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Your Regrettable Purchases?

Any tips? Let it bloom? Start wetter, drier?
Sorry, for the late response.

I bloom the soap and soak brush for 5-10 minutes, or however long it takes me to shower. I squeeze the water out of the brush by hand, then squeeze the brush again with a dry towel. I leave the bloom water on the pick and start loading the brush. I use a very small amount of water for blooming, about 8 drops, just enough to require using my fingers to spread the water over the rest of the puck. Sometimes I need to add water as I go. It is still a work in progress, but that is my current method. I actually like experimenting with how I load various soaps. Trumper's hard soaps take the most effort with my water.
 
Buying my Gillette Ambassador BNIB Gold plated 1966 dated. Got it for £175 then found out it could be worth up to £350. Can't face using it. Would have done if i had overpaid!!
 
Tabac. I can live with essence of grandma's handbag, that calms down soon enough. But after 18 hours or so I can pick up on essence of dirty ashtray and THAT, I cannot live with.
 
M

mtcn77

Tabac. I can live with essence of grandma's handbag, that calms down soon enough. But after 18 hours or so I can pick up on essence of dirty ashtray and THAT, I cannot live with.
I get a feeling this is something I don't smell, but I never wet the puck since I fear that would spoil its constituents.

The way I deal with never wetting the puck is, I skive thin flakes of it to which I apply the hot brush. It becomes as easy as the translucency of your soap flakes if you took paper thick slices.
 

Tirvine

ancient grey sweatophile
It was not always that my regrettable purchases were bad but that they were precursors to much better purchases. Every razor I ever bought, no matter how good, makes me regret not discovering and buying the ATT Windsor first. Every puck of soap was lovely, but MdC Fougere is markedly better than all of them. Same story for the Chubby in best. I will plead guilty to having bought some blades I just did not like, but even those purchases were adequate although not as good as blades I discovered later. It is a journey, and B and B is a wonderful guide and companion.
 
Tabac. I can live with essence of grandma's handbag, that calms down soon enough. But after 18 hours or so I can pick up on essence of dirty ashtray and THAT, I cannot live with.

After over three years of wet shaving, I finally bought a stick of Tabac, and have to say that while the lather is not the most richest/thickest it provides amazing protection. Not my favorite scent, but I can certainly live with it. You might try removing the lid and putting soap somewhere you can't smell it - like your garage - to see if the scent dissipates.
 
Synthetic house brand shaving brush from West Coast Shaving. I’ve bought a lot of great products from WCS, but the Ancient Stone Synthetic Brush was a stinker. At $20, I didn’t waste much.
 

Eben Stone

Staff member
My only advice: don't quite ride the cap, just lift it away a little bit. It REALLY likes Gillette Silver Blue blades, but what razor doesn't? I'm convinced it is the best razor ever made, and it's ALL @Tanuki 's fault! He gave me one and it cured my RAD!

I tried the GNLC + GSB today and achieved a great shave. Got some weepers, probably because I'm not used to steep angle and I have no familiarity with this razor yet.

Don't ride the cap, experiment a bit. Try a steep angle. You will want a very slick lather.

Thanks. This razor definately seems to like steep angle. Probably not something I would have tried, considering I'm very accustomed to riding the cap with my other razors.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
Buying my Gillette Ambassador BNIB Gold plated 1966 dated. Got it for £175 then found out it could be worth up to £350. Can't face using it. Would have done if i had overpaid!!
Good point. I'm sorry I missed this post earlier.
 
I think I've figured out my problem with the New LC. There is no blade feel. With all my other razors I typically adjust the pressure so I can feel a certain amount of blade. Thats why I prefer "aggressive" razors. So far that's worked out pretty well for me. I have no desire to use a razor where I can't feel the blade.

I'll give the New LC another try after I complete 30 shaves with my Feather AC SS.
Might be a blade issue. I discovered that Gillette Thin from Thailand don't work for me......used this razor x 2 and bled (I almost never bleed), used the same blade in R89 bled, also 2 others. New LC seems to work fine w Crystal and Russian PG blades for me.
 
200 gillette nacet blades, i dont regret it because its a bad blade, its more because i got way too many,
i mean ive now got about 400 de blades roughly (gone down from about 450 i think off the top of my head),
but its like such an overkill, i mean how am i going to get through all those blades?

well i suppose the nice thing is, i can just get one shave out of one blade and then toss it away tbh
 
200 gillette nacet blades, i dont regret it because its a bad blade, its more because i got way too many,
i mean ive now got about 400 de blades roughly (gone down from about 450 i think off the top of my head),
but its like such an overkill, i mean how am i going to get through all those blades?

well i suppose the nice thing is, i can just get one shave out of one blade and then toss it away tbh

Assuming 3 shaves per blade and one shave per day, 450 blades is only like 3.7 years. That's really not that long, in the grand scheme of things. It's not like blades go bad. As long as they're blades you'll use regularly, 400+ blades isn't unreasonable at all.
 
Fortunately not too many regrets in this hobby.

The "honorable mentions" would include:

Tabac aftershave
Proraso Green pre-shave cream
Pinaud Clubman aftershave

I couldn't stand the smell... It was a part of the learning curve nonetheless. Not a big waste.
 

Mike M

...but this one IS cracked.
Cheap brushes. I have tons of cheap brushes that never get used, are too cheap to sell and the postage for a PIF will be almost as expensive as the brush cost to ship.

The WS puck Mike M mentioned above as well. I bought 2 pucks as they are dirt cheap and it is absolute garbage. I might use them as shower soaps or just toss them.
I finally managed to 3017 my WS puck last month after just 5 years
 
Nothing I really regret getting. Just some stuff that I don’t like as much as some of the other things that I’ve gotten
 

luvmysuper

My elbows leak
Staff member
Didn't spend any money on it (the wife had it hidden in her baking drawer) but I regret using it.
Way too aggressive for me.

zatoba-walnut-bread-lame-zatoba-28034372272185_2048x.jpg
 
Didn't spend any money on it (the wife had it hidden in her baking drawer) but I regret using it.
Way too aggressive for me.

View attachment 1298915
I think the reason it was in the baking drawer is that it’s a lame used in bread making. You use it to cut slits in the top of the loaf of bread to allow gas to escape and even expansion during the baking process
 
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