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.
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.