When I just started wet shaving back in February, I bought a Baili TTO razor, after a little internet search. It was less than $10 before shipping, if I recall.
On the very first shave with it, I just tore up my face, everything was done wrong. For the first two weeks, I was in constant irritation and cuts.
Then as I got better, I also got different razors. First, another Baili - BD176, which was very mild yet still fairly efficient. Then I decided that mild was not for me, and got a Parker Variant. Ever since then, it became my first choice, with increasingly more aggressive settings and blades. For the past couple of months, my default setup has been Variant on 3.5, loaded with Feathers. Recently, I've also acquired a Razorock German 37 - which I am still trying to get the best out of - and discovered a whole different world of shaving by using a nearly 90 years old Ever Ready SE.
In all of that, my very first razor, the Baili TTO, has been kind of forgotten.
This morning, I wanted to try something different, and remembered about it. Pulled it out, for the first time in many months, and loaded with a fresh Feather blade.
What I got was an efficient, BBS quality shave in three passes with a little cleanup, no irritation or cuts or weepers whatsoever. The old wisdom of pairing mild razors with sharp blades is true.
While this razor is unlikely to unseat the Variant for me, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone, and would not complain if I was forced to use it as my only razor.
At its price, I would strongly recommend it as the first razor to get for anyone. It's just on the right end of mild (a razor that's too mild is, imho, hard to learn with), it's very easy to load, not very sensitive to the shaving angle, it's very well finished for a cheap zamac razor, and it's a very nice travel razor if you get it with a plastic box. And it's perfectly capable of producing BBS with little effort.
Kudos to Baili, they know what they are doing.
On the very first shave with it, I just tore up my face, everything was done wrong. For the first two weeks, I was in constant irritation and cuts.
Then as I got better, I also got different razors. First, another Baili - BD176, which was very mild yet still fairly efficient. Then I decided that mild was not for me, and got a Parker Variant. Ever since then, it became my first choice, with increasingly more aggressive settings and blades. For the past couple of months, my default setup has been Variant on 3.5, loaded with Feathers. Recently, I've also acquired a Razorock German 37 - which I am still trying to get the best out of - and discovered a whole different world of shaving by using a nearly 90 years old Ever Ready SE.
In all of that, my very first razor, the Baili TTO, has been kind of forgotten.
This morning, I wanted to try something different, and remembered about it. Pulled it out, for the first time in many months, and loaded with a fresh Feather blade.
What I got was an efficient, BBS quality shave in three passes with a little cleanup, no irritation or cuts or weepers whatsoever. The old wisdom of pairing mild razors with sharp blades is true.
While this razor is unlikely to unseat the Variant for me, I would not hesitate to recommend it to anyone, and would not complain if I was forced to use it as my only razor.
At its price, I would strongly recommend it as the first razor to get for anyone. It's just on the right end of mild (a razor that's too mild is, imho, hard to learn with), it's very easy to load, not very sensitive to the shaving angle, it's very well finished for a cheap zamac razor, and it's a very nice travel razor if you get it with a plastic box. And it's perfectly capable of producing BBS with little effort.
Kudos to Baili, they know what they are doing.
