I would be Bilbo I think. Too dang stubborn to let anything go.
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An Unexpected Journey: A Newbie's Walk In Wet Shaving
- Thread starter Blade-meister
- Start date
Ah yes, I had a great birthday. One thing that was all wrapped up in a box was some Master Bay Rum AS. My wife really is very thoughtful in gift giving. So we have this new addition to the post shave routine.
Today's Shave: Shave #68
Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle
Blade: Gillette Silver 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: 18 minutes
Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Master Bay Rum AS to face & neck. Nivea AS
Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting.
Today's lather looked pretty good. I spent some time working it in the bowl, but in the end it was nice and glossy, slicker than past but still seemed dry once I started shaving. When I say dry, I mean after the pass there's no slickness left to go back and even think about any clean-up.
WTG was set at 2.5 on the razor and the pass was normal but didn't feel great and didn't feel bad either. It seemed like the more careful and slow I tried to go the the dryer the lather got on my face. It didn't disappear, but wetting the razor seemed to be the only way maintain constant slickness. I'm scratching my head on this one. XTG and ATG passes were both about equal to the WTG pass. I am liking the ATG pass on the neck using the Variant. If you recall I used to use the cart exclusively for this pass. I think the cart was causing more redness than the Variant because the blades were actually duller. I get much smoother with the Variant and in the end the redness is greatly reduced. Overall I would say another BBS+
Now onto my impression of the Master Bay Rum AS. Upon opening and sniffing, it smelled a bit off. I do remember reading somewhere that a light shaking will remix everything so I did that and wow, yes, now it smelled like it should. I'm glad I did that. A little bit of this AS goes a long was so really only 2 little spurts from the bottle is enough. I never put anything on my neck, but thought I'd better test it. Right after application I thought for about 2 seconds that it was a mistake but then it began to feel soothing and man it really helped eliminate any redness left over from the WH. The neck actually feels great! It must have some glycerine in it because it was a bit of overkill to have that and the Nivea AS Balm on. My face remained a bit of a dry tacky feeling for about 30 minutes afterwards. So maybe Master on the neck and Nivea on the face for tomorrow. The scent is a bit over the top at first and my wife didn't like it, but by the time I hugged her goodbye to leave for work she said "Mmmmm, now that smells great." Here comments were that this is how a man should smell and I agree - love the Bay Rum. The clove scent is there and is just about at the line for tolerance for me but is a low clove AS for sure. So far, I love the stuff. The leftover scent of the Masters and the Mammoth Painted Bay Rum soap scent wafting up from the chest creates pure Bay Rum delight.
Today's Shave: Shave #68
Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle
Blade: Gillette Silver 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: 18 minutes
Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Master Bay Rum AS to face & neck. Nivea AS
Balm to the face only. Mammoth Painting.
Today's lather looked pretty good. I spent some time working it in the bowl, but in the end it was nice and glossy, slicker than past but still seemed dry once I started shaving. When I say dry, I mean after the pass there's no slickness left to go back and even think about any clean-up.
WTG was set at 2.5 on the razor and the pass was normal but didn't feel great and didn't feel bad either. It seemed like the more careful and slow I tried to go the the dryer the lather got on my face. It didn't disappear, but wetting the razor seemed to be the only way maintain constant slickness. I'm scratching my head on this one. XTG and ATG passes were both about equal to the WTG pass. I am liking the ATG pass on the neck using the Variant. If you recall I used to use the cart exclusively for this pass. I think the cart was causing more redness than the Variant because the blades were actually duller. I get much smoother with the Variant and in the end the redness is greatly reduced. Overall I would say another BBS+
Now onto my impression of the Master Bay Rum AS. Upon opening and sniffing, it smelled a bit off. I do remember reading somewhere that a light shaking will remix everything so I did that and wow, yes, now it smelled like it should. I'm glad I did that. A little bit of this AS goes a long was so really only 2 little spurts from the bottle is enough. I never put anything on my neck, but thought I'd better test it. Right after application I thought for about 2 seconds that it was a mistake but then it began to feel soothing and man it really helped eliminate any redness left over from the WH. The neck actually feels great! It must have some glycerine in it because it was a bit of overkill to have that and the Nivea AS Balm on. My face remained a bit of a dry tacky feeling for about 30 minutes afterwards. So maybe Master on the neck and Nivea on the face for tomorrow. The scent is a bit over the top at first and my wife didn't like it, but by the time I hugged her goodbye to leave for work she said "Mmmmm, now that smells great." Here comments were that this is how a man should smell and I agree - love the Bay Rum. The clove scent is there and is just about at the line for tolerance for me but is a low clove AS for sure. So far, I love the stuff. The leftover scent of the Masters and the Mammoth Painted Bay Rum soap scent wafting up from the chest creates pure Bay Rum delight.
Hmmm, sounds great to me!
Just received KJ's PIF. All I can say is WOW! I had a super good time unpacking everything and smelling all the richness in there. I've decided while I"m off for the holidays that I"m going to try one new thing each shave and write about it. In particular, I haven't ever used shaving creams. I might even get brave and try a SE out for a test drive.
GearNoir
“The Disney Princess’s Apprentice”
Excellent idea! Looking forward to the posts.
Happy belated birthday!
No shave day today just to let the face have a bit of a break. I did manage to fit all of the PIF stuff on my one little shelf. I can see I need to forge something to hold all the brushes and razors though. I'm hoping to get a warmish day here at some point so I can fire up the forge and get to it.
Kj’s PIF boxes are always an awesome treat. You know what’s coming but somehow he always manages to surprise.
GearNoir
“The Disney Princess’s Apprentice”
Dave in KY
Shave Newbie
Don’t forget to make extras...I mean mistakes!
Right !!
I might just get desperate enough to travel to forge if necessary
Today's Shave: Shave #69
Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Water Bay Rum
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic) Red Bowl from KJ's PIF
Pre Shave: Wash with soap in the shower
Total Razor on Face Time: 17 minutes
Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mam
moth Painting.
So true to my word, I pulled the first thing out of my PIF stock pile to try this morning. I played it safe and went for the red bowl from KJ. This bowl has texture on the inside and mine does not, so it lathered much quicker and much better than my salsa bowl. It's smaller, but works really well and I had a great lather in no time. Something I've learned just this week after watching some shave videos is that I wasn't working the lather long enough. I think I was getting the lather to the beginning of getting to perfection so no I just keep working it in the bowl with little drops of water until I see it turn to just the right slickness. This morning was great.
Before getting started I took the time to map my beard because of the 2 day growth. I actually had printed a face map from online and drew the arrows on it as I looked up close at the growth of my beard. I learned a great deal more about some of the things I was doing wrong. Nothing crazy, but in some areas on my neck and under my chin, my WTG pass was actually an aggressive XTG stroke right at the first pass. Not really what I should have been doing. I recommend to all newbies like me to take the time to actually do one of these beard mapping exercises with the printed out face on a piece of paper. Mine has lots of sections divided out on the face so it helps to map those little trouble areas. When doing this in the past and not using the printed face map, I thought I could remember what I'd observed but obviously I wasn't. It's good to take this out and put it where you can see it while you are shaving until it's ingrained in my muscle memory.
I set the razor at 2.0 due to 2.5 just not working lately and leaving me a bit sore. I paid strict attention to pressure and angle because I needed a great shave due to having to wear a collar with a tie this morning and a suit coat. I hate collars and they irritate my neck something fierce. WTG, XTG, and ATG passes were beautiful. They always feel great after skipping a day of shaving. The beard mapping helped a lot. Clean-up was done on 1.5 and 1.0 and the cart never showed its face at all this shave. I decided to take what the Variant gave me and be happy with that. Man what a super great shave. BBS+ all over. I skipped the Master AS because the glycerin tends to leave my skin feeling grabby and that's not good with a collared shirt cinched up in a tie. I did dab some Master in areas just to get the double bay rum scent wafting up. I will say, being lynched up in a tie and having an undershirt on under my dress shirt really killed the mammoth painting effect, but it was still there.
Today's PIF Item Review: This is a new section to my journal. Here I'd like to give my first impressions of the new PIF item I tried for the shave. As I set earlier, the red plastic salsa bowl works great. The texture is a very light to medium pitting and speckling type texture that I think lends its self to building lather quickly. I think the danger would be if you have too little product you might get a foamy lather, but that wasn't my experience this morning. The size is perfect to fit in the palm of your hand. I have nothing bad to say about this bowl and would recommend it to anyone wet shaving. You definitely need the texture there because my black salsa bowl that I bought from Walmart is very smooth and it makes it difficult for me to build a good lather quickly.
Today's Shave: Shave #69
Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
Brush: Maggard Razors Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Water Bay Rum
Bowl: Walmart Salsa Bowl (plastic) Red Bowl from KJ's PIF
Pre Shave: Wash with soap in the shower
Total Razor on Face Time: 17 minutes
Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Nivea AS Balm to the face only. Mam
moth Painting.
So true to my word, I pulled the first thing out of my PIF stock pile to try this morning. I played it safe and went for the red bowl from KJ. This bowl has texture on the inside and mine does not, so it lathered much quicker and much better than my salsa bowl. It's smaller, but works really well and I had a great lather in no time. Something I've learned just this week after watching some shave videos is that I wasn't working the lather long enough. I think I was getting the lather to the beginning of getting to perfection so no I just keep working it in the bowl with little drops of water until I see it turn to just the right slickness. This morning was great.
Before getting started I took the time to map my beard because of the 2 day growth. I actually had printed a face map from online and drew the arrows on it as I looked up close at the growth of my beard. I learned a great deal more about some of the things I was doing wrong. Nothing crazy, but in some areas on my neck and under my chin, my WTG pass was actually an aggressive XTG stroke right at the first pass. Not really what I should have been doing. I recommend to all newbies like me to take the time to actually do one of these beard mapping exercises with the printed out face on a piece of paper. Mine has lots of sections divided out on the face so it helps to map those little trouble areas. When doing this in the past and not using the printed face map, I thought I could remember what I'd observed but obviously I wasn't. It's good to take this out and put it where you can see it while you are shaving until it's ingrained in my muscle memory.
I set the razor at 2.0 due to 2.5 just not working lately and leaving me a bit sore. I paid strict attention to pressure and angle because I needed a great shave due to having to wear a collar with a tie this morning and a suit coat. I hate collars and they irritate my neck something fierce. WTG, XTG, and ATG passes were beautiful. They always feel great after skipping a day of shaving. The beard mapping helped a lot. Clean-up was done on 1.5 and 1.0 and the cart never showed its face at all this shave. I decided to take what the Variant gave me and be happy with that. Man what a super great shave. BBS+ all over. I skipped the Master AS because the glycerin tends to leave my skin feeling grabby and that's not good with a collared shirt cinched up in a tie. I did dab some Master in areas just to get the double bay rum scent wafting up. I will say, being lynched up in a tie and having an undershirt on under my dress shirt really killed the mammoth painting effect, but it was still there.
Today's PIF Item Review: This is a new section to my journal. Here I'd like to give my first impressions of the new PIF item I tried for the shave. As I set earlier, the red plastic salsa bowl works great. The texture is a very light to medium pitting and speckling type texture that I think lends its self to building lather quickly. I think the danger would be if you have too little product you might get a foamy lather, but that wasn't my experience this morning. The size is perfect to fit in the palm of your hand. I have nothing bad to say about this bowl and would recommend it to anyone wet shaving. You definitely need the texture there because my black salsa bowl that I bought from Walmart is very smooth and it makes it difficult for me to build a good lather quickly.
I've never used a bowl. Frankly, I'm worried I'd like it and would "need" a scuttle. That could be a rabbit hole for me.
Enjoy your shaves!
Enjoy your shaves!
It may seem silly, but as a relatively new wet shaver I've always been concerned that if I lathered on the face I'd get it too thick or would run out of lather in the brush for all my passes. Silly I know because there's plenty of TSC members that face lather and like it. I think some day I'll be there and try it. Another thing too is that my face can get irritated if I try to work the lather in like others do. So for me there's a fine balance between just enough working in of the lather and too much.
The reason I prefer face lathering is that I learned that just because a lather looks good, doesn't mean it is good. And you can bowl lather up some really good looking stuff, and then when you put it to your face, it's sub par. When you face lather, you lather it until it feels right. When you're done, you know it's perfect. Plus a lot of people spend so much time bowl lathering, and then after they put it to their face, they still end up finishing by doing some more face lathering, because it wasn't right or they didn't have enough water. So why spend so much time bowl lathering if you need to face lather in the end anyway?
If your face is getting irritated from face lathering, maybe you need a softer brush? Try face lathering with the synthetic, and see how that goes.
Good stuff Mike! I think we all could go back to face mapping once in a while just to remind ourselves of our growth patterns!