Thread: How'd I do?

Originally Posted by MrBurgundy

First off, I'd like to say hello to everyone on the forum. I've been lurking and reading everything I can about straight razors and finally pulled the trigger and just made my purchase. I guess that's why its never a good thing to have free time at work; I end up buying new things.

I just wanted to get an opinion on if I bought good products or not.

Razor:
Dovo "Best Quality" Half Hollow 6/8"

Strop:
Vintage Blades 2" Red Latigo with D rings (Being from NC and a State fan, I had to go with the red)

Brush:
Rooney Pure badger (and to think, I usually associate a badger with the lady of the house )

Drip stand

Shaving Mug

Soap:
Col. Conk in lime

Cream:
Vintage Blades Luxery Brand Cream in Sandalwood

and styptic pencil for the cuts I'm sure I'll get.

I hope I did alright with the purchase and can not wait until it gets here so I can dive into the world of straight blades.

Good kit... very good kit.

While you are waiting you can make a drug store run and pick up a
Van Der Hagen Premium Shave Set for about $14 bucks and begin
practicing your Lathering.... Keep an eye out for the classic
Williams shave soap too. Some pass it by some love it...

By lathering with a VDH boar brush and soap
you will learn a lot about lathering and
also appreciate how fine a brush you Rooney
Pure badger is. Fully abuse that VDH brush
too much water, too much soap, hot, warm, cold,
this way that way... After lathering your way
through 1/3 of a puck of inexpensive soap you
will begin to get the hang of Latherin.

If you are switching from an electric let us know.

[QUOTE=thebigspendur;707120]Most important is, will the blade come with a factory edge or did you pay extra for a shave ready edge? If it's factory only there is a 99.9% chance it will not be shave ready.

/QUOTE]

I got the blade from Vintage Blades which says they are professionally honed. So hopefully that will hold true.

I'm switching from one of the mach 3/4/5/100 blade razors. I couldn't stand an electric.

And yeah, I just put in an order for Castle Forbes lime shave cream. Anyone have any luck with that one?

Also just recently purchased a new Dovo from Vintage Blades and was very pleased with the condition when it arrived--certainly shave ready.

As for soaps although I'm new to straights I'm certainly not new to soaps or shaving. I'm less keen to jump on any bandwagon for or against any particular product. You ask 100 people and they'll give you 100 different answers. Ultimately you should experiment and use what you like best.

Lather requires soap, water and technique. Every soap behaves differently and requires a different touch.

In the same way people complain about a razor when it's often their technique, when people write-off a soap as bad more often than not they're either using poor water or they've not yet mastered the technique to get that particular make of soap to produce its best later.

Williams is probably the classic example of this. Some people would have you think it's the worst product ever while others have made it their fall back mainstay for years. Williams doesn't have any fancy moisturizers made from dinosaur fat or exotic essential oils that requires native tribesmen to climb to the top of a mountain to collect berries from a near extinct tree... it's just a simple plain no-nonsense soap. With good water and good technique it works just fine.

As for Col. Conk I think it's fine. As with any shaving supply you can certainly spend much more on something fancier and more exotic, but you don't need to. Fragrance is purely a matter of personal preference, but as for the soap good water and good technique can produce a nice lather with Col. Conk. As with many soaps I do find that Col. Conk can dry the skin a bit, but that's nothing that a few drops of glycerin added to the later can't solve and why I always have a bottle with my shaving supplies.

Try some different products over the coming months, see what you like best and then use a rotation of those products to always keep things interesting.

Originally Posted by niftyshaving

While you are waiting you can make a drug store run and pick up a
Van Der Hagen Premium Shave Set for about $14 bucks and begin
practicing your Lathering.... Keep an eye out for the classic
Williams shave soap too. Some pass it by.

I was just on my way out to pick up the VDH shake kit, as a starter set, I have had a few bad experiences with serious razor burn from not lathering enough, or attempting regular shaving cream as a lather... Luckily I didnt nick myself. That was before I found these forums I'm happy to say. I'll never make that mistake again. So I agree, lather is definitely an art to master, and it doesn't take as long as you would think. But keep up the good work.