B. The members here are very helpful and you'll learn a lot.

If you haven't yet pulled the trigger on a razor, I can enthusiastically recommend the Blackbird Titanium Lite. It is far and away the finest shaver I own. If you are able to get the standard plate as well, even better. You can experiment and, if you wish, sell off the one you didn't care for.

Jump into the forums and journals and have fun!

Thank you for the Warm Welcome ! The Bird Ti was on my Radar but read that it needs a lot of technique from what I could understand. Hopefully by the next sale ill be able to get my technique in order and pick one up.

 

[RMshave]

Glad you’ve joined, welcome!

Thank you for the Warm Welcome !

 

[Phoenixkh]

Welcome to the B&B community.... I used the same razor for 5+ months when I first started wet shaving, converting from Gillette cartridge razors of various kinds for decades. I didn't realize it at the time, but that gave me a decent foundation to enjoy other razors later one, which I certainly have. <eg> evil grin.

 

[Quaznoid]

Exactly, right?! This is exactly where I was 12 months ago, right in your shoes. In hindsight, I wish I would have gotten a Gillette Tech and stuck with it, using the same blade and soap, for three or four months. Just sort of focusing on technique - by that I mean being able to get to the point where I could expect to achieve a DFS (Damn Fine Shave) consistently with that gear.

To get to that level I found I had to master a few things:

• Knowing my beard - I couldn't get a DFS until I realized the hair on the left side of my neck grows sideways not up and down! I adjusted my strokes there to an "X" pattern and wham! No more endless buffing there making my skin angry. Everyone has their own funky something they need to compensate for.
• Getting the correct angle dialed in - Once you find the angle that particular razor likes to be at, you first pass results will suddenly feel like the second pass results of yore.
• Building a slick lather - I was building foam at first, not the super glidey well-hydrated lather I shoot for now. That makes a big difference.
• Preshave Phase - do something, anything, even if it's just washing your face with a gelatin-heavy soap, to strip the oils from your beard and get the hairs stiff and hydrated. A hot shower works great as well.

You've been wet shaving for 11 months, I suspect you've mastered all these things. It took me longer, that's for sure. The key was sticking with a razor/blade/soap combo for a few months and really working on improving a little bit every shave.

The advantage of the Gillette Tech is that it's a classic benchmark, a razor millions of men used for over half a decade. It does the job very well for $10-25 depending where you pick one up. In all likelihood you're going to get one in your razor journey eventually, start with it early I say. Once you master the Tech, pulling a BBS from time to time, you'll know you will be able to leverage all of the performance of razors like the Blackbird Ti and a Wolfman if you want to explore the high end world.

Better that I think rather than going straight to a $500 razor and then having to ask yourself, "is this good? I'm not sure, but probably right because it's $500."

If you lean more towards modern razors than vintage gillettes, the RazorRock Gamechanger (the 76-P, perhaps) is a fantastic first "fancy" razor and not that expensive. For a little more, the OliBlade 3-piece is getting great reviews. Both those vendors have black friday deals this week I believe.

And you should definitely explore adjustables at some point, I'd recommend starting with an inexpensive Gillette Slim - some people call that razor the pinnacle of production DE razor shaving development. Then you can discover on your own that you like setting 4, like 80% of slim users it seems like (me included). lol.

I second almost everything flask 28 writes. The Tech works well for almost everyone, is available world wide and is very inexpensive. Don’t spend big bucks on a modern razor of unknown performance, at least until you’ve tried the Tech. You may find your one and only

 

[Jaybyrd]

Welcome aboard. I’ll leave the advice to the experts since I’m only into this for about one year myself. Plenty of good razor options to choose from. I got the bug and now have a decent collection.

 

[ButterfaceX]

Welcome & Congrats...
Have fun here & shaving.
BFX


“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” - Maya Angelou