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3rd Annual February "One Blade" Challenge!

Tuesday
Razor: Rockwell 6C Plate 6
Blade: Wilkinson Sword (16)
Brush: Stirling Synthetic
Soap: WSP Barbershop
AS: ?????

Wednesday
Razor: Rockwell 6C Plate 6
Blade: Wilkinson Sword (17)
Brush: Sorrentino Caramel Swirl Synthetic
Soap: Stirling Hipster
AS: Stirling Hipster

Thursday
Razor: Rockwell 6C Plate 6
Blade: Wilkinson Sword (18)
Brush: Sorrentino Caramel Swirl Synthetic
Soap: Shaver Heaven Sensuous Sandalwood
AS: Avon Spicy

Friday
Razor: Rockwell 6C Plate 6
Blade: Wilkinson Sword (19)
Brush: Sorrentino Caramel Swirl Synthetic
Soap: Paladin Pythian Way
AS: Clubman

The Wilkinson Sword is still mowing down the whiskers smoothly and efficiently. Thinking about swapping out the razor again to see if I can find another good match.
 
Today is the final official day of the challenge, and I am glad that i made it. 28 shaves on this Nacet has taught me a bit:

1) A good blade is easily capable of more than a simple 3-5 shaves
2) If I stretch every Nacet this far I have 30 plus years of blades
3) A little bit of maintenance goes a long way on blade longevity
4) Mild razors make easy work of a long term use blade
5) Nacets are truly my favorite DE blade

A great challenge to accept as the lessons and skills are a boon to any shaver. I am looking forward to a break from this, but will revisit it later. Final SOTD of the month here
 
Saturday
Razor: Black Handle Super Speed
Blade: Wilkinson Sword (19)
Brush: Sorrentino Caramel Swirl Synthetic
Soap: CBL SIR Fougere
AS: Skin Bracer

Sunday
Razor: Black Handle Super Speed
Blade: Wilkinson Sword (20)
Brush: Sorrentino Caramel Swirl Synthetic
Soap: Stirling Hipster
AS: Stirling Hipster

Swapped out razors and went with my Gillette Black Handle Super Speed. The Wilkinson Sword seems to be a very good match for this razor as well, and that’s great since this is one of my favorite razors. I’m beginning to think this is either the best blade choice for me, or I have a freak blade that matches with whatever razor I put it in and won’t die. Either way I’m not complaining!
 
February 28, 2021

Final day of the one blade challenge. Today now marks two months in a row that I’ve stuck to using just one blade. Got 26 shaves in this month, so I’ll keep this blade going a bit further as long as it still feels comfortable.
Brush: Simpson Emperor 3 SiLVERTiP
Soap: CBL Sir Irish
Razor: PAA El Fantasma
Blade: Wilkinson Sword ⚔️ (26)
C13A427A-8E33-4F1B-807B-9426AC92103A.jpeg
 
So i missed 7 shaves over the coarse of the month with left me at 21 shaves on the Feather. It is still going strong and got use 22 in thing morning. I plan on sticking with it until my Williams 3017 is complete, or if it tanks before that for some reason. Assuming it is still good at that point i will take a break for a few shaves to change things up and then start putting more shaves on it.
 
Missed a couple of shaves in February so this Lab Blue has gone for 26 shaves thus far. I've had similar learnings to @OpusX :
  • Blades can easily go past my "arbitrary" 5 shaves before typically binning
  • Binning a blade after one bad shave is probably more oftentimes due to user error than the blade needing replacement
  • I have 15+ years of Lab Blues if I only used one blade a month!!
The real question is will this change my normal 5 and bin habit? I'm not sure. Blades are so cheap and sometimes a little variety on the blade front keeps things interesting. But this was a fantastic exercise regardless of outcome and I'll continue to use this Lab Blue until it doesn't deliver comfortable shaves.
 
I normally shave approximately every other day so I only put 15 shaves on this blade, but it was enough to learn some things. I echo what @Fightingillini22 and @OpusX have said, other than I was using a Wizamet blade.

1) A little bit of maintenance goes a long way on blade longevity
2) A good blade is easily capable of more than a simple 3-5 shaves
3) Binning a blade after one bad shave is probably more often times due to user error than the blade needing replacement

Thanks for the challenge @Spider it was certainly well worth doing.
 
I’ve been thinking about what I learned, and I know this was supposed to be all about the blade, and while I hate to say it, I learned more about the razor I used all month than the blade. I knew I liked the Wilkinson Sword (it’s been my go-to blade for years), and I was pretty sure it could go the distance since I routinely get 1-2 weeks out of a blade normally and was binning it just to “start the week fresh” not because of any performance decline.

What I didn’t know was just how awesome slant razors can be! By choosing to use the PAA El Fantasma all month I was able to get to work towards having a very light touch and dial in this razor quite a bit. This little plastic glow-in-the-dark shaver was eventually getting me smoother on my upper lip than many of my fancier razors (which I bought at a much higher price point).
D5352A7A-7CE3-4B84-A8FE-7DFFB047409E.jpeg216D4B81-AEEF-4DDD-B893-483427EEE5C1.jpegIt’s kicked off a bit of a slant mania for me at the moment, and I hope to play with a bunch of slants in the month of March.

So, thanks @Spider for suggesting this challenge and encouraging us to stick to one razor and one blade.
 
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I'm glad your guys enjoyed this challenge and that you learned something. That's the goal here.... constant improvement.

You hear this in a lot of areas, especially our work centers, but when someone asks why we do things a certain way, the answer is often, because we've always done it that way. When that is the answer and there's no good reason for doing it that certain way, it's time to challenge the status quo. So, why do you toss your blade after 3 shaves? "Well, that's just the way I've always done it" is NOT an acceptable answer. And the answer that bothers me the most is, well blades are cheap so why not get a fresh one before it goes bad. That is a wasteful mindset. Would you rather put 12 blades in a landfill per year or 120 blades every year? Still not a big deal right, they're thin. Well now just think if everyone did that.... I just hate being wasteful, and if I can stretch my blades out for a month or two, then I think I've helped, at least a little bit.

Now as for my feather blade. I did have a couple minorly rough shaves after about 2 weeks, and I was worried that it was going to go downhill and my challenge was going to be ruined. Well, I pushed through and at the 3-4 week point my blade felt like it settled out and ready for the long haul. I feel like my blade has reached it's equilibrium point where it wont change for a long while and I can expect every shave for the foreseeable future to just like today's shave. That's where I like my blades to be!
 
I ended up doing this challenge with out realizing I was participating. I pulled a new Wilkinson Sword blade out of the pack in the last few days of January and just kept using it until I noticed this morning that it was still giving nice, close shaves. I never even thought about trying a blade for this many shaves. It's now over 25 shaves. I don't shave every day and I don't always remember to count how many shaves per blade but I'll say that this blade has held up consistently for the entire month. I keep seeing comments about hand stropping and if someone could fill me in on how that works, I'll give that a try. Thanks.
 
heysi said:
I keep seeing comments about hand stropping and if someone could fill me in on how that works, I'll give that a try. Thanks.
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Congrats on completing the Challenge!

I only mentioned Palm Stropping, because it was a bingo call, lol. I've tried it before, but never saw the benefit. But I'd have to do a side by side comparison of stropped vs non-stropped to test it.

Either way, you take your blade out and hold it in the middle and just pull the edge across the meaty part of your palm at the base of your thumb. A few passes on each side.
 
So it’s been March for a week. Anybody still using the same blade?
I got shave #33 from my Wilkinson Sword ⚔️ today. Still very smooth and sharp.
 
Moved my Wizamet into the Aristocrat and continuing on. Because I don’t shave every day the shave count is kind of low at 9.
 
Shave 24 on the feather this morning was as great as ever. took down 3 days of growth like it was never there.
 
Another week of shaving in the books. Time for a check in. Took my Wilkinson Sword ⚔️ to shave 40 today. Felt a little drop in sharpness when using my RR Wunderbar earlier in the week, but changed to a different razor and now I don’t notice a difference.
 
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