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

Blade-meister said:
I think you got the title of holder of the man cards because you once asked for mine back when I admitted to using a Venus cart 😆 Soooo, I figured you must be the keeper of the man cards if you can ask for them back when we do something unmanly. It's all fun.
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Gotcha, you'll notice others saying someone should turn in their man card too, so I'm only holding yours.......... I really think you got it back by now though 👍
 
Today's Shave: Shave

Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle / Chinese knock-off of Feather Kamisori Style - 50/50 on each pass
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
Brush: Eric's Lignum Vitae Hand Turned Brush Handle, 22 mm Boss Knot
Soap: TOBS Sandalwood
Bowl: Red Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Wash with soap in the shower . Rub raw soap on face from the puck.
Total Razor on Face Time: 13 minutes
Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Splash of Poraso AS on the chest . Mammoth Painting.

Ok, so after winning Kyle's PIF it was time to get to work using some of it. When I opened the TOBS Sandalwood soap I really loved the scent. It lathered well, but seemed a bit light as I don't think it is a tallow soap.

On the first pass I started with the Kamisori and the soap just didn't seem slick enough for open blades, but I thought maybe it was just me. When I finished up with the Variant set at 3.5, I started to feel some stinging. What the?! Hmmmm, well let's do a second pass. More stinging but maybe it's just me. On the third pass I just wanted to get done because my face really was reacting to what I think is a heavy citrus presence in this soap. My face looked really bad after a rinse and some witch hazel. I looked like I was in a sand storm without face protection. Wow, my face really can't take any citrus at all. After an hour things calmed down enough so that I didn't think people at work would wonder what the heck happened to me. I was worried, because I had court hearings the whole morning. By the time I got to work it just looked like every other face there that had a bad cartridge shave. Too dang bad, because I love this scent and the soap lathered so easily compared to the normal soaps I use.

I fell in love with the Poraso AS though. Because of the bad shave I didn't dare put any on my face or neck, but put some on the mammoth chest hair, arms, and back of neck. The AS and soap scent really went well together.

On the personal side of things, I had a Harbor Freight gift card so I picked up a weed burner. For you folks in California, no that's not something to smoke green stuff in, but a flame thrower that connects up to a 20 pound propane tank. Man oh man, now I had some fun with this thing today. It vaporizes weeds in the driveway and I took out my grill grates and cleaned them with this thing and that worked awesome. You have to wear ear plugs with it because the thing sounds like a jet engine or at least a hot air balloon burner. I think I started to grow hair on the back of my knees after using this thing. Took a hike with the family in the woods behind our house and mowed the lawn / weed whacked. Then it was time to rest the hip as that was a lot on it for one afternoon.
 
Sorry for the rough shave. What a fun day the rest turned out to be though! Weed burner sounds like a true man’s tool!
 
That's a bummer on the soap reaction. Glad the AS was a winner though.

I haven't bought one of those weed burners yet but I have borrowed one from a friend a few time and yeah, they are a blast to use. My buddy even uses his to power an aluminum foundry
 
Haha, I've had one of those burners for years. Great for weeds and so much more. Melt snow/ice off the driveway too which I've done where our drive is steep to get the ice off so we can get up/down the driveway. Brings the neighbors out if they hear it wondering what's going on. Lol
 
The weed burner is a must have and you get a stamp on your man card for owning one :cool:

I got it for the ice clearing factor too. My house is positioned so that the back of it never sees sunlight so any ice that's out there is hard to get rid of even with salt.

I hadn't thought about melting aluminum with it, but heck I have my forge to do that if I want to. Off topic, but anyone ever see the videos on guys melting aluminum and pouring it into fire ant hills? Gotta check it out.
 
Blade-meister said:
The weed burner is a must have and you get a stamp on your man card for owning one :cool:

I got it for the ice clearing factor too. My house is positioned so that the back of it never sees sunlight so any ice that's out there is hard to get rid of even with salt.

I hadn't thought about melting aluminum with it, but heck I have my forge to do that if I want to. Off topic, but anyone ever see the videos on guys melting aluminum and pouring it into fire ant hills? Gotta check it out.
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That is WAY COOL !!!!
 
Today's Shave: Shave

Razor: Parker Variant - Graphite handle / Chinese knock-off of Feather Kamisori Style - 70% Kamisori 30% DE
Blade: Gillette Silver Blue
Brush: Eric's Lignum Vitae Hand Turned Brush Handle, 22 mm Boss Knot
Soap: Mystic Water Irish Traveler
Bowl: Red Salsa Bowl (plastic)
Pre Shave: Wash with soap in the shower . Rub raw soap on face from the puck.
Total Razor on Face Time: 12 minutes
Post Shave: Cold water rinse, Witch Hazel (Walmart Brand) face only, Cold rinse. Every Man Jack AS Balm on face only. Mammoth Painting.

So I put in an order with Michelle at Mystic Water due to being out of just about all my MW soaps. Yesterday my Bay Rum refill arrived along with new pucks of Sandalwood Coconut and Sandalwood Vanilla. All these are yummy enough to want to eat just from smelling them. Also tossed in was a sample of Irish Traveler and plain Sandalwood. One sniff of the Irish T and I knew it was on deck for today's shave.

Nothing new to report on the lather, it's Mystic Water so it's a top performer. I did get mine a little too fluffy so I had to take extra time to thicken it up nicely. I just love MW soaps! The scent of this soap is a great manly scent that reminds me of Irish Spring soap, but much more sophisticated. It's her version of Irish Tweed and it smells great. It painted as well as expected from MW and I was ready for a shave.

My first pass starts with the Kamisori style razor downward to the neck, around the mouth including the top lip and under the bottom lip / chin area. I do an almost full pass without the DE. I do use the DE to run over it to see if I missed anything. I usually get some feedback, but really not much on this first pass. The second pass is much harder for me going ear to nose. I'm working out the stretching and still being able to see. This pass sees the Kamisori taking care of the cheeks, chin, and jawline with the DE taking care of the rest. I did get a nice cut this morning near the chin as I was working the Kamisori on the jawline to the chin. It wasn't stretched enough and I got a little bite that is not very noticeable now and hardly bled. The third pass against the grain is a complete DE operation. I then follow up with the Kamisori. I'm amazed at how much is not shaved from the DE. I haven't figured out the open blade going against the grain on the neck. Overall, BBS+ this morning. I'm getting superior shaves the more I use the open blade. I think it's getting close to time to try out that SR I won in Kyle's PIF. I'm still watching more videos here and really need to make sure I know how to strop correctly. Shaw (my enabler) generously sent me some spare stropping leather and fire hose so that I wasn't out there bumping around in the dark trying to find something that worked.

On the personal side of things, we finally got a chance to buy the 15 acres next to us. We'd tried to buy it at the tax auction but were outbid. I waited for the guy who won to come out of the auction and noticed he was wearing a sweatshirt to my old high school. I'd introduced myself and offered to give him the lay of the land that was now his. He took me up on it and promised that if he were to sell the land that we would get first dibs on it. He kept his word and even built a cabin on it (which we wanted to do). Things will be extremely tight, but we feel blessed to close on the property next week hopefully. I'm also blessed that I have a real estate law background and can prepare all the legal docs for it. We do have to move the cabin to our chosen location, but that's not something 6 good guys can't do in a day if I have the pier foundation level and ready. It needs to be finished and is about 70% done, but we can do that over time.
 
That's a nice chunk of land! That's cool it finally worked out for you. Livin' the dream!
 
Nice soap scent pick. Super cool about the acreage! What kind of lay is it? Woods? Grassland?
 
Dave in KY said:
Moving Cabin in a day. This guy needs an upgrade on his man card !!! Nice stuff Mike
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Chris is the keeper of the man cards now, so I'd need him to weigh in on it. It's also not a 2 story log cabin or anything so it's just walls, roof, floor and a loft. If I wasn't less than 2 months out from hip replacement I could do it myself over a week's time with a truck.

GearNoir said:
Nice soap scent pick. Super cool about the acreage! What kind of lay is it? Woods? Grassland?
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It mostly wooded with a grassy clearing in the middle. It has hard woods, pine and everything in between. Great piece of property and I've always sorta taken care of it because the property was in limbo ever since I'd lived at my place. The owners dies decades ago and there never was an estate done for either of them so the son just paid the taxes even though he didn't technically own it. Now he's in his 80's and stopped paying them. He lives a ways away too so he was an absentee landowner. The County took it for taxes and that's how I got here. I only had 3 acres of land with my house so I feel like a dog that just got let out of his sleeping crate :LOL: now that I'll have 18 acres to stretch out on.
 
Blade-meister said:
Chris is the keeper of the man cards now, so I'd need him to weigh in on it. It's also not a 2 story log cabin or anything so it's just walls, roof, floor and a loft. If I wasn't less than 2 months out from hip replacement I could do it myself over a week's time with a truck.



It mostly wooded with a grassy clearing in the middle. It has hard woods, pine and everything in between. Great piece of property and I've always sorta taken care of it because the property was in limbo ever since I'd lived at my place. The owners dies decades ago and there never was an estate done for either of them so the son just paid the taxes even though he didn't technically own it. Now he's in his 80's and stopped paying them. He lives a ways away too so he was an absentee landowner. The County took it for taxes and that's how I got here. I only had 3 acres of land with my house so I feel like a dog that just got let out of his sleeping crate :LOL: now that I'll have 18 acres to stretch out on.
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Shoot 3 acres would be coming out of my 1 acre crate :ROFLMAO:
 
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