When should I start experimenting with blades and new razor?

[Life Is A Dream]

So I've done about 10 shaves since (re?) starting by DE shaving journey.

My first and current setup:

Razor: Pearl L55 Open Comb

Blade: Gillette Wilkinson Sword Saloon Pack (India)

Brush: Bombay Shaving Company Synthetic Brush (no idea about knot size etc.)

Lather: Bombay Shaving Company Shaving Cream and Trigodon Wild Seas Shaving Soap

Post shave: Bombay Shaving Company Post Shave Balm or Anherb Post Shave Balm

I have no trouble with cheeks, mustache and chin area but I always get a few blood spots in one side of my neck. Of the ~15 shaves I've done, I've managed to do a completely nick free and DFS shave only once. I cannot go against the grain. I think I am bad at the angle and cannot do the underside thing just properly yet. Every shave I try a little bit and seem to getting the hang until it tugs and I decided to stop because I'm already in my 3rd pass and feel quite a bit of burn.

I don't want a BBS shave, but I do want to try and get something close to a BBS if that makes sense. WTG is no issue, but I have to be super careful in the neck area. XTG is doable but ATG is a no go mostly.

I have a mole which got nicked really badly (bleeding didn't stop for a good 15 minutes) when I tried the L55 Closed Comb head because I heard that OC = lots of hair and CC = little hair. I now realize how much nonsense that advice is. OC or CC has nothing to do with aggression. I immediately noticed the blade gap in the CC head is huge compared to very little gap on the OC head. Since that one bad nick I'm scared to use the CC.

Pearl, on their site, claim the gap on the L55 is 0.8 mm but I doubt how accurate it is and whether it is for the OC or the CC head is not mentioned.

I tried changing the blade just once (when I tried the CC and got the bad nick) where I used the Gillette 7 o' clock Permasharp India.

Sorry for the longish "write up", but if you're still with me - my questions are:

1. How long should I shave with my current setup before changing the razor and/or the blade?
2. Is it better to use alum block or use an aftershave with alcohol to prevent infection?
3. Do you folks continue shaving, applying soap/cream over nicks to do another pass? I tried it but the pass always feel half-hearted and very delicate.

I always hear of expensive razors being 'smooth', 'more efficient' etc., and although I don't have experience with any, I am keeping my hopes tempered but still tempted to try some some day . Most expensive products (not just in shaving) tend to always underwhelm me. But having said this, I'm not sure if Pearl L55 is suitable for beginners. I did not go with the most mildest safety razors here because my shave frequency varies wildly (from 1 to 2 days to over 12 days) and I did not want to spend a huge deal upfront on an adjustables (only Pearl Flexi or Parker Variant available here and I keep seeing bad reviews for both of them, although it could be my confirmation bias).

 

[Galaktus]

I would suggest several months before you start experimenting with different hardware. Pay a lot of attention to shave angle. I've been doing this for 20ish years, and still find myself learning to pay close attention to the angle of the razor after switching razors.
We've all been in your shoes, and I can assure you there is no "magic bullet" that will give you a superb BBS nick and weeper free shave by itself. The key is how you operate the hardware. And you learn that by experience. There aren't any shortcuts.

 

[blethenstrom]

I am so happy that you are doing well. Seem like you have had a fairly normal first 10-15 shaves. Looks like you have found that you have some areas that are causing you trouble. This is normal. We all have areas that are more challenging than others. Let me see if I can help you with your questions.

1. How long should I shave with my current setup before changing the razor and/or the blade?

A: Personally I recommend that you stick with your setup for a good month or two. This of course depend on how often you shave. I would say try to do at least 50 shaves and preferably more before you start venturing out from your norm. Now You should of course change blade much more often than that. If it start feeling rough or tugging just change it to a new one. You may even what to change every 3 shaves or so weather or not you feel that it needs it, just to be on the safe side. They are inexpensive and there is no point in trying to squeeze out everything out of them at this point of time. This extended time period also allow your skin to adapt to your new routine of wet shaving. It will feel rougher in the beginning when you start this out. This is fully normal.

2. Is it better to use alum block or use an aftershave with alcohol to prevent infection?

I use both. they have kind of a different purposes. The alum block does help with killing bacteria, but it is also an astringent that help close your pores. Normally your pre shave, weather it be a shower, pre shave oil, pre shave soap etc etc is to soften your whiskers, but also open your pores. The Alum will help closing them and will also help stifle small weepers. If you have a nick however you need a styptic pencil, which I recommend that you have to hand so you do not end up with pieces of toilet paper on your face. It is your choice regarding after shave. Some do not use it at all many do. you can also use an after shave balm. The world is your oyster. You have to find what works for you. Many does not even use an alum block.

3. Do you folks continue shaving, applying soap/cream over nicks to do another pass? I tried it but the pass always feel half-hearted and very delicate.

I try to complete my shave even over the weeper and if it is a smallish nick. This is all up to you how you want to handle that.

Hope that helped
-Boris

 

[Life Is A Dream]

The alum block does help with killing bacteria, but it is also an astringent that help close your pores. Normally your pre shave, weather it be a shower, pre shave oil, pre shave soap etc etc is to soften your whiskers, but also open your pores. The Alum will help closing them and will also help stifle small weepers. If you have a nick however you need a styptic pencil, which I recommend that you have to hand so you do not end up with pieces of toilet paper on your face.

I will look into the styptic pencil and if it is available here. Will get it along with an alum block as well.

Thanks for the overall info!

 

[BigJ]

Congratulations on your progress!! And I also commend you on your restraint.

I would start with a blade sampler or two once you feel your technique is reasonably solid.

 

[musicman1951]

First thing - stop cutting yourself.

How was that for helpful? But seriously, if you do what you did you'll get what you got - so do some experimenting. Try to use even less pressure and try different razor angles. Tiny adjustments, until you make blood less of a regular part of your shaving experience.

I would not experiment with new razors and blades until you lower the frequency of the nicks (which I hope are only weepers) - unless you believe the blade or the razor are simply not the right choice for your face and beard.

You might want to consider one or two WTG daily passes for a while. The beard would be consistent and you should be able to do one or two WTG passes with little to no blood. When that's going well I'd go with a second XTG pass.

But there are no rules about this, and you might find a big improvement in your shaves with a different razor. I believe at this point it's much more a question of finding the best level of aggression in a razor for your face/beard, rather than an expensive razor. Lot's of shavers here getting great shaves with sub $50 razors.

 

[borwish]

I also have a very sensitive neck and the best practice for me is to go wtg, diagonal wtg from one side and then from the other.

I like the Indian Gillette Wilkinson Sword Saloon blades. I find them to be quite smooth and they are one of my favorites.

An inexpensive and smooth razor is the Yaqi Mellon. You may be able to order it from China for not much cost. It was my daily driver for a few months.

I assume you are in India. I enjoy the previously mentioned blades, India made Old Spice shaving cream, and the Parker Semi-slant razor. The Parker isn't as smooth as the Mellon, but might be more available there while also giving a closer shave more easily.

As for myself, I switched to another razor pretty soon even though it isn't generally recommend and am glad that I did. My second razor performed better than my first.

 

[slimshavy]

I think 15 shaves is a long enough time shaving for you to start trying new things. I'd definitely try different blades. (I could shave 15,000 times with the Gillette Wilkinson Sword blades and never get a great shave. They're just blades that don't agree with me.) If you can get a blade sampler, do that. You might find a blade or two that just work for you. Later, when your technique is better, you might return to the blades you didn't like and find they work better.
It's the same with razors, although they're more expensive to experiment with. But if you can try a different razor, do it. You'll learn more about your own technique when you discover the differences between razors and how to adapt.

 

[blade08]

Don't buy any new gear but try to improve your shaves with what you have. 10-15 shaves is far too few to develop your muscle memory. At will come with time but only if you don't get distracted by new gear all the time. From what I recall it took me about six months of daily shaving with a DE before got 'good' at it.

 

[T Bone]

I think 15 shaves is a long enough time shaving for you to start trying new things. I'd definitely try different blades. (I could shave 15,000 times with the Gillette Wilkinson Sword blades and never get a great shave. They're just blades that don't agree with me.) If you can get a blade sampler, do that. You might find a blade or two that just work for you. Later, when your technique is better, you might return to the blades you didn't like and find they work better.
It's the same with razors, although they're more expensive to experiment with. But if you can try a different razor, do it. You'll learn more about your own technique when you discover the differences between razors and how to adapt.

Agreed, at this point, a blade sampler would be a good thing. I might wait a bit longer before experimenting with razors, but I agree with the general premise - trying new razors helped improve my technique when I'd hit a ceiling with my first one. When you do start experimenting with new razors though, don't go crazy buying too many at once, spend at least a couple of weeks (or longer) getting used to each one.

 

[NorthernSoul]

I'd give it at least a month or six weeks holding things constant. It will pay off in the long run, as long as you can get decent results with your initial setup.

 

[Goblin]

First thing - stop cutting yourself.

....

I agree with basically everything @musicman1951 said.

If you are cutting yourself, you are making (hopefully) tiny lateral movements with the razor, whether you intend to or not.

Deliberately trying not to do this won't make any difference - it's practice and familiarity with this style of shaving that will eventually eliminate the nicks.

Once you "get good", you avoid nicks by having the shaving stroke in motion before the blade contacts the skin, but if you set out to do that as a beginner it will almost certainly not go well. It needs to come naturally with practice. And it will.

 

[abies]

There's really no rules. If you want to try a new razor or blades, that's totally reasonable. I think if you get to a point where you're getting frustrated it might be worth it over throwing in the towel or continuing frustrated. Your razor seems like it might be aggressive enough to explain some of your problems.

Having said that, it seems a little early to me, especially if you're cutting yourself that much. 10 shaves isn't that many in the grand scheme of things. So I suspect you might enjoy another razor more, or it might be easier for you, but it probably won't change things a whole lot.

Blades are probably worth experimenting with even now because they're consumed anyway, relatively inexpensive, can make a big difference, and are difficult to predict how they'll work for any given person and razor.

For what it's worth, I don't think of Pearl Flexis or Parker Variants as bad razors. Very much on the contrary: I think of them as good razors. I wish the Variant had a brass, aluminum, or stainless head but that's what they decided to do, and the Flexi I think suffered from a combination of issues on first release, and a bit of misunderstanding of who is copying what in razor design. My impression is Pearl addressed the issues with initial releases and has continued to improve the Flexi, which I think they deserve a lot of credit for. Are there better razors out there? That depends on you and what you want.

In general I think adjustables are underrated for people starting out but everyone goes through a different path in shaving.

 

[Edgelord]

I have another take.

Why not buy a commonly used mild beginner/daily driver razor like a Merkur 34C, 42C or 38C?

On top of that why not prioritize pre shave? Take a shower, then use a pre-shave oil, a good shaving cream, shave, use alum, and then use toner.

You will probably know how you did before you use the alum… but it will definitely tell you how did.

A hot towel does not work as well as a hot shower for me.

My shaves got better when I started using pre-shave oil.

I am about 50 shaves in, and I haven’t cut myself yet… but I definitely had some shaves with irritation and a couple of times I got razor bumps.

 

[Lockback]

Welcome to the Wonderful World Of Traditional Shaving.
FWIW, I have a Pearl Flexi and it has jumped to the top of the heap. It provides the smoothest and yet closest shaves I've ever achieved. Having said that, there were some quality control issues and Your Mileage May Vary, as they say.

 

[Wgg2017]

If you choose to explore new razors, one thing I've found that helps me with smoothness is having a razor that clamps down on the blade near the cutting edge. I don't have a particularly heavy beard but the whiskers I do have are thick.

For a visual example, compare your L55 to the Fatip Piccolo.

L55:

Fatip Piccolo (or clone):

The top cap on the piccolo clamps down on the base plate very close to the cutting edge. Whereas the L55 top cap does not touch the base plate anywhere near the cutting edge.

I find that, given my whisker characteristics, I get a much smoother shave from razors that are more like the Piccolo and clamp down on the blade than from razors like the L55.

Good luck and welcome to B&B!

 

[Life Is A Dream]

Thanks for all the suggestions folks, much appreciated

For now, I will try refine my technique further till I perfect my neck area. I can usually get a single, gentle pass WTG without nicks but I always go for another pass XTG or ATG (cheeky me, pun intended ) that is the source of my neck blood spots.

My beard profile is actually quite straight forward. Cheek north to south, mustache 45 degree angle north to south, neck from center goes outward towards the ear. So rather convenient. Only the very bottom of the neck I have south to north but that's just very few whiskers and don't cause problems either way. So I'm blessed to have a fairly straight forward hair growth direction!

An inexpensive and smooth razor is the Yaqi Mellon. You may be able to order it from China for not much cost. It was my daily driver for a few months.

Thanks for this suggestion. I will look into it. India banned AliExpress for a while now but I might be able to try get it through other channels. Also, I generally prefer to save up and buy the "good stuff" rather than buy many inexpensive items and end up not liking/using most of them. Merkur/Muhle might soon be available here through a local seller (no custom duty). They are still expensive but it gives me options to think about.

I have a pack of Gentleman Blades that came with my Pearl L55. Indian wetshavers reddit don't seem to rate it favorably, and so I've not yet tried them. But maybe I will like them. I often find myself in disagreement with prevailing opinion, though I don't bother to express my disagreement often.

Why not buy a commonly used mild beginner/daily driver razor like a Merkur 34C, 42C or 38C?

They are not available in India (without paying heavy import duties yet). The locally available mild razors here are Pristine 515, Feather Popular (plastic handle, slightly expensive), and the BSC razor (slippery handle). I could give one of these a try I suppose but some of them have alignment issues.

 

[Life Is A Dream]

The top cap on the piccolo clamps down on the base plate very close to the cutting edge. Whereas the L55 top cap does not touch the base plate anywhere near the cutting edge.

I find that, given my whisker characteristics, I get a much smoother shave from razors that are more like the Piccolo and clamp down on the blade than from razors like the L55.

So isn't that the blade gap being different? Are blade gap and clamp down connected in some way? I don't know much about the clamp and blade chatter but blade gap is something I understand. You're suggesting to get a razor with smaller blade gap?

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

So I've done about 10 shaves since (re?) starting by DE shaving journey.

My first and current setup:

Razor: Pearl L55 Open Comb

Blade: Gillette Wilkinson Sword Saloon Pack (India)

Brush: Bombay Shaving Company Synthetic Brush (no idea about knot size etc.)

Lather: Bombay Shaving Company Shaving Cream and Trigodon Wild Seas Shaving Soap

Post shave: Bombay Shaving Company Post Shave Balm or Anherb Post Shave Balm

I have no trouble with cheeks, mustache and chin area but I always get a few blood spots in one side of my neck. Of the ~15 shaves I've done, I've managed to do a completely nick free and DFS shave only once. I cannot go against the grain. I think I am bad at the angle and cannot do the underside thing just properly yet. Every shave I try a little bit and seem to getting the hang until it tugs and I decided to stop because I'm already in my 3rd pass and feel quite a bit of burn.

I don't want a BBS shave, but I do want to try and get something close to a BBS if that makes sense. WTG is no issue, but I have to be super careful in the neck area. XTG is doable but ATG is a no go mostly.

I have a mole which got nicked really badly (bleeding didn't stop for a good 15 minutes) when I tried the L55 Closed Comb head because I heard that OC = lots of hair and CC = little hair. I now realize how much nonsense that advice is. OC or CC has nothing to do with aggression. I immediately noticed the blade gap in the CC head is huge compared to very little gap on the OC head. Since that one bad nick I'm scared to use the CC.

Pearl, on their site, claim the gap on the L55 is 0.8 mm but I doubt how accurate it is and whether it is for the OC or the CC head is not mentioned.

I tried changing the blade just once (when I tried the CC and got the bad nick) where I used the Gillette 7 o' clock Permasharp India.

Sorry for the longish "write up", but if you're still with me - my questions are:

1. How long should I shave with my current setup before changing the razor and/or the blade?
2. Is it better to use alum block or use an aftershave with alcohol to prevent infection?
3. Do you folks continue shaving, applying soap/cream over nicks to do another pass? I tried it but the pass always feel half-hearted and very delicate.

I always hear of expensive razors being 'smooth', 'more efficient' etc., and although I don't have experience with any, I am keeping my hopes tempered but still tempted to try some some day . Most expensive products (not just in shaving) tend to always underwhelm me. But having said this, I'm not sure if Pearl L55 is suitable for beginners. I did not go with the most mildest safety razors here because my shave frequency varies wildly (from 1 to 2 days to over 12 days) and I did not want to spend a huge deal upfront on an adjustables (only Pearl Flexi or Parker Variant available here and I keep seeing bad reviews for both of them, although it could be my confirmation bias).

You're already doing so great, on your path to wet shaving enlightenment. I commend you on this, because your journey is fresh, and just getting good. I started my journey into traditional wet shaving, back in March of 2022. In another week from now, it will mark my 2nd full year on the journey. Trust me when I say, the journey gets better and better overtime.

Start out small just like you are doing, use the whisker reduction tools that you have, try out lots of blades and software. Eventually, you will increase your whisker reduction arsenal with more razor goodies, and then even more software, soaps and aftershaves. And the scents, oh my goodness the scents, they alone transform your world when applying them. You will go from a smooth face, to smelling so good.

You will even have people asking you what your wearing, cause they want that too. The only thing that limits your journey is yourself, and perhaps your countries varying import VAT's perhaps lol. So continue on friend, and always believe in yourself that you can do it, because I know you can! And thanks for sharing your story with us, we hear appreciate it, and any pictures that you upload of your gear.

 

[Life Is A Dream]

@Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker Thanks for the kind words. Yes, I recently went on a holiday trip and I look at the pictures. The days I shaved, made me both feel and look fresh and it even comes off in the pics. After many years of having a "don't care" stubble (due to exclusively only using an electric trimmer), I am digging the clean shaven look and feel. I am using an after shave balm, but I plan on using an after shave lotion followed by a balm soon