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An Unexpected Journey: A Newbie's Walk In Wet Shaving

DocHoliday0831 said:
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Cool to hear that! I see TSC guys with whole bathrooms and shelves upon shelves of shaving stuff thinking that was the standard. I can't see myself getting there, but I'm guessing all of you said that at some point and now you are hiding soaps from your wife
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Blade-meister said:
Cool to hear that! I see TSC guys with whole bathrooms and shelves upon shelves of shaving stuff thinking that was the standard. I can't see myself getting there, but I'm guessing all of you said that at some point and now you are hiding soaps from your wife
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Im not married, but the rest is true. Never thought I’d have a big den, but here I am 8 years later with display cases full of my collection and shelves in my closet holding my soaps and aftershaves!
 
Caught back up. Great shaves and nice den! I’ve heard some around here have all kinds of hiding spots and secret rooms to stash gear ? I lean more to the minimalist side and purge things when they don’t get used often.
 
Sunday I decided to do a shower shave to save time as it's a busy morning for all of us.

Today's Shave: Shave #45

Razor: QShave (Merkur Futur Clone) DE
Blade: Gillette Rubie Plus
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: What The Puck Barber Shop Blue
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Shower / wash with soap
Total Razor on Face Time: 9 minutes

Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse, Dry face, then immediately applied Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting, rubbing left over soap on the neck then rinsing.

Being non-tallow, this soap works great in the shower so I whipped up a nice thick lather and left it in the bowl outside the hot shower. WTG pass was great set at about 2.0 on the razor. I must admit, I love how a warm rinse feels. XTG pass was a little rough feeling. It became evident that the Rubie was at its last shave. ATG was a little rough too, but I went carefully and slowly. Did some blade buffing at 1.8 or so and used the cart to do the ATG on the top lip to avoid setting it on fire using the Rubie that should have been tossed.

One thing I've noticed is that mammoth painting doesn't work well when shaving in the shower so I decided to paint the mammoth and leave the soap on for a rinse after getting out and drying off. That's the trick to getting the scent to last all day if shower shaving. It's a bit awkward leaving it there while you dry, but hey, the things you do to smell nice
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Overall, not a bad shave and BBS or DFS+ in most areas. When your WH splash has any sting to it, you know you did some damage.

So Monday, it's back to work. When the alarm went off the body wanted to stay in bed a little longer but the shave got me out right after the alarm shut off. Back to MW Bay Rum today. Given the rough feeling shave from the Rubie yesterday I had to take it easy.

Today's Shave: Shave #46

Razor: QShave (Merkur Futur Clone) DE
Blade: Gillette Nacet
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Water Bay Rum
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Shower / wash with soap
Total Razor on Face Time: 18 minutes

Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse, Dry face, then immediately applied Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting, rubbing left over soap on the neck then rinsing.

A beautiful bowl of Bay Rum richness was lathered up and a new blade slipped in the QShave. Not thinking it through I left the razor setting at 2.0 so I didn't get as close as I wanted.

WTG was nice but my dance with Rubie yesterday let me know I'd better take it easy today. XTG was good, but somehow I got off my passes and missed the nose to ear XTG pass and only did the ear to nose pass so I only got DFS+ on that side. ATG was good and I didn't hassle it by really trying to go for BBS. I did very minimal blad buffing. Overall, DFS / DFS+ all over. I could have probably jacked the razor setting up to 2.5 with the Nacet blade, but I didn't want to push it once I realized it was still at 2.0. I've found for my face it's better to back off one day rather than chase BBS again and get irritation that would cause you to have to not shave for a day or only do a one pass shave just to get out the door looking presentable. Love the Bay Rum!

On the personal side, back to work after being off for 10 days. Lots of surprises waiting for me!
 
Today I think I got my first bad blade. If you check out yesterday's journal you'll note that I thought I forgot an XTG pass on one side of my face, but today I was looking at the blade gap on the Q-Shave and it was not the same on each side.

Today's Shave: Shave #47

Razor: QShave (Merkur Futur Clone) DE
Blade: Gillette Nacet
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Water Bay Rum
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Shower / wash with soap
Total Razor on Face Time: 14 minutes

Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse, Dry face, then immediately applied Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting, rubbing left over soap on the neck then rinsing.

So let's get right to the interesting part of this shave which was the blade issue. My WTG pass seemed oddly rougher on one side of my face vs. the other when I rinsed. In general it felt really crappy too, like using a rake to shave my face. I looked at my razor and found the gap looked drastically different, so I popped the cap off and checked everything then reinserted the blade. Dang! still off. I lathered up and went for my XTG and when I used the really close side it was like I was shaving with a razor that had no blade in it while the other side felt really aggressive. I popped the cap off and repeated the blade insertion. Still off which is weird because I've never had this problem with any other blade or the last Nacet I used. I finished shaving with the more aggressively gaped side after backing the razor setting down to 2.0 from 2.3. Still felt bad on the face and I almost just tossed the blade before going for the ATG pass. I did no clean-up work with the QShave as my face felt like it had been peeled pretty good so I got out the cart to touch things up.

Post shave felt terrible. WH stung quite a bit and reminded me of my earliest shaving days. I took care to grab some soap left over from the mammoth painting and carefully rubbed that on the neck and did a light cold water rinse. The funny thing is, I did get BBS with maybe a DFS+ on the top lip and the shave just kept feeling better and better as the morning went on. No real irritation to speak of and a better shave than yesterday for sure. I'll be putting in a different blade tomorrow and checking the gap to see if its equal on both sides. If not, then maybe the Qshave razor is having an issue. If it's the razor, I'll need input on how to fix that issue.

One thing I forgot to note is that if you have significant enough chest hair growth and want to try mammoth painting, here's the process I find works best:

  • After your last pass and rinse, take what is left in your lather bowl and work it into your chest hairs with your brush. Use as much as possible swirling it in all directions
  • Next I do my witch hazel splash, let it sit on my face while I clean up the bowl, razor & brush / but away my shaving soap / get out my A/S balm (putting the razor away removes any idea of shaving the chest
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    )
  • After I cold water splash the face to rinse off the witch hazel, I pull up some of the lather and lightly rub it back in on my neck.
  • Now it's rinse time. You have to use COLD water to get the max mammoth painting effect. I rinse the the soap upward toward my neck. I don't over-rinse either. You want the soap to rinse off, but you don't want to be squeaky clean either.
  • Then I pat dry the chest and enjoy the scent all day.
That's mammoth painting in a nutshell. If you haven't tried it once, you need to. If you are chest hair challenged, this probably won't work for you and you'd be more painting the dolphin
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or in some cases Gollum's head

 
GearNoir said:
Sorry the shave was so rough, hope you get the issue worked out!

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That was awesome Chris! I should print it out and put that inside my shaving cabinet
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NurseDave said:
There is one dude that REALLY enjoys his own chest hair.
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Well Dave, I do love their ability to hold onto scent that's about it.
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I think it's a good running bit of humor too. If it makes someone chuckle once or twice that's a good thing. I don't expect it catch on, but those with chest carpet who haven't tried it out yet are missing out or else they are afraid of becoming part of the mammoth pack
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I'm thinking my first PIF after the holidays will involve mammoth painting as a requirement to enter
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Wednesdays are my no time to wet shave days usually so it was straight on cart shaving in the shower. Man I got a great shave. All I've learned about beard growth direction really allows me to get a super great shave with a cart now. BBS all over.

Post shave I did a little something different. I left my face and chest wet and rubbed some MW Bay Rum soap onto my fingers and soaped up my face and mammoth painted (sort of). I rinsed the face with cold water and then went right into the witch hazel splash. I let the soap sit on the chest and rinsed that last. After a cold water splash to tone down the WH I rubbed a little more Bay Rum soap on my fingers and soaped up the face. After another cold water splash I followed up with the Nivea AS Balm. Man my face felt great. Even though I didn't wet shave this morning, I left the house feeling like I had and smelling great. Why miss out on that?
 
Blade-meister said:
I'm thinking my first PIF after the holidays will involve mammoth painting as a requirement to enter
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Hey, I am NOT rubbing soap on your chest just to win a prize. Well, unless it's like soap or a razor or a brush or something.
 
I tried your mammoth painting technique and was excited that I got all 15 hairs! That is, until I realized that 3 of them were from the brush shedding.....
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