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The adventure begins.. (well, continues...)

Hello All!

My story... For the longest time I had to shave with trimmers (like a mini clipper). My face just couldn't take the irritation and ingrown results of any mass market razors / cartridges. I even thought of laser hair removal but that would be fruitless as even though a majority of my hair is dark I still have a significant amount of light hair that the laser wouldn't affect. I ended up with a norelco oneblade shaving only once a week. That has worked well to avoid the troubles and was quite thankful for that. It gets closer then ordinary trimmers and I just lived with a weeks worth of growth at a time.

Years back I stumbled upon this site and decided to try wet shaving. I bought a merkur progress, 34c HD, a gold post war tech.... I tried various soaps, brushes, blades, etc. It just wasn't working out. I even dabbled with straights. Nothing I did seemed to help and went back to the norelco oneblade.

Every 6 months or so I'd eye all my gear stored under the sink and decide to try it again with poor results, cursing myself for going through it again and making myself look like a pizza face. Well... here we are, a couple weeks ago... got the itch again. I sold the progress off long ago. The 34c.. I gave it a closer look and discounted it... had blade alignment issues and didn't want to fuss with it so I stuck with the Tech. Loaded up a feather and had at it. I have very wiry prickly beard hair... feathers were the only thing that came close to comfortable. I'm not sure what was so different from my previous attempts... maybe its the witch hazel (Dickinson's) that I used as aftershave this time around. So far so good. I realized I also couldn't use a feather longer then two shaves... first is harsh but effective. Second is great. Third starts becoming rough. Also I realized that shaving short stubble daily leads to less problems then trying to shave every other day with longer stubble.

Been a couple weeks... so far so good. Now the acquisition diseases are kicking in again Trying other sharp blades to see if I can find any that are more comfortable and can get longer mileage then feathers (gold Perma-Sharp's, 7'oclock blacks and yellows, Wizamet, SI's...) To avoid any blade alignment issues I want to try some machined mild razors to avoid blade alignment issues (got a yaqi doc, and Winning is on the way). Warm lather... so now we have to add a scuttle. More slick lather so now we need to try some Cella and La Toja... This place is a money pit! I'm whining after a handful of stuff though yet some of the pictures on here of folk's collections is mind boggling.

Anyhow. If you've made it through all that... thanks. Y'all have a good spot here.
 
Welcome to B&B.
Unusual to have alignment issues with the Merkur 34C; the vendor would have replaced it but too late now.
 
Welcome to B&B. I read the whole thing and I glad you got it figured out, but this is why B&B exists. At least weekly somebody comes on here with problems and everybody helps them out. They say thanks, stick around and contribute themselves. It feels like the pre smartphone internet era I loved so much. No need to lurk, we aren't judgmental here!
Previously lurking over a year
 
Thank you ladies and gents.

And… wholly acronym city Batman! Decoder rings are mandatory. A search to figure out what blahbla abbreviation means sometimes starts it’s own adventure. Kind of like if your on YouTube looking up a shaving video and end up learning how to build a house
 
Hello All!

My story... For the longest time I had to shave with trimmers (like a mini clipper). My face just couldn't take the irritation and ingrown results of any mass market razors / cartridges. I even thought of laser hair removal but that would be fruitless as even though a majority of my hair is dark I still have a significant amount of light hair that the laser wouldn't affect. I ended up with a norelco oneblade shaving only once a week. That has worked well to avoid the troubles and was quite thankful for that. It gets closer then ordinary trimmers and I just lived with a weeks worth of growth at a time.

Years back I stumbled upon this site and decided to try wet shaving. I bought a merkur progress, 34c HD, a gold post war tech.... I tried various soaps, brushes, blades, etc. It just wasn't working out. I even dabbled with straights. Nothing I did seemed to help and went back to the norelco oneblade.

Every 6 months or so I'd eye all my gear stored under the sink and decide to try it again with poor results, cursing myself for going through it again and making myself look like a pizza face. Well... here we are, a couple weeks ago... got the itch again. I sold the progress off long ago. The 34c.. I gave it a closer look and discounted it... had blade alignment issues and didn't want to fuss with it so I stuck with the Tech. Loaded up a feather and had at it. I have very wiry prickly beard hair... feathers were the only thing that came close to comfortable. I'm not sure what was so different from my previous attempts... maybe its the witch hazel (Dickinson's) that I used as aftershave this time around. So far so good. I realized I also couldn't use a feather longer then two shaves... first is harsh but effective. Second is great. Third starts becoming rough. Also I realized that shaving short stubble daily leads to less problems then trying to shave every other day with longer stubble.

Been a couple weeks... so far so good. Now the acquisition diseases are kicking in again Trying other sharp blades to see if I can find any that are more comfortable and can get longer mileage then feathers (gold Perma-Sharp's, 7'oclock blacks and yellows, Wizamet, SI's...) To avoid any blade alignment issues I want to try some machined mild razors to avoid blade alignment issues (got a yaqi doc, and Winning is on the way). Warm lather... so now we have to add a scuttle. More slick lather so now we need to try some Cella and La Toja... This place is a money pit! I'm whining after a handful of stuff though yet some of the pictures on here of folk's collections is mind boggling.

Anyhow. If you've made it through all that... thanks. Y'all have a good spot here.
Try the Yaqi Mellon. Med Preps work like a dream. The Feather even better, but I'm sure they don't last long. Which makes me wonder what is the problem with that.
 
Yes, the Yaqi Mellon/doc/sloc I believe had a good part to do with my current bout of success. It clamps the blade tight close to the edge and has very little gap. This will be my fall back.

Although… It’s to the point where it’s so mild that some spots need multiple passes and still leave stubble. I’ll see how the winning razor works out. Otherwise I’ll go back to the yaqi and add a shim. Or continue to perpetuate RAD and go on to something else.

The tech is mild with its smallish gap but it feels like the unsupported exposure lets it sing and chatter too much with a course beard. With fiber softer hair I imagine it would do good. I tried to run it against my fine arm hair and the audio feedback was much quieter
 
Although… It’s to the point where it’s so mild that some spots need multiple passes and still leave stubble. I’ll see how the winning razor works out. Otherwise I’ll go back to the yaqi and add a shim. Or continue to perpetuate RAD and go on to something else.
You might benefit from skin stretching. If you are unaware what this involves, it is basically using the hand not holding the razor to pull the skin to make a flat surface before shaving the hair. This allows the blade better contact than trying to shave a curve or hollow

It is a technique employed by straight shavers, but works well with DE too.
 
Thankyou all... what a family.

You might benefit from skin stretching.

Yep... I'll do this with my free hand or by tilting my head to get skin to stretch or bunch up where needed. In certain spots, along my jaw line and around adams apple, it seems it doesn't matter what direction I go - even ATG or multiple passes, I can still detect stubble by feel. I'm happy with things overall though so I don't want to push my luck so quickly.
 
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