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If you have to do something...

Do you palm strop your DE blades before the first shave? I always do. It seems to smooth the blade just a bit.

Also, some packs of DE blades will have a dud blade in them. If it feels terrible right off the bat, toss it and try another.
 
Cvargo said:
Wow a lot going on here. Getting caught up from over the weekend. Good stuff.
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Thanks Chad!

kingfisher said:
Do you palm strop your DE blades before the first shave? I always do. It seems to smooth the blade just a bit.

Also, some packs of DE blades will have a dud blade in them. If it feels terrible right off the bat, toss it and try another.
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I haven’t ever stropped a DE blade yet, I’ll try it before the next use. This Rapira was a one off I received from the guy I bought my Slim from, so there’s no other to test unfortunately. He did send me another Russian blade though with it, a Voskhod. That’ll be next to try when the Rapira makes bin status.
 
Shave #95:

Not much to say about today’s shave.

I did a 3 pass with the Feather SS. The Pro blade in it probably has a good 20 days of use on it now. It’s still shaving decently, but I’ve taken to trying to towel strop and palm strop it a little after each shave. Can’t tell if it's making a difference or how much of a difference.

The “face reset” yesterday (BBS) with the DE helped me some this morning as I fiddled with ATG my last pass with the Feather. I’m at BBS/DFS in all areas. The chin went much better this morning ATG, but the upper lip did not fair so well, so I had to use a modified XTG stroke to get as close as I could.

In my ATG attempts on the chin I did try something new for me, it was kind of a buffing pass with the Feather - very quick, short (like a couple cm), light handed strokes, backing up the stroke with the blade as flat as possible but still on the skin. It seemed to work a little for stubborn stubble.

Not a whole lot of irritation thankfully. Finished the shave with a simple lather soak, cold rinse, and Pinaud classic mixture decant.

Today is my last day off for the next 6 days as I head into a busy week at work. Glad I took care of some chores Friday, it frees me up a bit to do squat today except a little laundry and watering before the heat.
 
Nice entry Chris...sounds like a fairly relaxing day today which is a good thing before heading back to work.
 
Sorry you will not be a part of the Knights, nor the Order of TabacaVeg, it was a Valiant effort, and don't dispair the Green Goddess has been know to give squires a 2nd chance at Manly glory. So well Done. Huzzah.

As for Cvargo he did not get chosen as you have to be able to grow facial hair 1st, and as to Don D. He sadly has chosen incorrectly and did not answer King Arthur correctly

https://youtu.be/y2R3FvS4xr4
 
Xenostr8shaver said:
Sorry you will not be a part of the Knights, nor the Order of TabacaVeg, it was a Valiant effort, and don't dispair the Green Goddess has been know to give squires a 2nd chance at Manly glory. So well Done. Huzzah.

As for Cvargo he did not get chosen as you have to be able to grow facial hair 1st, and as to Don D. He sadly has chosen incorrectly and did not answer King Arthur correctly
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Wait...what did I choose?
 
hmmm seems like the lover of Menudo is talking a lot of smack today. Don't anyone tell him no one can see his moustache until he puts the product in. LOL
 
dangerousdon said:
Wait...what did I choose?
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Cvargo said:
hmmm seems like the lover of Menudo is talking a lot of smack today. Don't anyone tell him no one can see his moustache until he puts the product in. LOL
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Rofl. Any mustache is more mustache than I have! Due to my genes I’d end up looking like this guy (darker hair thankfully), but it’s take a long time to even get that:

 
Shave #96:

Guess what?!

3 pass Feather shave with TOBS...duh!

Only one little nick today during the shave. Otherwise the passes went OK. Blade is still feeling a bit harsh. It could be I’m left unable to strop the blade properly due to the lip on the holder. I’ll keep trying though. A day seems to be just long enough now for my face to recover from most things. It just weird that a “well used” edge in shaving is still wicked sharp in all other contexts!

Honestly, the shave level isn’t that bad overall, still maintaining what I feel is BBS/DFS. I’m going over my ATG-ish pass very slowly and carefully, and I seems to be getting a good bit farther on reduction than I do making quicker strokes. Once my face normalizes after the shave, usually within an hour, I find out the true level of the shave.

In other things, I spoke way too early yesterday when I said I had diddly to do other than laundry. SWMBO’s wifey senses were tingling, so I got volun-told to switch two rooms’ furniture in our home. We had the kids in a smaller side room when we initially moved in and our office in a bigger room, but the kids have sprouted exponentially in the last year and need a bit more space. So I spent literally 10 hours yesterday doing that. At least it’s out of the way for now? Lol...
 
Nice shave with the Feather Chris...I can't use those without doing some serious bodily injury to myself. LOL

IRT the chores yesterday, at least it wasn't something that SWMBO dropped on you during the week...and it's done, so nothing to worry about there.
 
I hate it when the wife finds something for me to do. That usually means she is going to find more!
 
NurseDave said:
Uh oh, I hope you painted while the furniture was mobile. ?
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She did make a comment in passing actually about how filthy the wall was next to where the boys’ bunk beds had been...so I made the argument the larger bookshelves from the office would look perfect there. ?

They haven’t moved, so I may be safe for a while.

dangerousdon said:
I hate it when the wife finds something for me to do. That usually means she is going to find more!
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The things we do for love!
 
Shave #97:

So a mixed bag shave today.

It was basically a 4 pass Feather and TOBS Sandalwood shave, but not because I wanted 4 passes.

I began the shave with the mentality that I would try and have just an easy 3 pass and be OK with decent results. My brain and shaver’s OCD worked against me though. I decided to try a 3 pass doing WTG/XTG one direction/XTG the opposite direction and see where it would get me. I see plenty of people remark that even with a 2 pass WTG/XTG they get a DFS (some have even said BBS, but I’m pretty skeptical of that or our definitions of shave levels actually vary greatly).

WTG went fine, I actually got better reduction today taking my time than I’ve gotten the last couple of days. It was a little tuggy on the upper lip. The first XTG went fine. The seconds XTG the opposite direction I felt didn’t do much at all and I was still left at (what I thought was) SAS, which is not acceptable to me at all. The pass just felt like I was scraping at stubble but not really removing anything. This prompted a 4th pass where I tried every which way to carefully just get more reduction. Super harsh, long pass. I just had to call it quits finally and I walked away with what felt like a CCS/SAS.

Thankfully it’s normalized into a BBS on the cheeks and DFS/CCS everywhere else. Even my chin came out decently. I know this shave result won’t last long though, I’ll look like a hobo in the morning if not by tonight when I get home from work.

TL;DR - Shave felt not good, result ended up coming out OK in spite of that.

For tomorrow’s shave I’m going to ditch the Pro blade finally. It did it’s job for 20ish days, but I have to make sure it’s not my technique that is causing the harsh passes. I have the general feeling a few blades into this Pro pack that none of the blades have matched up to the performance of the first one out. It felt unmatchedly smooth when cutting. I’m hoping this changes!
 
I'll be honest I have learned that the pro blades can be all over the map it seems, but the ProGuard are always consistent for me.

Another thing to question could be is your approach angle correct? Any slight adjustment to that could alter what you are feeling.
 
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