Thread: A good brush and lather really works!

I wanted to thank this forum and mantic59 on youtube, I've been a long-time lurker for a while.

Since I started shaving, the last 2 inches of my neck would get consistant razor burn/bumps throughout. I moved from all sorts of cartridges (mac3, fusion, personnas, etc) to a straight razor (henckels, new in box) but that didn't help much. I liked it to a degree, but while I brought an excellent razor, I bought cheap (read: poor quality) strops and other accesories to accompany it including some secondary razor/strop combination that was supposedly German, but looked more like Pakistan. It was a bit too much work for me anyway not to get better results. I would also hear about brushes but throughout get several cheap walmart/similiar_place boarshead for $4-5 that did nothing. Also some of those lather soaps there.

2-3 years ago, I found 2 DEs in my father's collection of old stuff and immediately appropiated them Some old brass gillette and a slanted merkur. They were nice enough, first with the personna blades from Walmart and then some Derbys off Amazon.

But throughout experimenting with cartridges, straights, or DEs, has the neck razor burn/bumps ever gone away. Sometimes I refused to shave more than once a week or month because shaving degraded rather than enhanced my appearance, just using a electric trimmer.

Finally, after trying some "unscented Aveeno" gel that smelled like Marzipan, I had enough with the garbage low-end shops sell, and watched some of mantic's excellent videos I found at this site for advice:
YouTube - mantic59's Channel

And broke down and brought a quality Shavemac brush and prorasa lather and followed mantic's advice. I've been shaving daily now for a month, without razor burn/bumps. I don't even have to worry about the grain of my neck, which goes in frustrating circles, I just ignore it now.

Damn, if I only knew a brush/lather made that much difference and that the cheap garbage would cost me so much in the end, I could have saved so much money and years of experimenting>.<

Not only does a good brush work better, it feels better on your skin.

Great to hear you finally found your peace with your face

Good tools all the way produce the best results. When I was learning to straight shave and discovering the difference in a a better brush, blade, soap,...etc, I thought the following was a good analogy for all the variables that go into straight shaving, "The chain is only as strong as its weakest link"

Shavemacs are great brushes!

Pabster

Congrats. Glad to hear that your razor burn/bumps are going away.

Different soaps or creams can irritate, but with some experiements, you find out pretty quick which ones work and which ones don't.