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New Horizons in Shaving

We’ve been pretty busy with our travels and taking care of business for my mother. Just a quickie for today. When I’m back home I’ll get back to more journaling here.

We took a trip over the hill today to Thousand Oaks, and I got a clipper cut at The Handlebar Barber shop. Wow, what a great experience! The best haircut I’ve ever had, my wife keeps admiring my hair. :)

They had a nice selection of shave supplies on hand as well. It’s a real luxury to be able to smell and fondle soaps I’ve only otherwise read about. I wound up getting a set of Barrister and Mann Le Gran Chypre.

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Shave:

A post travel, jet lagged shave this morning. (Or is it evening argh I can't tell!)

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This is my first try with this soap, we picked it up when I got a haircut at The Handlebar Barber. I wasn't sure what to expect, B&M has been one of those brands I want to try, but always wind up putting it off. Well all I can say is glad I did, this is a great soap for me. I love the citrusy scent, and excellent slickness of the soap but what I didn't expect was the post shave to be as good as it was.

As I start to get my head screwed back on I'll try and do some sort of post trip round up.

Other stuff:
I suck at traveling, I just can't not sleep for 24 hours anymore, and feel like I'm 20 IQ points dumber for a few days after any trip anymore.

But what are you going to do? Not going home isn't an option, and neither is moving from Helsinki, so it's just something to live with.

I still got over to the gym today and am ready to get back in full swing next week. Today's jet lagged workout felt heavy but I was glad to be back in the home gym. While we were in CA, we went to the gym 8 times as well, didn't push it at all, but it was fun to go to our favorite gym away from home.

Funnily enough, the airport taxi driver went to our same gym, even though it's one of the smaller one's in town. That guy was a hoot, talked about everything under the sun for the entire drive. Some people just have the gift of gab I guess.
 
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Welcome home. Nice finding those soaps that just click.
 
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Learning to shave with a straight, and all the new purchases I made while in California have really changed my perspective on shaving.

Soap now feels totally different for one, it's just a whole new ballgame with a straight and a lot of the ratings I see straight razor users make way more sense to me now. What used to feel like a slick soap, now just feels like chalk, and all soaps are drying out on me since I'm so slow. Not a complaint, it's a learning curve and I'm really enjoying it.

Case in point is my beloved Tallow and Steel soap. It still has the best face feel of any soap for me, and with a DE it's absolutely my #1 elite level soap. But with the straight, absolutely nothing special (other than the face feel) and it dried out as badly as any other soap, actually worse. I look like I had dragon scales as the shave went on.

Also brushes, thanks to that damn Paladin. This Zenith felt like a beast on my face before, now it's just a floppy stringy foam flinging mess. Yes I like it still, but the Paladin has ruined things. I'll be getting another my next trip home. :(

I've noticed that my interest in DE's is gone, I'm totally happy with what I have now, so that's kind of a nice thing. The straight just seem way more interesting right now, even if I'm only doing maybe 25% of my shave with them.

Though it's also because I use love the Slim, and I find I'm actually using the adjustment dial each shave, so the ease of this thing and the not so much ease of the straights seem to be working synergistically together.

Rest of the World:

Well the jet lag is slowly getting better. At least I feel my feet are back on the ground though sleep is still a mess, woke up at 3 last night and took an Atarax to help me sleep.

I went to the gym the day after I got back, and doing a mega easy workout, I still managed to tweak my back. It's getting better now and I'll hit the gym again today. Keeping it light this week too, and then hopefully starting a cut next week. I hate having a belly, time to do something about it!

We went to a wonderful ballet on Saturday in an old theatre a five minute walk from home. It was about the life of Anna Pavlova. Lot's of solos and pax de duex acts from various classic ballets. Really enjoyable to watch.

Oddly the jet lag didn't hurt me in ballet class last night, in fact it was the most focused I've been in while and I didn't have any of my usual problems remembering the sequences. Even jumping felt good, with my bum ankle that's pretty great.

I've got a heavy work week ahead, another deadline. I did all I could to get the guys to take up the slack, but just didn't really happen. I just hope I can get out of the fog soon enough to be able to do some halfway decent writing.

All the best Cadre, hope you have a good week, and rotten luck at bingo!
 
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Ballet class? I think I missed that previously! Cool!

Hope you get the shaves sorted soon! I found that using open blades did indeed improve my technique and mastery across the board.
 
GearNoir said:
Ballet class? I think I missed that previously! Cool!

Hope you get the shaves sorted soon! I found that using open blades did indeed improve my technique and mastery across the board.
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Thanks Chris, yeah I've been doing ballet for about 4 years now.
When I 'retired' from yoga I started doing gymnastics and ballet at about 50 years old. After a while I was very surprised to find I actually liked ballet more and stuck with it.

Had a couple of bad injuries last year, nothing to do with dancing, so had to lay back, but I still love it. Thankfully men don't need to wear tights, that I can't do.

The open blades really are an eye opener, glad I started with them. Also glad I just went straight to straights. Thanks to the yard sale and the great folks here, it's actually been far less expensive that way and feels way cooler.
 
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We had a real beautiful spring day here, so I went with some nice fresh spring scents today.

I'm still getting used to SBL soaps, but today's straight shave, and making sure to add plenty of water, showed me why CBL is rated so highly. I had the least drag on the shave I've had so far.

The process is hit the cheeks and neck as best I can. The finish the pass with the DE (a Rocket HD in this case)
Normally pass one I get most of the cheeks and a tiny bit of neck and maybe a little more neck on pass 2.
Today, the cheeks felt easy, and on the 2nd pass, which I find easier with the straight, I got nearly the whole neck.

So progress, and cheers to @CBLindsay for making a great product. I plan to do a full review, but really want to give the soap it's due first.

Of the CBL scents I have I really find this one fascinating. I'm not sure what it's based off of, but it's just a very fresh and almost effervescent scent. It's not very strong, but it seems to last forever for a soap.

I'd love some thoughts on a good AS to pair it with. Though the Myrsol Formula C wasn't a bad match at all.

Thanks for reading have a good day all!
 
Good SR report! Keep it up!

Love the Myrsol aftershaves I have - K and also C. Good menthol, good face feel.
 
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