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Kingfisher's open blade (straight razors and shavettes) journey
- Thread starter kingfisher
- Start date
When life gives you AOS Lemon...make lemona- never mind.
At at least the shave came or decent, and a round of golf to boot!
Thanks, guys. I'm past that shave now because of shave number 112/149, this morning.
Stropped up the Noonan right before the shower, and lathered up Soapy Science DSB. Ta-da! Smooth, comfortable shaves are back in style! No issues with today's shave at all. SWMBO was even talking to me and watching me shave and it still went well.
No time or money for golf today, but I did get to a small local farmer's market and picked up a bit of fresh produce dirt cheap, so there's that.
Tomorrow is DE/SE shave day. Have a great weekend, gents.
Two astounding things happened this morning on my non-open-blade shave of the week. (I used Stirling Peach, like I always do on Sundays; had an outstanding lather; wasted most of it [more on that to come].)
1) I got CCS+ with one pass. Weapon of choice was the Colonial General on a UFO Titan Fine L handle. One pass plus a tiny bit of touch-up was all I needed and then some. I find the SE razors that take AC blades to be the most efficient shaving implements ever invented, bar none. The Colonial General, for me, is the world's most efficient razor and one of the easiest shaves on the planet. I have to think that if people who use Fusion ProGlides could experience what I experienced this morning with the General, they would want to switch to the General (I realize that they couldn't wield it the same way I did without some practice, though).
2) My wife sees me shaving with the General. She looks at me quizzically and asks, "What happened to your straight?"
Wow. She has come a long, long way.
Hope you had a good Sunday.
1) I got CCS+ with one pass. Weapon of choice was the Colonial General on a UFO Titan Fine L handle. One pass plus a tiny bit of touch-up was all I needed and then some. I find the SE razors that take AC blades to be the most efficient shaving implements ever invented, bar none. The Colonial General, for me, is the world's most efficient razor and one of the easiest shaves on the planet. I have to think that if people who use Fusion ProGlides could experience what I experienced this morning with the General, they would want to switch to the General (I realize that they couldn't wield it the same way I did without some practice, though).
2) My wife sees me shaving with the General. She looks at me quizzically and asks, "What happened to your straight?"
Wow. She has come a long, long way.
Hope you had a good Sunday.
GearNoir
“The Disney Princess’s Apprentice”
That’s Dr. Stud to us mere mortals!
I'm a tiger!
Sheeeyeah. Right.
LOL.
Oh, she's asked me that many times. She's used to it now. In fact, yesterday when I just did one pass with the General she was like, "Aren't you going to do another pass?"
113/150 this morning.
Jumped back onto the ZY horse this morning. Stropped the heck out of it last night, doing about 20 more laps than I usually do, hoping to take away some of that over-sharp harshness that I felt on the last shave with this razor.
For lather, I wanted to try the AoS Lemon cream again, but I was really worried that I wouldn't get as protective a lather as I am used to, to I cheated a bit: a superlathered the AoS lemon cream with Soapy Science Lollipop Citrus. The scent was just a bit more lemony LC. The lather was better than what I got with AoS lemon cream alone, but worse than what I get with SS LC alone. Certainly shave-worthy, but not up to my usual standard.
The harshness/overly sharp feeling was definitely gone. If anything, on the first pass it seemed perhaps slightly dull? But it did its job without too much trouble and the second pass went well. A third pass, directly XTG, on the cheeks and I was CCS+ there. I did some clean-up with the General along the jaw line, chin, and lower neck and called it a day.
Very nice, smooth shave without problems at all.
Hope y'all have a great Monday!
Dave in KY
Shave Newbie
Nice write up
All caught up, Randall. As to super-lathering a cream and soap together - it can be most excellent! I have a super-lather combo that is dynamite, and it's TOBS Avocado with Palmolive stick. And speaking of shaving creams, I have FINALLY discovered something that makes them work well for me. It takes discipline for us soap lovers, because with soaps, we're used to adding water and adding more water, etc. to get that slick lather. But with a cream, it doesn't take much water at all to be slick and effective. When you get to the point of saying, "a little more water", don't - you've arrived.
Thanks!
Thanks, Dave.
Me, too. May use the suggestion below. Otherwise, I may have to PIF it.
Hmm...interesting. I haven't used a cream in so long, I may well be guilty of trying to lather it the same way I lather my soaps. Thanks for the suggestion. I'll give it a go.
I appreciate it, thank you.
Shave 114/151 was this morning.
Used the ZY again, shave 3 since the refresher on the balsa. The edge is quite nice now. The harshness is completely gone.
A shout-out to Dave in KY for this morning's software! He kindly PIF'd me a sample of Ghost Town Barber. So much talk about this scent; I just had to find out what the fuss was all about. Reading the description on their website, I would've predicted that this soap would NOT be a good one for me. I don't like leather scents and I really dislike smoky scents. GTB, by report, has some of both. So I thought I would not like it.
It arrived in yesterday's mail. I opened the lid and gingerly gave a sniff. Mmm....pretty nice. Sniffed again. Wow. This is a really nice scent. I asked SWMBO to sniff it. She said, "It's nice," but then added, "but it isn't all that."
No matter, I really liked it. So I determined to use it for this morning's shave.
I smashed a small amount of it to the bottom of my lather bowl and went at it with a synthetic brush, adding water gradually until I got it where I wanted it. In the early stages of lathering it got foamier than my favorite soaps, and, although it tightened up with further lathering, it never really got to the density I prefer.
Don't get me wrong; it was a nice looking lather, with peaks, etc. It smelled wonderful. Kind of a bit of a powdery barbershop scent on top with a bit of leather beneath, I guess. For me the main notes are bergamot and white patchouli. In fact, I think it is quite heavy on the patchouli. Reminded me a bit of Mike's Barbershop, which is a scent I liked at first sniff but then cooled on a bit precisely because there was (in my opinion) TOO MUCH patchouli. Something about the base notes in this one offset the heavy-handedness of the patchouli, at least for now.
I was a bit worried that I didn't get the dense lather that I wanted, but I was also convinced that I wasn't going to get it no matter what, so I proceeded with the shave.
Shave went really, really well. As you know, I don't go in for "shave grade inflation." I think the best score I've ever given one of my straight shaves is CCS+ to DFS-. Today, I feel like I got close enough to go ahead and call it DFS. Woo-hoo!
I tried some new stuff on the jawline and the top of the neck that looked scary but worked wonderfully.
The lather, as I thought, got weaker on successive shaves and turned to foamy residual after three passes (as compared with Soapy Science, which after the shave looks pretty much the same as it does before the shave), but it shaved just fine. Slickness was good, cushion seemed adequate, post-shave was pretty nice. It reminded me quite a bit of the lather I get with Sudsy Soapery, which is tallow-less. I think that the tallow-first soaps do tend to provide for a denser lather that holds more water, although that may also be due to the fact that the tallow soaps I love also have a lot of glycerin in them.
Because this soap is a stearic soap with a bit of tallow, its lather more closely resembles that of Sudsy Soapery than that of, say, Stirling or Soapy Science. Still, it performed its function very well; the differences may well be more cosmetic than anything else.
What can I say? Bottom line was a great shave and an outstanding scent. I got whiffs of the scent for a few hours, too, even though I didn't have the aftershave.
Thanks, Dave, for the PIF. Happy to join the group of shavers that enjoys GTB.
Have a great day, gents.
Used the ZY again, shave 3 since the refresher on the balsa. The edge is quite nice now. The harshness is completely gone.
A shout-out to Dave in KY for this morning's software! He kindly PIF'd me a sample of Ghost Town Barber. So much talk about this scent; I just had to find out what the fuss was all about. Reading the description on their website, I would've predicted that this soap would NOT be a good one for me. I don't like leather scents and I really dislike smoky scents. GTB, by report, has some of both. So I thought I would not like it.
It arrived in yesterday's mail. I opened the lid and gingerly gave a sniff. Mmm....pretty nice. Sniffed again. Wow. This is a really nice scent. I asked SWMBO to sniff it. She said, "It's nice," but then added, "but it isn't all that."
No matter, I really liked it. So I determined to use it for this morning's shave.
I smashed a small amount of it to the bottom of my lather bowl and went at it with a synthetic brush, adding water gradually until I got it where I wanted it. In the early stages of lathering it got foamier than my favorite soaps, and, although it tightened up with further lathering, it never really got to the density I prefer.
Don't get me wrong; it was a nice looking lather, with peaks, etc. It smelled wonderful. Kind of a bit of a powdery barbershop scent on top with a bit of leather beneath, I guess. For me the main notes are bergamot and white patchouli. In fact, I think it is quite heavy on the patchouli. Reminded me a bit of Mike's Barbershop, which is a scent I liked at first sniff but then cooled on a bit precisely because there was (in my opinion) TOO MUCH patchouli. Something about the base notes in this one offset the heavy-handedness of the patchouli, at least for now.
I was a bit worried that I didn't get the dense lather that I wanted, but I was also convinced that I wasn't going to get it no matter what, so I proceeded with the shave.
Shave went really, really well. As you know, I don't go in for "shave grade inflation." I think the best score I've ever given one of my straight shaves is CCS+ to DFS-. Today, I feel like I got close enough to go ahead and call it DFS. Woo-hoo!
I tried some new stuff on the jawline and the top of the neck that looked scary but worked wonderfully.
The lather, as I thought, got weaker on successive shaves and turned to foamy residual after three passes (as compared with Soapy Science, which after the shave looks pretty much the same as it does before the shave), but it shaved just fine. Slickness was good, cushion seemed adequate, post-shave was pretty nice. It reminded me quite a bit of the lather I get with Sudsy Soapery, which is tallow-less. I think that the tallow-first soaps do tend to provide for a denser lather that holds more water, although that may also be due to the fact that the tallow soaps I love also have a lot of glycerin in them.
Because this soap is a stearic soap with a bit of tallow, its lather more closely resembles that of Sudsy Soapery than that of, say, Stirling or Soapy Science. Still, it performed its function very well; the differences may well be more cosmetic than anything else.
What can I say? Bottom line was a great shave and an outstanding scent. I got whiffs of the scent for a few hours, too, even though I didn't have the aftershave.
Thanks, Dave, for the PIF. Happy to join the group of shavers that enjoys GTB.
Have a great day, gents.
GTB - yes!!! I totally dig the scent of GTB; I've got the bar soap, shaving soap, aftershave, and EdP. But I will admit that the performance of all the Chiseled Face soaps that I've used, to include GTB, aren't "elite" status for me with a traditional straight. I mainly use a DE with GTB. But it's certainly good enough, and the scent alone makes it a "must have" for me.