Seeking recommendations for the daily shaver in a hurry

[Edgelord]

Any time that you want to speed up your shave, you should use well vetted products.

Everyone should have a brushless option or two. Lately, I have preferred the Proraso red.

 

[rostern]

I am using my Henson AL 13 and trying to get to autopilot. I have a flare tip SuperSpeed that I have not tried yet, but I may give it a whirl on the weekend. I picked it up since it was made around when I was born, and that thought, and the durability entertained me. I think I may try some of those brushless products too!

 

[Captain Howdy]

You need to find a good DE blades that works for your face. The DE blades in grocery stores are trash. This is more important than razor choice in my opinion and certainly more important than lather choice. You can't declare DE razors to be a bloodbath until you've done this.

Secondary to that, get a decent cream and synthetic brush. Creams might be a bit faster.

 

[ErkRusselReserve]

Palm lathering is quick too. Faster than face lathering I’d say.

Yes, it is also good. But you need to wash your hands and that takes time and can make handling a razor a bit dangerous. Plus you need to repeat after each pass. Face lathering saves this clean up step and you can quickly apply lather between passes.

Believe me, I have lathered for a year and really enjoyed it, but I haven't gone back.

 

[Dtownvino]

Shower and shave the night before.

 

[Edgelord]

You need to find a good DE blades that works for your face. The DE blades in grocery stores are trash. This is more important than razor choice in my opinion and certainly more important than lather choice. You can't declare DE razors to be a bloodbath until you've done this.

Secondary to that, get a decent cream and synthetic brush. Creams might be a bit faster.

My two greatest leaps forward, in wet shaving, were finding blades that worked for me and using pre-shaves.

 

[Captain Howdy]

My two greatest leaps forward, in wet shaving, were finding blades that worked for me and using pre-shaves.

Same here. I've found prep and the right blade are the majority of the equation. Though my approach to prep is a hot shower, it still serves the same purpose.

 

[rostern]

My prep is the same. I shower and wash my face in the shower before I shave. So far, the blades I am using most commonly are Parkers and Nacets. I am trying to do two quick passes, WTG and XTG. I notice that the second pass goes better if I am careful to make the most of my first pass. I am not seeing any blood baths, but I still get the occasional weeper that dries up with alum or styptic.

Same here. I've found prep and the right blade are the majority of the equation. Though my approach to prep is a hot shower, it still serves the same purpose.

 

[rostern]

Shower and shave the night before.

I know that works for many here. It just does not fit my long hours and irregular work schedule which has me working very late many days and immediately going to bed on those days because I will need to get up early the next morning.

 

[Dtownvino]

I understand. I used to travel a lot for work. Fly home from Germany, land in Newark to find out I’m flying back tomorrow night. I always found a shower at night and a 5-10 min shave felt great. I learned to shower shave too - a shave stick and a mild razor like a Gillette tech would be easy to do.

 

[Captain Howdy]

My prep is the same. I shower and wash my face in the shower before I shave. So far, the blades I am using most commonly are Parkers and Nacets. I am trying to do two quick passes, WTG and XTG. I notice that the second pass goes better if I am careful to make the most of my first pass. I am not seeing any blood baths, but I still get the occasional weeper that dries up with alum or styptic.

I hear ya, man. I remember an early mistake in my wetshaving journey of not be very thorough enough during my first pass and relying too much on subsequent passes. I learned to semi buff my entire first pass and got much better results overall.

 

[Tomo]

I’m going to be the odd one out and say that prep has never made much of a difference to me. Wet face, lather, shave. As long as the blade is sharp, the shower is optional.

 

[Dtownvino]

I’m going to be the odd one out and say that prep has never made much of a difference to me. Wet face, lather, shave. As long as the blade is sharp, the shower is optional.

Everyone has different skin and beard types. In general a little prep (washing face with cetaphil and wetting the beard) goes a real long ways.

Showering is 95% not in the cards unless I want to night shave. Anymore I shave when I feel like it or must do it for a meeting.

 

[rostern]

Update: So, this is getting better with repetition. My morning shave time is down to around 7 minutes for lathering, 2 passes, alum and aftercare. Blood is getting to be rare. My shaves are in the DFS arena. I picked up a secondhand stainless Blackbird with lite and regular plates on EBay and I used the lite plate. What a great shave! The pointers I have gotten here have been instrumental in improving my shaves.