What does BBS look like under a microscope? (before & after pics)

[Dovo1695]

I've been playing around with a USB microscope to measure blade exposure on some of my razors. I thought it might be interesting to see what whiskers look like with 48hrs growth, and what it looks like right after a shave. This wasn't a perfect BBS shave, but it was pretty damn close. Also, it's probably not the exact same spot but its the same neighborhood on my chin. The razor used was a Lupo .95 SB loaded with a German Blue Israeli Red (German Personna Platinum Chrome ).

It might be interesting to see what a Mamba .53 shave looks like compared to a Lupo .95 SB next. At any rate, here is what it looks like under a microscope.

Before:

After:

 

[Shutterbug57]

Interesting.

 

[Pressroll]

Gross.... but very intriguing!

 

[thombrogan]

What @Pressroll said. Thanks!

 

[Dovo1695]

Gross.... but very intriguing!

I had pretty much the same reaction. Anything for science.

 

[rbscebu]

I find the "before" pic interesting. It shows the angle that the whiskers were cut at with the previous shave. Was that WTG, XTG or ATG?

 

[Dovo1695]

I find the "before" pic interesting. It shows the angle that the whiskers were cut at with the previous shave. Was that WTG, XTG or ATG?

I thought that was interesting too. The prior shave was a 1.5 pass shave with a Feather Popular razor loaded with a Personna. The pass was North to South, it was largely WTG in that section of whiskers. I think it was tree-topping them.

 

[dfs]

Maybe it's just artifact, but the BBS pics kind of look like little sores. Makes me rethink that close shave mantra.

 

[Ravenonrock]

That’s disturbing.

 

[M_Bro]

Maybe it's just artifact, but the BBS pics kind of look like little sores. Makes me rethink that close shave mantra.

Yes, I totally agree. I thought it would be more smooth skin surface after BBS.

 

[NoScrubs]

The photo makes me believe that if my shaved skin could talk it would be screaming for me to stop. Ouch!

 

[Lefonque]

Ouch

 

[Shutterbug57]

Maybe it's just artifact, but the BBS pics kind of look like little sores. Makes me rethink that close shave mantra.

I think the dark spots are just the ends of hairs. They are the same color as in the before shot.

 

[Slock]

I'm pretty sure if you took microscopic pictures of my uncooked salmon dinner I would never eat salmon again.

 

[Barbarian80]

Makes me rethink that close shave mantra.

Exactly. Now we can see why ingrown hairs are far more likely with BBS

 

[macintoshBR]

İnteresting. I'd be curious to see the BBS picture from a shave with multi-blade cartridge

 

[xiletero]

İnteresting. I'd be curious to see the BBS picture from a shave with multi-blade cartridge

I bet it would be closer and the cuts more uniform......

 

[RenoRichard]

Neat pictures- thanks for sharing; shows a few things we likely all knew intuitively- our beards do not grow perfectly regular, pigmentation in hairs varies, the angle of cut from a safety razor DE, and it was an excellent shave. I think hair tips should be right at the skin line, otherwise you risk ingrown hair. Seems @Dovo1695 has a bit of curve to his whiskers- do you have straight or curly hair?

I bet it would be closer and the cuts more uniform......

Cartridge closer and more uniform? If so, we'd all likely be shaving that way

 

[xiletero]

I think there are some Gillette research videos that show pre and post shaves w multi blades..... . They have great labs to study these things.....not empirical data.

 

[BigJ]

Great photos! This really illustrates that BBS is very close to (or a wee bit below) the skin!!