Thread: I thought guys were a bit full of it when talking about 'rubber sqeegee'

So with Glen's encouragement, I'm wading into pastes & sprays. So far, mostly asagi slurry on linen. I did more strokes on a hard steel (wacker), about 70 strokes, and 20 on leather. I've not felt an edge like it except when taking delivery of the razor from John at shavingshop who confirmed after 8k, he used a pasted strop. Now I know why I was SO impressed with those razors. I was concerned about the edge not lasting, but so far 2-2 pass shaves and no change. After praising the edge, the Mrs. wanted me to do her legs. She said the 'rubber squeegee' seemed a fitting description and for the next 15 min. kept saying: 'that's amazing'.

For those not used to high levels of smoothness in the edge, it would be very different feeling. The blades does NOT feel sharp at all against the skin. 'Doesn't feel adequately sharp to shave with. But WTG, it leaves little behind, and XTG or ATG, it leaves nothing but 'wow'.

This may be familiar to more experienced guys, but I guess its new enough to me I thought it might encourage others who've been resistant to trying pastes, sprays.

Next tests will be the asagi slurry on balsa to, then C12k slurry on both linen and balsa.

Hearty thanks again (again, and again...) to Glen for generous help. Its SO appreciated.

Wait, did Glen recommend hone slurry on strops? Last year he said he saw no point in saving hone slurry. I didn't argue it, I just kept stashing away jars of the stuff! Welcome to the dark side!

Hi Utopian,

Don't want to spread disinformation. Glen's input got me searching pastes and sprays, and I came across threads where guys used leftover slurry. I had some, so i tried it.

Do you have favorite paste/spray/slurry coat treatments?

I experienced something somewhat similar this week.

For the past week or so I’ve been using a SRD Premium I strop. The resulting shaves are incredibly smooth and close – much better than what I’ve been able to produce previously. I really like the results. However, per my untrained hand, the blades don’t feel as sharp as the blades do coming off of other strops. Yet the blades are obviously sharp. I wasn’t using pastes like you are, but I was similarly amazed how a blade can be optimally suited to shaving but still not feel sharp.

Using the P1 has forced me to redefine what “sharp” means. Just when I was finally getting the hang of the thumb pad test for testing sharpness, I have to go retrain myself. :-)