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Hello from a global Catalan living in the Netherlands
Hello everybody,
First of all, looking forward to learning from all of you.
A "brief" introduction... 5 years ago I got a shaving kit by Merkur (picture attached) as a present. I then started to enjoy the zen of lathering. However I started getting annoyed by the non-glamorous, expensive and non-green disposable cartridges feature of my shaving kit. My sustainability mind started to kick in... I started to search the web, and learn a bit more about wet shaving, the passes, straight razors...
This July, I went to my barber shop in Barcelona, got a good enough but extremely relaxing straight razor shave and finally decided to take a calculated budget conscious decision. I bought right away an inexpensive (circa 7€) spanish "shavette" by 3 Claveles (attached) with Merkur DE disposable blades.
Despite of the nicks and much more than that... I immediately got hooked. To the extent that last week I went to Germany and bought a DOVO (in my avatar) chosen by my wife. She is quite afraid of what I do every morning so the least I could do is let her choose the style... Funny thing though is that she had chosen the stainless steel round tip model and we found out in the hotel that the vendor had put in the bag the carbon steel, spanish tip version.... I was quite overwhelmed! How am I supposed to take care of this expensive, golden plated, aggressive tip bad-ass razor? There was no way out, I guess the straight razor had picked me and not the other way around...
Three shaves after with my straight razor, I am struggling like hell... the transition from a "shavette" to a straight razor it is way harder than I expected. In fact, it is an entire new experience. My WTG passes are just awful, my XTG are contradictorily much better (possibly related to the angle I was using with my "shavette"), and I do not even dare trying ATG (which is ok and probably not necessary for my shave standards). Nevertheless, without despair, I have decided to embrace the new learning curve and keep trying. I can relate to my experience in Judo. I am an active black belt and have practiced for more than 25 years hence... repeat and repeat and everything will (perhaps) come. Just by trying, the reward is enormous: the 30 minutes I invest every morning while my family is asleep are simply priceless!!!!
And BTW, I would not dare to disappoint a blade that has simply picked me...
Again, looking forward to learning from all of you.
Marc