Hello world
i would like to share my own experience with shaving...
a few details about me, i'm 37, male, i think quite i'm fair haired, my hair was straw yellow when i was a baby, now it's brown with some gray's masquerading as blonde hairs, i also think that my beard is on the light side as well...
My first experience with shaving was inevitably with a gillette, i think a mach 3, this was when i was about 14 or so, just started shaving, i was awful at it and it was awful for me, i cut myself constantly, the shave it self was patchy at first but with time it improved some...as time went by i tried several disposables but eventually i used hair clippers to shave off as much beard as i could then i would touch up with the mach 3....this method has been OK for me until my last anniversary, we're talking 10 odd years or more, when the wife bought me three splashes, pinaud classic, proraso green and an unknown brand to me, red one, it actually smells the best out of all three...having "seen the light" i started reading up on shaving, having discovered wet shaving and having identified safety razors as the way to go i bought a king c gillette razor...i also give the wilkinson sword hydro 5 about 3 shaves to prove itself, more or less the same story as when i was a teenager, it cut me and i had irritation, redness, razor bumps/whiteheads later on, et cetera
after dismissing the hydro 5 i went ahead and tried the safety razor, i got some fusion gel shaving cream, an alum block, and an exfoliator dr. renauds prickly pear for men...now, i feel that the experience of wet shaving is very different to shaving with anything electric or with another tools of sorts although you do have to master shaving with blades that have direct contact with your skin...to be fair and honest, i believe that my foray into wet shaving has been significantly affected by the fact that the first time i tried the hydro 5 i had had a few (apple brandy 40%) before hand and i actually cut a piece of my skin right off under my lip on my chin, i still have discoloration on that part of my skin LOL, and by my unjustified self belief, i start getting confident when i make two acceptable strokes then i start speed up and cuts occur...alas i honestly like wet shaving and all that goes with it, the products, the baldes, shavers, creams,the shaving community, etc, etc, everything
alas
i did get some irritaion from using a safety razor, not much, as i went with the grain the first few shaves, i really had virtually no redness and only a couple of razor bums/whiteheads that appeared a few days later, as i mentioned before, these results gave me unjustified confidence to go from shaving once a week to shaving every three days and then i had the audacity to go against the grain on my 3 or 4 shave with a safety razor...as you can imagine, this yielded results, the shave i managed to achieve, with two nick which were of course my fault - bad technique + rushing, was the softest smoothest shave i personally have had on my face (i had my face shaved by a barber with a straight for nearly an entire year i stopped going because the salon turned into a gossip salon and not a barber shop i definitely made the right decision as i personally managed to shave myself better than that "professional"),but, i did get irritation and some bumps/heads a few days on...all this time i was on the prowl for a good exfoliator to help me with the bumps/heads as i felt that the dr. renaud was't up to it...so i got the neutrogena blackhead eliminator and switched to that...alas, i still had about 3 bumps appear from the shaves that followed, irritation not so much, i was using the pinaud classic spalsh for all the shaves with the hydro and the safety razor as well...
after this, i researched electrics, as i was then of the opinion that smooth was the was to go, i mean the skin being smooth in all directions after a shave, after having watched the entire internet's worth of videos of particular models being used, bearing in mind what i can get/buy here where i live, i narrowed my potential choices to the following: andis profil (which i got), braun 7 1000 s, panasonic es ll 21, braun 310, again i reiterate that these are models i can buy in a physical shop here, our delivery system is slack at best, we're talking worse than Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris
,as i bracketed above i bought the andis because from the videos i saw it indeed give a glass smooth shave...because of various reasons that i won't go into i paid 115 euros for the device, imagine my knowing it cost around 70 on amazon and still buying it...i proceeded with giving it a whirl...
the results were, to be honest, darn awful...my cheeks were glass smooth and that's about it, it missed some hairs on my neck which was terrible for me,it just looked unruly, imagine clean shaven skin much akin to it being shaved with a straight or DE and the a couple of black flat hairs just there, existing, apart from the apocalyptic "performance" i got bad irrtation, i used nivea sensitive balm three times that evening, i even shot a video and sent it to the shop where i got the andis from...
i returned the andis, got a full refund and went and bought a oneblade by philips, i am currently on day three since i mauled my face with the andis and i might give the oneblade a try today, i accept that it cannot match a blade of any kind but i am really hoping that it wont give me bumps i doubt that i will get any irritation in the form or redness and rashes which i did get from the andis, just to clarify the hair clippers that i used for years on end were also by philips, i got them because it said they cut 0.4 mm without any extensions and such, i have to admit i got little to no irritation with them so i can say i trust philips...i was offered various clippers in exchange for the andis from the shop i got it from, wahl balding, a model by andis again and a company called comlink from germany, the idea being to use hair clippers with them being as close to zero gapped as possible, i dismissed this idea because my philips 5000 something model i own can easly cut you if you aren't careful so imagine what 0.0mm and 0.2mm clippers would require in terms of attention and concentration... i do maintain it possible for them to do a good job i just don't think i have the skill to pull that feat off...
anyways, to wrap things up, i can see i went on for quite a bit, today i am hoping to use my oneblade for the first time, i got the simple face 60 minute use model, i also have a synthetic brush, pvc bowl with lather ridges and proraso sensitive shave cream (the white one) all of which i am inclined to also use, i am not sure that i will exfoliate before hand because i did so just last night, i have two new face scrubs by balea, they come in little satchels about a euro each, i tried the orange sugar one last night, i did notice that a couple white heads seemed to be more visible after using the scrub i presume that it took off a layer of dead skin cells and further exposed the whiteheads...
from the experiences from my short journey into wet shaving, i can say that i am satisfied with the king c gilette razor and blades, although i am very inexperienced and unknowledgeable i think that they are indeed good, the gel you get for shaving with them no so much...i didn't like that, the splashes i mentioned seem all quite fine, the pinaud has a love it or hate it smell in my opinion, i am not that huge a fan of it although the wife likes so go figure...the proraso is a classic and i like it but am not over the moon exactly, now the red one is the best smelling by far haven't used it so i dont know how it performs, i like the proraso white cream, the synthetic brush is also a joy to use, the wanda bowl is rather large for my liking but it could be me...the hydro 5 is most probably a capable tool for some one who likes that sort of thing...i also have and use nivea men creme, it feels cool and comfortable when you put it on as a moisturiser but i will also try weleda skin food on my face having been blown away by it's performance on my hands, it's actually not mine it's my wife's so i will use it sparingly, i used nivea creme the old school cream as a moisturiser and the men creme is far better in my opinion...i might also at some point try the nivea men gel we'll see, i also believe that the fusion gel is fine but with all the caveats of being a canned product, drying up and such, the alum bloc is also a novel discovery for me, i use it after every shave, i get stung no matter what i used before hand, i have only not used it after the clippers + cartridge combo as i bought the block afterwards...
i aplogize if i went on for too long, and i hope i haven't put anyone to sleep
"have a great shave and have a great day everyone"
geofatboy, Chicago
i would like to share my own experience with shaving...
a few details about me, i'm 37, male, i think quite i'm fair haired, my hair was straw yellow when i was a baby, now it's brown with some gray's masquerading as blonde hairs, i also think that my beard is on the light side as well...
My first experience with shaving was inevitably with a gillette, i think a mach 3, this was when i was about 14 or so, just started shaving, i was awful at it and it was awful for me, i cut myself constantly, the shave it self was patchy at first but with time it improved some...as time went by i tried several disposables but eventually i used hair clippers to shave off as much beard as i could then i would touch up with the mach 3....this method has been OK for me until my last anniversary, we're talking 10 odd years or more, when the wife bought me three splashes, pinaud classic, proraso green and an unknown brand to me, red one, it actually smells the best out of all three...having "seen the light" i started reading up on shaving, having discovered wet shaving and having identified safety razors as the way to go i bought a king c gillette razor...i also give the wilkinson sword hydro 5 about 3 shaves to prove itself, more or less the same story as when i was a teenager, it cut me and i had irritation, redness, razor bumps/whiteheads later on, et cetera
after dismissing the hydro 5 i went ahead and tried the safety razor, i got some fusion gel shaving cream, an alum block, and an exfoliator dr. renauds prickly pear for men...now, i feel that the experience of wet shaving is very different to shaving with anything electric or with another tools of sorts although you do have to master shaving with blades that have direct contact with your skin...to be fair and honest, i believe that my foray into wet shaving has been significantly affected by the fact that the first time i tried the hydro 5 i had had a few (apple brandy 40%) before hand and i actually cut a piece of my skin right off under my lip on my chin, i still have discoloration on that part of my skin LOL, and by my unjustified self belief, i start getting confident when i make two acceptable strokes then i start speed up and cuts occur...alas i honestly like wet shaving and all that goes with it, the products, the baldes, shavers, creams,the shaving community, etc, etc, everything
alas
i did get some irritaion from using a safety razor, not much, as i went with the grain the first few shaves, i really had virtually no redness and only a couple of razor bums/whiteheads that appeared a few days later, as i mentioned before, these results gave me unjustified confidence to go from shaving once a week to shaving every three days and then i had the audacity to go against the grain on my 3 or 4 shave with a safety razor...as you can imagine, this yielded results, the shave i managed to achieve, with two nick which were of course my fault - bad technique + rushing, was the softest smoothest shave i personally have had on my face (i had my face shaved by a barber with a straight for nearly an entire year i stopped going because the salon turned into a gossip salon and not a barber shop i definitely made the right decision as i personally managed to shave myself better than that "professional"),but, i did get irritation and some bumps/heads a few days on...all this time i was on the prowl for a good exfoliator to help me with the bumps/heads as i felt that the dr. renaud was't up to it...so i got the neutrogena blackhead eliminator and switched to that...alas, i still had about 3 bumps appear from the shaves that followed, irritation not so much, i was using the pinaud classic spalsh for all the shaves with the hydro and the safety razor as well...
after this, i researched electrics, as i was then of the opinion that smooth was the was to go, i mean the skin being smooth in all directions after a shave, after having watched the entire internet's worth of videos of particular models being used, bearing in mind what i can get/buy here where i live, i narrowed my potential choices to the following: andis profil (which i got), braun 7 1000 s, panasonic es ll 21, braun 310, again i reiterate that these are models i can buy in a physical shop here, our delivery system is slack at best, we're talking worse than Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris
,as i bracketed above i bought the andis because from the videos i saw it indeed give a glass smooth shave...because of various reasons that i won't go into i paid 115 euros for the device, imagine my knowing it cost around 70 on amazon and still buying it...i proceeded with giving it a whirl...the results were, to be honest, darn awful...my cheeks were glass smooth and that's about it, it missed some hairs on my neck which was terrible for me,it just looked unruly, imagine clean shaven skin much akin to it being shaved with a straight or DE and the a couple of black flat hairs just there, existing, apart from the apocalyptic "performance" i got bad irrtation, i used nivea sensitive balm three times that evening, i even shot a video and sent it to the shop where i got the andis from...
i returned the andis, got a full refund and went and bought a oneblade by philips, i am currently on day three since i mauled my face with the andis and i might give the oneblade a try today, i accept that it cannot match a blade of any kind but i am really hoping that it wont give me bumps i doubt that i will get any irritation in the form or redness and rashes which i did get from the andis, just to clarify the hair clippers that i used for years on end were also by philips, i got them because it said they cut 0.4 mm without any extensions and such, i have to admit i got little to no irritation with them so i can say i trust philips...i was offered various clippers in exchange for the andis from the shop i got it from, wahl balding, a model by andis again and a company called comlink from germany, the idea being to use hair clippers with them being as close to zero gapped as possible, i dismissed this idea because my philips 5000 something model i own can easly cut you if you aren't careful so imagine what 0.0mm and 0.2mm clippers would require in terms of attention and concentration... i do maintain it possible for them to do a good job i just don't think i have the skill to pull that feat off...
anyways, to wrap things up, i can see i went on for quite a bit, today i am hoping to use my oneblade for the first time, i got the simple face 60 minute use model, i also have a synthetic brush, pvc bowl with lather ridges and proraso sensitive shave cream (the white one) all of which i am inclined to also use, i am not sure that i will exfoliate before hand because i did so just last night, i have two new face scrubs by balea, they come in little satchels about a euro each, i tried the orange sugar one last night, i did notice that a couple white heads seemed to be more visible after using the scrub i presume that it took off a layer of dead skin cells and further exposed the whiteheads...
from the experiences from my short journey into wet shaving, i can say that i am satisfied with the king c gilette razor and blades, although i am very inexperienced and unknowledgeable i think that they are indeed good, the gel you get for shaving with them no so much...i didn't like that, the splashes i mentioned seem all quite fine, the pinaud has a love it or hate it smell in my opinion, i am not that huge a fan of it although the wife likes so go figure...the proraso is a classic and i like it but am not over the moon exactly, now the red one is the best smelling by far haven't used it so i dont know how it performs, i like the proraso white cream, the synthetic brush is also a joy to use, the wanda bowl is rather large for my liking but it could be me...the hydro 5 is most probably a capable tool for some one who likes that sort of thing...i also have and use nivea men creme, it feels cool and comfortable when you put it on as a moisturiser but i will also try weleda skin food on my face having been blown away by it's performance on my hands, it's actually not mine it's my wife's so i will use it sparingly, i used nivea creme the old school cream as a moisturiser and the men creme is far better in my opinion...i might also at some point try the nivea men gel we'll see, i also believe that the fusion gel is fine but with all the caveats of being a canned product, drying up and such, the alum bloc is also a novel discovery for me, i use it after every shave, i get stung no matter what i used before hand, i have only not used it after the clippers + cartridge combo as i bought the block afterwards...
i aplogize if i went on for too long, and i hope i haven't put anyone to sleep
"have a great shave and have a great day everyone"
geofatboy, Chicago
