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

Today I pulled the ripcord on the 2 pass shave. I think it went pretty well.

Today's Shave: Shave #61

Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle
Blade: Gillette Super Blue
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Water Bay Rum
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Wash with soap in the shower
Total Razor on Face Time: 9 minutes

Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Dry face, a splash of Uncle Jon's Gravity aftershave, applied Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting.

I actually woke up
excited about trying the 2 pass shave for some reason. I did my usual lather of MW, took a shower, and then got right to it. I debated back and forth which two passes to choose so I went back and reviewed the thread I started asking this very question (https://www.theshavingcadre.com/post/you-can-only-have-two-9878450?pid=1305856131). Seems the consensus was a WTG & XTG pass was favored by TSC who replied in the the thread, so that's what I went with.

WTG pass was great. I had the razor set at 2.0 just to see how it went. It actually felt much smoother than the 1.5 setting I normally start out on. After a rinse it felt pretty good, a tad smoother than normal which I think is due to increasing the razor setting. XTG I jumped the razor up to 2.3 or so. Wow, even smoother! The razor seemed to glide better and cut more effortlessly. I confess, I did cheat on this pass and did some clean-up as I went but finally slapped my hand and quit shaving. Overall, my face was DFS for sure and my neck was CCS / CCS-. No redness and no irritation. In fact, the redness is going away that was caused by that last rough shave. Though the shave didn't feel BBS like I prefer, my face looked super great - like I had a great close shave. I don't prefer my neck being this rough, but I think that if I try different XTG passes I might find a hybrid that gets me to that DFS goal. I think I'm understanding what everyone has been telling me (finally!) about letting the BBS happen on it's own - let it develop. I'm thinking that every other day I will do this 2 pass shave routine just to see where it goes. I had to laugh, my wife got up to jump in the shower and I was all done, cleaned up, and out fixing my breakfast. She stopped and said "You're done already!?" She just about fell over
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The 2 pass shave just about cut my shave time in half. That's good to know. I used to reach for the cart on days where I'm pinched for time, but now I know I can get a decent shave and be out the door if I have to.

The only downside to this shave was the Uncle Jon's AS. I really liked the scent smelling right out of the bottle and it felt heavenly when applied so I even put some on my neck without any redness or irritation. The Gravity scent really smelled good going on but as it dried I got a heavy floral like scent that seemed to linger so I did a rinse with cold water but I think that made it worse. Then I somehow got a little bit of the rinsed stuff in my mouth and the taste reminded me of old lady perfume that just makes you want to run. I'm thinking my rinse really screwed up what this stuff ages into so I'm not totally ruling this AS out. I have to get a quick shout out to Dangerous Don and thank him for PIFing me a box of stuff that included the U. Jon's AS - dang you were generous and I will do a full photo and unpack on the mail call thread. I barely had time to open the box and look at everything last night - so thanks Don!!!

On the personal side, I had my monthly gathering of local flintknappers to my shop last night. What a great time! We had show & tell, some good eating of deer bologna, brownies, cheese, crackers, and some good knapping. I made a 6 1/4 inch blade, a serrated point, and showed off another point I'd made at a class I taught. Another guy brought the new rifle he just bought so we could all check it out. Another guy brought some artifacts he found this fall so we could handle them. I showed off my cane (pictures coming sometime this weekend) and the knife I forged that's not finished. The other guys made several flint points as well.

The bologna was special. It was made by the flintknapping brother we lost this year to cancer. As we ate it we talked about Gene and the good times we all had. Our group was good medicine for Gene because he was an EOD for Special Operations groups like SEALs & Delta's. He suffered with a lot PTSD, but our group helped with that. He was a good man and oh how he would have laughed at us for eating his bologna and being sappy about our memories of him. He would of told us to stop it and get to making something that can be put on a stick to kill something.
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Looks like you are falling for the Variant.

If you like the Uncle Jon's Gravity he just released EdP last night. $24.99 is a heck of a price!
 
As promised, here are pictures of my finished cane. Not the greatest pictures but it gives you an idea of what it looks like. I also included a picture of the points I made the other night with my knapping bros.







 
Very cool looking cane! Love the design work on the spike.

Those points are awesome too!
 
That is awesome work Mike, on both the cane and knapping! Great job aging the wood.
 
A couple of days of great shaves.

Today's Shave: Shave #62 & #63

Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle
Blade: Gillette Super Blue
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Water Bay Rum
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Wash with soap in the shower
Total Razor on Face Time: 15 minutes

Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Dried face and immediately applied Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting.

Saturday was a
family get together so I really spent some time to get the shave I was looking for. After a nice lather and a new SB blade I went to work on my 2 day growth. I set the razor at 2.0 and left it there the whole time shaving. WTG pass felt like true heaven as the Variant plowed right through my beard growth. XTG pass I set the razor at 2.5 just to see what would happen. That's the highest I've set any adjustable razor I've used. The pass went great. For ATG pass I lowered the razor back to 2.0 just to be cautious, even using the Variant on the neck. Call me crazy, but it seems the higher I set the razor, the smoother the shave goes without irritation. One theory could be that I'm going slower thinking I don't want to nick myself, but I think something else is going on that I don't quite understand yet. I dialed the razor back to 1.5 and did a few minutes of clean-up. Excellent shave, and I rolled into the family function BBS all over.

What I Changed: Razor setting was maintained at 2.0 and set at 2.5 on the XTG pass.

Yup, my brothers all just looked at me like I was a weirdo with a third eye when I brought the topic of wet shaving up. Hey I get it, a few month ago I thought the same thing. It was interesting though because my older brother said that he only shaves once N-S because anymore and that's what causes ingrown hairs. My other brother just talked about what a chore if was to shave and said he might do it only once a week and only with his beard trimmer set as low as it can go.....OUCH
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I told both how their shaves could be enjoyable but they weren't getting it. Dollar shave club was a close as any of them would get to an improved shaving experience. You kinda feel sad for guys out there with bad shaves. With my cart routine, I was still getting great shaves at least. Oh well, I thought that was interesting. I guess I was wandering outside the wet shave castle not too long ago.

Sundays are busy mornings, but I got up 30 minutes early so I could get in a quality shave this morning. Pretty much the same experience with my passes as on Saturday. Again, I noticed less irritation the higher I set the Variant so I'm still thinking about why this is happening and I'm betting some of you out there can explain it. I think eventually I will be settling in at a setting of around 3 for this razor. I will say today that my concentration was on a very light to non-existent pressure and I really watched the angle of my razor. I realized that many times I wasn't tilting my head so that I can see what angle my razor is at. When I did this I noticed I had a tendency to push the razor angle forward toward the guard when I reached the jaw line heading down toward the neck. I bullfrogged my neck so I had a flatish surface and maintained the proper angle as I transitioned over the jaw line and down to the neck.

Another observation I've seen in the last week is that with the heat on so much because of the cold, my face is drying out super fast after I make a pass. I'm finding I have to rinse my blade more often just to make sure I don't hit a dry spot on my face. This especially applied to my clean-up today as the remaining soap tends to want to dry out on my so I'd keep splashing water on it and dip my left hand in the remaining soap in the lathering bowl to use to sort of rub and feel where the clean-up needs to happen. BBS shave this morning that felt great and still feels great this afternoon.

The last thing I'm thinking about is my lathering bowl. It's not textured but when I got it, it wasn't exactly glass smooth inside but now it's taken a polish of sorts. I'm thinking of forging a metal loop to heat up and add lather building lines to the inside. The reason I'm thinking about doing this is because when I'm lathering, it's all getting sucked up into the brush. I have to squeegee out the brush just to get the lather back into the bowl. I'm thinking with some texture in there that the lather would want to paint into the bowl instead of remaining in the brush. Perhaps there's something else going on here that someone can shed some light on.
 
Now that you have your soap dialed in better and you know what you are looking for in a lather, try face lathering. I still bowl lather when messing with a new soap as it is easier to see what you are doing while tweaking it to where you want it, but for known soaps, I switched to face lathering. Out of laziness at first, but I really like it now and it is a little quicker. Plus it helps massage the moisturizing stuff in and like Xeno Dave says, to stimulate your natural oils in your face. (Didn't know that part until I saw his video though...)
 
Good shaves Mike.

About the razor being smoother on higher settings - do you think it’s because with the razor opened up more, you are more mindful to ride the cap?
 
ShawnF said:
Now that you have your soap dialed in better and you know what you are looking for in a lather, try face lathering. I still bowl lather when messing with a new soap as it is easier to see what you are doing while tweaking it to where you want it, but for known soaps, I switched to face lathering. Out of laziness at first, but I really like it now and it is a little quicker. Plus it helps massage the moisturizing stuff in and like Xeno Dave says, to stimulate your natural oils in your face. (Didn't know that part until I saw his video though...)
Click to expand...

I saw that video from Xeno Dave and tried that but it seemed to irritate my skin. I think I was putting too much pressure on the brush. I'm trying it a bit here and there very lightly to see if it helps and haven't noticed a difference.

I've been tempted to face lather Shawn, but I'm afraid that it will be too dry and I'll have a bad shave. Maybe I'm just being a chicken, but I'm finally enjoying my shaves and am a little leary of screwing that up
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GearNoir said:
Good shaves Mike.

About the razor being smoother on higher settings - do you think it’s because with the razor opened up more, you are more mindful to ride the cap?
Click to expand...

I think you are most likely right Chris. I also think the gap is helping me keep the correct angle better and cut more efficiently but those are just working theories right now.
 
Glad you’re getting things dialed in and getting good shaves, Mike. You’re really making think about that Parker Variant. Sounds like a winner. Good stuff!
 
Blade-meister said:
I saw that video from Xeno Dave and tried that but it seemed to irritate my skin. I think I was putting too much pressure on the brush. I'm trying it a bit here and there very lightly to see if it helps and haven't noticed a difference.

I've been tempted to face lather Shawn, but I'm afraid that it will be too dry and I'll have a bad shave. Maybe I'm just being a chicken, but I'm finally enjoying my shaves and am a little leary of screwing that up
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Click to expand...

Add more water. A thinner slicker lather won't hurt you and may even help a little. I'm almost wondering if you need a bit more water since you said it was drying on you. Mystic, Lisa's, and CBL are some of the best soaps for keeping a nice slick lather that I've tried once you get enough water in them.
Did you try it with the badger or the synth? Synths can be springy and need more pressure to splay out well. Well, some can. Plissoft knots are springy to me, but the Muhle is more like a nice badger feel. If it was the badger, it may be that the tips are a bit too "scritchy" for you in that particular knot and irritating you.
 
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