I was going to take the night off tonight to give my face a break, but with the shave mail delivery I couldn't help myself!
Wet Shaving Products delivery! Samples of Mahogany, Barbershop, Gaelic Tweed, and Ol' Kentucky. Full tub of Blackbeard. They also threw in a sample of their handsoap in Barbershop scent.
They all smell amazing. The only one I was disappointed with was Gaelic Tweed. I was expecting a different scent but this is a very clean, plain scent at first sniff. It may develop a bit more once bloomed and lathered, but I expected something totally different. Not a bad scent though.
The Barbershop is more citrus than powder, which doesn't really remind me of a Barbershop, but is still a very good scent to me.
The others are hard for me to describe. Very hard to pin down an overall description, but very good scents none the less.
Tonight I went the Blackbeard. The main scents I picked out from this one were clove and some sort of spice. I wasn't sure what to expect with this scent, but I was very pleasantly surprised.
I also am trying to take everyone's advice and only change one thing at a time, so everything but the soap and AS stayed the same from last night's shave. Kingsley pure badger, Stirling Soap Co. DE...still needs a nickname....razor loaded with an Astra SP. Pre and post routines were also the same.
I did my version of the 4 pass shave 2 hybrid W/XTG passes and 2 A/XTG passes. I got very little irritation, but I did slip on the corner of my mouth and re nicked and previous nick. Otherwise it was a very comfortable shave throughout.
The soap....This stuff is GREAT! The scent is fairly strong, which I like. Most soaps I can't really smell after the second pass is halfway over, this was still going strong after the 4th pass! And it lathered very well. Very quickly and easily. I only added a few drops of water one time. Otherwise I shook the brush twice gently after soaking it while in the shower, and lathered with the water that it soaked up.
I was very impressed with the soap overall. Can't wait to test out the samples!
I also think I may have been using a bad angle this whole time (again). When I first started DE shaving, I though my angle was much too steep. I was getting a lot of irritation, in grown hairs, and weepers. So I adjusted to a much more shallow angle. At the same time I realized I was using unnecessary pressure, which I also corrected. Tonight, I realized that at some point during my 3rd pass I adjusted my angle to be a bit more steep. This wasn't intentional, but when I realized what I had done I also realized that I was getting a much closer shave. It's hard to ask if the angle is what I should've been looking for the hard time, because it's hard to explain accurately.
Ultimately whatever it was worked. For the second time ever using a DE razor, I have achieved a complete BBS shave!!!! No signs of stubble in any direction on my face or neck!
I'm pretty pumped! Now the goal is to do it again tomorrow haha!