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Running the Blade: The Rough Cut

JanJosh

JanJosh

Sr. Shave Member
Well, I guess this is the right time to come on out with a shave journal I get to refer back to throughout this year, and what a way to start it!

Well. I wasn't intending at all to shave until early February when the weather warmed up to Spring time. I wanted to nurture my beard and burn out the rest of my beard oil as well, but... well. I was trying to shape up my beard with my shape up tool. Did it freehand! My right cheek was so flawless and clean, but my left? I swiped too low on accident and gave myself a bald spot on my cheek. So, in pure frustration and disappointment, I just went and cut it all off and went clean shaven.

Well... as clean as one can get after having a thick, healthy beard core nearly a year. I used my Phillips Norelco groomer to trim it off and used my unknown brand metallic bowl and shave brush, probably synthetic. I used edge sensitive skin foaming shave gel because it was the first thing I could grab, and used a standard Gillette Fusion 5 cartridge razor. Finished it off with my good ol Avon Everest aftershave.

It was nothing special. It was simple, to the point, and just good enough. No routine, no ritual, no aroma therapy and soft music. I just had a hot shower, messed up, and went right to it. I did use a heated towel to try and open my face though. Had to dampen it and toss it in the microwave for a bit. It was nice but didn't really do anything special for me.

Now, shaving wasn't the problem, it's just the leading event and results. Because it was so meh you can see the gray shadow and tiny tiny specks of facial hair, so my face isn't baby smooth or anything, just clean enough. I'll try to pick up daily shaving, or just shaving often because I'm prone to irritation in the neck. My main goal is to start picking up better materials and techniques. I've been looking into kits, tools, soaps, etc, and am trying to narrow it down. I want to really pick up safety razors, but with a good one instead of the cheap crappy one I have laying around. (If you have some spare stuff Lying around you wanna pass on or sell, let me know. Always interested in picking up stuff from more experienced members.)

Going forward, besides just talking about my shaving experiences and posting my equipment, I also might show results and mistakes for critique. Maybe some dramatic flair and poetry here and there. Oh, and my title is a blade runner reference, duh. At least now I have a reason to really start using these vintage aftershaves laying around...1000001710.jpg
 
“If you have some spare stuff Lying around you wanna pass on or sell, let me know. Always interested in picking up stuff from more experienced members.”

There might be a couple of gentlemen here willing to part with a duplicate razor from their collection. 🤔 You will certainly get a lot of suggestions. My go to is a 1946 or ‘47 Gillette Aristocrat. And several folks here have hoards of soaps and can make excellent recommendations.

Keep your eyes peeled for the next TSC Sunday Zoom call next weekend. The signup will be posted next week in the “General Shaving Forum”. It’s a casual gathering of friends who sit around and shoot the breeze for awhile. The only forbidden subject is politics, but all else is welcome. It’s a relaxed, fun atmosphere.
 
Well, here's entry 2.

Waited a few days for the irritation to calm down and wanted to start the week off fresh, especially before work. Decided "oh, let me try that crummy vivitar razor I bought a few months back"

Well. I made with grave mistake. I wanted to try it so bad, and start trying to practice. However. Poor technique, a lack of experience, and crappy Chinese blades results in shaving disaster.
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Here's my battle scars. No blood of course, but a face full of nicks. I made it down my left cheek and chin before the bleeding began. My face is still stinging a bit and will probably bump up to high hell. I was so eager and tried following my tips, but, again, a lack of good materials and experience is a disaster.

I used my preferred Gillette foamy for sensitive skin, which was my preferred shaving cream when I shaved quickly on occasion when I was younger. Decided to add a touch of water and lather it up with the brush. Might have been the first mistake. I did also wash my face with hot water and follow up with my hot towel trick to loosen my skin up some more. Felt fine but maybe it wasn't hot enough, or i didn't leave it on long enough... Will need to experiment again

But yeah the shave itself was miserable. Nick central. Halfway through I dropped the damn thing and swapped to ol' reliable Gillette Fusion to quickly finish the job. Rinsed off and finished with old spice after shave and man that sucked. No yelping from me but damn it stung. Felt like I had bitten into a tart lemon with salt on top and I winced and puckered up. The bleeding stopped quick but these tingles serve a painful lesson.

It is a good thing, though, I did order some stuff from Stirling, their budget starter kit in fact, and I will go about testing if the blade or the safety handle itself truly affects the experience... well, after the cuts and irritation heals. Probably a week from now, if I'm lucky.
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To summarize, what did i learn? Never use cheap and generic BS, pick up some real shave soap, and learn the process much, much slower and to take my time. Baby's gotta crawl and i tried to walk. (Also, that the Fusion got my back)

If worse comes to worse, that handle is gonna get thrown out too but the travel case can stay... for now.
 
Lesson learned, it appears. The Stirling kit you bought looks nice. The toughest thing about Stirling is choosing the soaps and aftershaves. There are so many! I’m unfamiliar with Baili razors, but Stirling is an excellent small business with great products. They take care to provide their clients what they want. I am certain you’ll have a better experience next time around. Their soaps will treat you more kindly than anything from a can. I suggest starting with either the Astra or Derby blade, as they are pretty mild and more forgiving as you develop your technique.

Enjoy your shaves (we insist on doing that here)! 👍
 
Entry 2.5: a Behind the Scenes tour and thoughts for the upcoming shave.

Well this is mostly an extension of my Mail Call with acquiring my Stirling Budget starter kit. Just thoughts and things noticed.
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To start, the... brush? Yes the brush. It's about the same size as my no name one. It's synthetic but feels surprisingly soft, pleasant, and is scentless. A true factory built brush. I enjoy the feathery nature of it but a few hairs are coming off... Will work on that with time. Strangely, compared to my other one, which i assumed was synthetic, is thicker and a bit more coarse. I don't use it often but perhaps it could be a cheaper animal derived material.
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-Side note, the brand of the other brush and bowl I've had for a while is actually called Beekman 1802. The bowl is apparently made of steel but the brush was Badger hair! Their products are still around to this day, interesting enough, and the kit i had originally bought had come with goat milk shave soap, bath soap, and pre shave face soap. I do remember using the bath soap quickly but the shave soaps sat around, it was peppery patchouli, the Davesforth scent. Issue with that was it also had some real spice in it so... not that great.

Next the bowl. It's... well, a bowl, but i enjoy it's size and convenience. I believe it's a 4oz so it's good that it can hold most soap pucks within itself for travel and storage, and it has a lid. Compared to my other bowl, it's nice, but lacks any grooves to hold and properly lather the soap. Same with the other one, but the other is a classic style steel bowl. It's smaller and fits in the hand nice, but can be slightly slippery at times and also lacks grooves. It also has a problem with easily over flowing and leaking out the lather. The stand is a plus for presentation and convenience. (Also the plastic one is really fun to tap on.)
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Next is the soaps.
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I haven't used any of them yet but the scents are interesting. Barbershop really does have the freshly cleaned and sanitized smell. You can smell talc and hints of the blue disinfectant, some leather and spices (perhaps bayrum, as you'd expect), and some underlying fresh smell, like alcohol loaded aftershave. I'm not a fan of the Barbershop scent but this is pretty accurate. Next is Baker Street, which i had some hopes for but am sorta... confused. It's a simple scent of Juniper, Bergamot, Jasmine, and patchouli, but this is very, very dominated by the Jasmine and this smells very... soapy. Like, cheap bathroom hand soap. I expected everything to stick out more but it's not that impressive. I was hoping for more bergamot or patchouli, but alas, It feels like a use once and destroy sorta scent. Might pass it on to a friendly member! Last is Stirling Gentleman and this stuff is pretty damn nice. It's a scent of tobacco, vanilla, Amber, and musk, and the tobacco is definitely upfront and dominant. It's sharp and almost woody, no leather but it feels Leathery, exactly how I like it. If anyone picks this up, pair this with Duke Cannon's Old Glory soap (formerly Leaf and Leather). I am an obvious sucker for Tobacco scented stuff. As for feel, wait until tomorrow when I use em!

The actual Bath soap sample I'll use tonight. It's supposed to be an "inspired" clone of Tobacco Vanille. In real life, I hate tobacco Vanille! The modern formulation of that stuff is awful, and they kept that but killed off Tobacco Oud... I'll never forgive them. However, this soap smells very nice. Similar to Stirling Gentleman, but it has more of the vanilla and other notes with a more floral Tobacco. Not bad honestly.
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The aftershave? Bay Rum. I'm not a bayrum guy but got it since it's the most simple and generic. And guess what? It's Bay Rum. I used a tiny dot and it doesn't sting much, but this interpretation of bay rum smells like essential oil you'd put in a aromatherapy room diffuser. Again, use once and destroy so... keep an eye out, beloved members.

Next the blades.
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No real comment, but i feel... disappointed and a little misled. I did get a good mix of blades, sure, but on the site it said that the kit would come with an astra, shark, derby, feather, and Gillette 7 oclock. Instead I got an astra superior, shark, Gillette silver blue, voskhod, and azmüsebat. Not sure what the change in blades is about, and I'm sure they're... similar to the listed options, but I was looking forward to trying a 7oclock and feather the most. Will have to contact them and get more info. Also to note is the way they were packaged was a pain to open. Another observation is that even without opening and using them you can feel the very subtle and minute differences in thickness and weight. It's very very tiny and even though I haven't felt them on skin I can just tell they're not the same.

Finally... the razor itself.
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It's a Baili Chrome TTO (BR179). It seems to have good reviews as an entry level starter DE. I like it's relative smaller size and the width of the head feels sturdy paired with a lock down twist. The weight is nice too and this feels nice in hand (size wise), and nicer to look at. But I just don't enjoy the feel of the material and the grip. The chrome feels a little slippery and lacks a sticking grip, and with that you have to keep adjusting your fingers and rub your fingertips over the grooves constantly and it has a weird... tenderizing sensation, like you're sorta making your fingers raw. Compared to my cheap bastard, it looks and feels well made, but I believe the cheap one is of stainless steel and feels slightly more secure to hold. I guess this is a good baseline to experiment with in the future. I know there are wooden, plastic, and rubber (and more) grips out there to try and getting to my comfort will take a while.
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Overall, so far pretty excited to get this thing really started, tomorrow will be soonest so I can start the day right. Part 3 will be more cohesive and straightforward.
 
Congrats on the new kit! Hopefully it delivers for you.

A couple things to ponder:
- high chances your first brush is somewhere between a what I’d consider to be a 1st and 2nd Gen synthetic. While the new one is likely solidly 2nd gen. You’ve identified the advantages and improvements.

- the soap “bowl” you received is actually just the standard Stirling soap tub. All their full sized soaps come packed in those.

- the razors you have, both old and new are likely zamac, once just made slightly better than the other, both knock offs of Gillette’s razors.
 
@Spider on the topic of safety razors and DE's (this can be answered by whomever stumbles in here) do you know of any solid German and Japanese brands? Any recommendation is nice. I like brands with history and reliability but sometimes you can't get both. I only know of and recognize Feather from the Japanese end but I'm a little clueless on German brands despite a love and preference for their products.

Figure you might know a thing or two.
 
Yes, absolutely. I'll assume you are talking about modern razors that are easy to find, rather than obscure and rare vintage razors.

There are 3 common German brands:

Merkur - The Merkur 34C HD is one of my favorite razors. After being a 100% vintage guy for a few years, it is the first modern razor I tried and it was amazing. It was my only modern razor for a while, and it took me a long time to find any moderns I liked better. Merkur has a large line of safety razors (around 20 maybe). In the past, Merkur produced razors for other vintage brands, including Hoffritz, Pomco, and Lunawerk.

Dovo - Primarily known for Shavettes and Straight Razors, they do offer a couple of DE razors.

MÜHLE - Makes a few different razor heads, but many handle variations.


The only Japanese brand I'm aware of is Feather - The Feather AS-D2 is also one of my favorite razors. It took me a long time to buy one, because of its cost, but I'm so glad I did. It's made of stainless Steel, so it'll last forever and provides a great, mild shave. I think I used it exclusively for over a year, one time. They also have a couple of inexpensive razors, like the Popular, which lots of folks use.
 
Spider said:
Yes, absolutely. I'll assume you are talking about modern razors that are easy to find, rather than obscure and rare vintage razors.

There are 3 common German brands:

Merkur - The Merkur 34C HD is one of my favorite razors. After being a 100% vintage guy for a few years, it is the first modern razor I tried and it was amazing. It was my only modern razor for a while, and it took me a long time to find any moderns I liked better. Merkur has a large line of safety razors (around 20 maybe). In the past, Merkur produced razors for other vintage brands, including Hoffritz, Pomco, and Lunawerk.

Dovo - Primarily known for Shavettes and Straight Razors, they do offer a couple of DE razors.

MÜHLE - Makes a few different razor heads, but many handle variations.


The only Japanese brand I'm aware of is Feather - The Feather AS-D2 is also one of my favorite razors. It took me a long time to buy one, because of its cost, but I'm so glad I did. It's made of stainless Steel, so it'll last forever and provides a great, mild shave. I think I used it exclusively for over a year, one time. They also have a couple of inexpensive razors, like the Popular, which lots of folks use.
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Much appreciated. Might look into these brands as i get better and pick up cheap stuff. Heard that feather makes great blades!

Follow up. What the hell kind of razor has these heads? Are they an old form of disposable cartridge razor?1000001760.jpg
 
Spider said:
Yes, all over the place. Amazon, Walmart, Walgreens, etc.
Click to expand...
Any recommended brands or version from Gillette? I see they've made a few variants of the same one, like one made with a 7 o'clock and such, then versions with the gel strip
 
The Gillette ones are good. I also like the Personna Twin Pivot blades. They are designed to fit both the Trac II and the Atra razors.

I don't believe anyone else makes a refill for it.
 
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