Thread: The Sweet Spot

Gentlemen,

I have been using straights for almost 8 years now, the first 7 years were on and off, DE 90 percent of the time, and straights usually reserved for the weekend. For the past year however, I have stopped using my DE and use my straights daily.

I have started to better understand what razors work best for me, and I am trying to focus my razor collection based on this preference. I have very thick curly hair and a very coarse beard ( middle eastern) But before I start selling some of my razors, I wanted some of your thoughts.

I always used full hollow razors, but recently I started using a half hollow TI, and I must admit, that my shave is much faster, sometimes not requiring a second pass.

My full hollows consist of a 4 dovos, a bergsicher lowe, 2 6/8 Bismarcks and a dovo special 6/8. I also have a Boker Piccadilly and King Cutter. Out of all of them, the dovo special, is the only one, that behaves like my TI half hollow. Plowing through my beard effortlessly.

As far as the honing variable goes, I can say that some of these have been professionally honed many years ago, and maintained by myself ( I am not a honemeister fyi) The Bokers are very recent acquisitions, also professionally honed. Interestingly, the Dovo special which I have for several years now suffered a few nicks when I dropped it on one occasion, and I honed it myself a few times, and it still behaves like when it first came professionally honed.

I still get BBS shaves with my full hollows, but it takes more strokes and obviously more time. And I can say, that I can agree that full hollows, especially on the second pass can provide a closer shave than my half hollows. Despite this, I still enjoy the ease and the comfort of the first pass with the TI half hollow and Dovo special.

So my questions are the following. Is my dovo special a true full hollow? Is it just my imagination that it is behaving like a half hollow? Can I safely conclude that heavier grinds work better for my beard type?

Here is a video