Thread: Righty Tighty; Lefty Loosey

Shave #93 - Mother's Day Shave

Had lunch with my mother-in-law and wife to celebrate Mother's Day, a very nice Japanese restaurant. Afterwards, I went to see the premiere of the movie The Kiss of Lady X (2014) - IMDb. A group of local expats took $2500 and made a feature length (spy) film. It is better than you'd expect. Between the lunch and the movie premiere I took time for a bit of a luxury shave.

Synergy Lime Shave Soap
TOBS Badger Brush
DOVO Palisander 6/8" (36)
Alum
C&E West Indian Lime AS Balm

I did a 4-pass shave. I'm not too sure why, as I didn't have all that much time, but 4-passes plus cleanup and stropping only took me a bit less than 30 mins. Face - BBS. Neck - BBS/DFS++. I gave myself a pretty mean looking slash on my chin when going from ear-to-nose. Fortunately, it wasn't so deep and the alum took care of it.

Shave #93.5 - Almost Fini

Wanted a quick easy evening shave as I'll try to get hold of my mother tonight. These giant time changes can be a real pain to deal with during events like Mother's Day. I may have to stay up until 1am to contact her, but then I have to wake up at 6am for work. Not ideal.

T&H 1805 Shave Cream
TOBS Badger Brush
Edwin Jagger DE89L + Feather Blade (3)
Alum/Styptic
Captain's Choice Bay Rum
Gentlemen's Tonic AS Balm

A nice 3-passer has me BBS. I nicked myself slightly at the corner of my mouth on the upwards pass, requiring a bit of styptic. I think my T&H is just about done, maybe there is one more shave left in the tube, at most.

Some general thoughts on the T&H 1805 Shave Cream:

I like it. It lathers easily, producing a good amount of nice peaky lather. The lather is slick. By this I mean after shaving the lather off, there is enough residual slickness left behind that I could shave over the area again without irritation. The lather also has ample cushion, giving good protection. However, I do not find its post-shave properties to be that great. It tends to leave my skin a bit dry.

I frequently choose to face lather creams and bowl lather soaps, not sure why. This cream does face lather nicely for me. I like the scent, very masculine, circa 1805. But, it is a strongly perfumed cream that irritates my skin if I use it too many days in a row or leave the lather on my face for too long. That's why I have gravitated towards using it with my DE rather than for straight razor shaving. That is also why I will not be replacing my tube of 1805. There are too many other good options out there that do not irritate me.

Shave #94 - Does That Stuff Ever Lather

My shave den is currently full of soaps and creams that produce exceptional lathers for me, but the QCS Celestial Woods is simply in a class by itself. Unbelievable! Oddly, my other QCS, with apparently the same basic formulation, does not give as nice a lather as this soap. Unfortunately, the soap definitely doesn't smell like a forest - to me it simply smells like tallow.

QCS Celestial Woods Shave Soap
TOBS Badger Brush
DOVO Palisander 6/8" (37)
Alum
C&E Cedre & Oranger AS Balm

I did a 3-pass shave. I'm about DFS. I wasn't in the mood to push for more and packed it in, good enough for today.

Shave #94.5 - Cold Water & Menthol

Beginning to transition to summer and my hot weather shave products. It is still not here yet, but just around the corner.

Proraso Green Pre/Post Shave
Proraso (Green Tubed) Shave Cream
TOBS Badger Brush
Edwin Jagger DE89L + Feather Blade (4)
Alum
Osage Rub
Baxter of California AS Balm

A nice refreshing 3-pass cold water shave. I'm BBS. But, I did give myself a weeper on my upper lip during the ear-to-nose pass. I've been a bit careless with the DE of late.

Shave #95 - Luxury Shave

I didn't have much intention of doing such a thorough shave, but the lather was awesome clouds of menthol and lime delight, so I ended up shaving a bit more than I wanted.

Proraso Green Pre/Post Shave
Synergy Lime Shave Soap + Proraso (Green Tubed) Shave Cream
TOBS Badger Brush
DOVO Palisander 6/8" (38)
Alum
Thayers Extra Cool Witch Hazel
Osage Rub
Baxter of California AS Balm/C&E Cedre & Oranger AS Balm

This was a cold water 4-passer with a bit extra on the neck. I'm basically BBS, maybe a few spots on the neck that are the slightest hint less than BBS. So, that's nice, but the alum rang my bell. It is a few minutes after the shave now, and my skin seems like it might be okay. Like I said I didn't intend such a shave, but it was hot today and that refreshing menthol and lime mix felt so nice. I just found myself wanting to use the buckets of lather I ended up with. This uber lather might become a summer staple for me.

My DOVO just finished shave #38 without any type of refreshing. It still feels good. That's pretty decent considering that this was my first razor and that most of those shaves were actually 4-pass shaves. I wonder how long it will go before it needs a bit of diamond spray.

Shave #96 - Light is the Word

Yeah, I overdid it yesterday, so today I was careful not to get carried away.

Proraso Green Pre/Post Shave
Proraso (Green Tubed) Shave Cream
TOBS Badger Brush
Don Jae Chopper + Derby Extra Blade (1)
Alum
Thayers Extra Cool Witch Hazel
Baxter of California AS Balm

Another cold water shave - I think that time of year is here. I imagine for the next few months, hot water shaves will be rare for me. I did 2 passes (N-S and S-N). I went from about DFS- to DFS+.

So how has the left hand developed?
I have to ask as pop in and read up a bit,
Have you taken to any scything/guillotine strokes yet?
You may be able to get your pass count down from3-4 helping afford more comfort post shave.

Any which way thanks for the journal Jake, I enjoy it.

Thanks pfries,

Long time, no hear. Yep, my left hand is good now, I have no real preference for which hand I use. I do scythe and guillotine, and it helps. I'm beginning to try to get down to around 2 passes, I figure it will take awhile to get the results I want in 2 passes, but gives me a goal.

Thanks for dropping in.

Originally Posted by TaipeiJake

Thanks pfries,

Long time, no hear. Yep, my left hand is good now, I have no real preference for which hand I use. I do scythe and guillotine, and it helps. I'm beginning to try to get down to around 2 passes, I figure it will take awhile to get the results I want in 2 passes, but gives me a goal.

Thanks for dropping in.

Nice to hear the left hand came along,

Something that helped me get a good two pas shave was by using a variation on WTG/XTG, using a 45 angle to the growth direction for the pass.

And the doing the same for the second pass but ATG/XTG, once I got it down I can go fro DFS to BBS with light water only (with soap residue) touch up in the problem spots.

Keep at it!

Pat

p.s. I like the sig line

Shave #97 - That is Better

Thanks for the 2-pass advice, pfries. I'll try to play around with it.

Proraso (Green Tubed) Shave Cream
TOBS Badger Brush
DOVO Palisander 6/8" (39)
Alum
Thayers Extra Cool Witch Hazel
Baxter of California AS Balm

Though I do a lot of guillotining and a bit of scything when I normally shave, for some reason when I do a 2-pass shave, I usually just go straight South, followed by a straight North pass. So, today was a 2-pass shave, but following some of pfries comments, I scythed on both passes. It helped. I started with a marginally SAS and now I'm overall DFS-. The surprise is my neck - that constant bugaboo - it is reasonably good for just 2 passes, solidly DFS. Ironically, today it was my face that let the side down. Normally I can get to nearly BBS on the face in 2 passes. I usually do opposing guillotine passes to achieve this. My scything passes today impressed on the neck, but didn't get there on the face.