We have all done it, read someone's review or watched a video (not one shared here of course) and had a razor described as "efficient", the soap was "thirsty". The soap is "easy to load and lather" but you need to "use the SV method" if you want to get the best lather, start with a "dryer" brush and load until you get a "nice proto-lather" then face lather, adding water a little at a time "dipping the tips in water" until you get a "thin, low structure" lather. If you do this you will have perfect lather for a straight razor or SE, with plenty of "glide" and "residual slickness" that is off the charts. The person doing the review might try to describe the scent using a variety of words that quickly morph into the kid of sounds that emanate from Charlie Brown's teacher on the Christmas Special but you DO understand when he says it has a "SOS" of about 4 or 5, perfect you say because you LOVE strong Blah blah wha wha scented soaps with off the charts residual slickness and you always use the SV method, and your brush couldn't BE any dryer or your load any more proto. You live for efficiency so that razor is a must have to, who cares that you need to mortgage you dog house to get it.
The order arrives and you eagerly rip open the package (who needs to save the box, you KNOW you're going to love it), OOOH, the razor looks nice...what a blade gap! Sniff! ...Ummm, maybe when you lather it, maybe THEN it will open up and you will be able to smell it, he SAID it was a 4 or 5. Then you shave. and nothing goes right. The soap is a bear to lather but you figure it out because you ARE the Jedi Master of shaving. The scent is ghost like, fleeting at best and more Whaaaa than Blah BLah Wha wha. The razor? Well, the gap that you thought looked so impressive works great as a garlic shaver and fish filet ...and the doctor is optimistic the skin graft will take but efficient isn't the word you would use (your dog is pretty mad because they repossessed his doggie palace while you were getting the skin graft). Hoping to get your doggie palace back, you scurry over to "S&S" to post your gear for sale on the BST (using the OTHER GUY'S description of course).
What went wrong? In short, the "reviewer"/YouTuber & the audience don't share a common understanding of the terms being used. There are two basic reasons this happens, the "reviewer/YouTuber" lacks the experience to translate what he is experiencing into terms his target audience will clearly understand, or the audience lacks the experience to understand the "reviewer/YouTuber". Almost every aspect of the Wet Shaving Hobby is subjective, so there will always be room for personal interpretation. The more experience and exposure to different products someone has the better they will become at providing deeper or more refined descriptions and explaining things in a more concise manor, leaving less room for personal interpretation.
Since we usually only shave once a day the only way to gain experience is time...and by participating in a quality forum like The Shaving Cadre. You might only get to put a blade to your face once a day but you can learn a lot and gain real world experience by interacting with (not just reading posts from) other members who have gained experience. By sharing gear and having conversations you learn about the gear and the lingo (develop the ability to describe for others). We often discuss how important it is for men to develop friendships/relationships with other men and how The Shaving Cadre has played a role in connecting members who have stuck strong friendships, what we don't mention often enough is how consistently our members pass and share samples, gear and ideas OUTSIDE the bounds of the forum. This sharing back and forth does more than feed the desire for more soap, razors and aftershave...it helps build a common language among our members so when a long standing member describes a razor's shaving characteristics or the type of scent a soap has, the majority of TSC members will immediately understand what is being described. Without the interaction between members (beyond avatar cloaked posts) there would be no deeper understanding of any Wet Shaving concepts. ...and of course we allow/encourage our soap vendors/artisan to interact in a similar way so they/we get the same deeper benefits making them even better at serving the community.
DUTY TO FORUM INTEGRITY
If you search the internet for different Wet Shaving related topics you may notice that links to forum posts often come up in the top 10 options (TSC forum links are increasingly more common). There is NOTHING more infuriating than having a link presented only to find that the thread it references contains mis-information, inaccuracies and falsehoods based on obvious bias' or posters spreading rumor rather than proving personal impressions or giving feedback/information based on personal knowledge. WE owe it to our community and to The Shaving Cadre to ensure our threads (our personal posts/videos etc) are always free from bias, intentional falsehoods & inaccuracies or statements meant to discredit or harm (or unnecessarily promote, schill or advance without merit). You'll notice if you search that the Googly machine NEVER forgets, it will find thread content from your very worst day and make it public at the very worst possible moment.
So you COULD post that face shredding razor on the TSC BST and say it's a really mild shaver ...but maybe you should just put it on eBay as a Halloween prop.
EDIT: Just to clarify for those looking for hidden meaning or feeling as if they missed something, this isn’t meant to call anyone out or accuse anyone (except Dave) of a particular wrongdoing. I DID Visit one or more other forums recently and observe things I didn’t like but to my knowledge those things aren’t the dirty work of any TSC member(s). This post/thread is simple meant to call attention to how differences in how things are said and received can lead to frustrations as we travel down the rabbit holes in this hobby.
The order arrives and you eagerly rip open the package (who needs to save the box, you KNOW you're going to love it), OOOH, the razor looks nice...what a blade gap! Sniff! ...Ummm, maybe when you lather it, maybe THEN it will open up and you will be able to smell it, he SAID it was a 4 or 5. Then you shave. and nothing goes right. The soap is a bear to lather but you figure it out because you ARE the Jedi Master of shaving. The scent is ghost like, fleeting at best and more Whaaaa than Blah BLah Wha wha. The razor? Well, the gap that you thought looked so impressive works great as a garlic shaver and fish filet ...and the doctor is optimistic the skin graft will take but efficient isn't the word you would use (your dog is pretty mad because they repossessed his doggie palace while you were getting the skin graft). Hoping to get your doggie palace back, you scurry over to "S&S" to post your gear for sale on the BST (using the OTHER GUY'S description of course).
What went wrong? In short, the "reviewer"/YouTuber & the audience don't share a common understanding of the terms being used. There are two basic reasons this happens, the "reviewer/YouTuber" lacks the experience to translate what he is experiencing into terms his target audience will clearly understand, or the audience lacks the experience to understand the "reviewer/YouTuber". Almost every aspect of the Wet Shaving Hobby is subjective, so there will always be room for personal interpretation. The more experience and exposure to different products someone has the better they will become at providing deeper or more refined descriptions and explaining things in a more concise manor, leaving less room for personal interpretation.
Since we usually only shave once a day the only way to gain experience is time...and by participating in a quality forum like The Shaving Cadre. You might only get to put a blade to your face once a day but you can learn a lot and gain real world experience by interacting with (not just reading posts from) other members who have gained experience. By sharing gear and having conversations you learn about the gear and the lingo (develop the ability to describe for others). We often discuss how important it is for men to develop friendships/relationships with other men and how The Shaving Cadre has played a role in connecting members who have stuck strong friendships, what we don't mention often enough is how consistently our members pass and share samples, gear and ideas OUTSIDE the bounds of the forum. This sharing back and forth does more than feed the desire for more soap, razors and aftershave...it helps build a common language among our members so when a long standing member describes a razor's shaving characteristics or the type of scent a soap has, the majority of TSC members will immediately understand what is being described. Without the interaction between members (beyond avatar cloaked posts) there would be no deeper understanding of any Wet Shaving concepts. ...and of course we allow/encourage our soap vendors/artisan to interact in a similar way so they/we get the same deeper benefits making them even better at serving the community.
DUTY TO FORUM INTEGRITY
If you search the internet for different Wet Shaving related topics you may notice that links to forum posts often come up in the top 10 options (TSC forum links are increasingly more common). There is NOTHING more infuriating than having a link presented only to find that the thread it references contains mis-information, inaccuracies and falsehoods based on obvious bias' or posters spreading rumor rather than proving personal impressions or giving feedback/information based on personal knowledge. WE owe it to our community and to The Shaving Cadre to ensure our threads (our personal posts/videos etc) are always free from bias, intentional falsehoods & inaccuracies or statements meant to discredit or harm (or unnecessarily promote, schill or advance without merit). You'll notice if you search that the Googly machine NEVER forgets, it will find thread content from your very worst day and make it public at the very worst possible moment.
So you COULD post that face shredding razor on the TSC BST and say it's a really mild shaver ...but maybe you should just put it on eBay as a Halloween prop.
EDIT: Just to clarify for those looking for hidden meaning or feeling as if they missed something, this isn’t meant to call anyone out or accuse anyone (except Dave) of a particular wrongdoing. I DID Visit one or more other forums recently and observe things I didn’t like but to my knowledge those things aren’t the dirty work of any TSC member(s). This post/thread is simple meant to call attention to how differences in how things are said and received can lead to frustrations as we travel down the rabbit holes in this hobby.
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I thought it just might be me 
