global_dev straight journal

[global_dev]

I really like your journal and the progression you are working through from your first shaves and now to honing. Well done! I am at the cusp of going fully over to straight shaving. I had my 10th shave this morning with one tiny cut and a nick. Still getting some razor burn around the mouth and chin, but I think that is a pressure thing. You commented earlier in your journal that your wife said you looked like a pirate. I laughed, because I have heard something similar from my wife... I look like a fencer who has been dueling with the safety tip of the sword removed.

Great stuff! Keep it coming, please.

Argghh.. matey, Thanks, now give up the gold and the pretty young lasses!! I think I got even more fine booty than usual when my face was cut up...

i appreciate that others can glean some from me... I have been trying my hand at honing for about a year now and only now branching into synthetics other than the DMT C,F, & EF. i feel like my honing is way up to par, but one thing that still befuddles me is the number of strokes others say they did as compared to the ones i feel i need.

as for the razor burn, a couple shaves up i commented on how my whole face felt a bit sore... i truly now attribute that to the edge not being "there" from on the coticule. I was trying to follow a general recipe, but shave test confirmed that my LNV coti is far far slower than others.

 

[Great White Shavealo]

...but one thing that still befuddles me is the number of strokes others say they did as compared to the ones i feel i need.

Same here. I have read where some are getting a shave ready blade with around 80 round trips on an 8K where as I seem to be taking about 300 round trips. Perhaps it is a speed thing, since I do move fairly slow right now? That is, maybe the speed is causing some added pressure... or something? Don't know.

Edit:

as for the razor burn, a couple shaves up i commented on how my whole face felt a bit sore... i truly now attribute that to the edge not being "there" from on the coticule.

I had a couple thoughts to add here. It could be the edge, but I don't get razor burn all over my face. Just where I am contorting and struggling around my mouth and chin. But, my blade passes HHT 1-3 (I am still out on the fence as to whether or not HHT is credible, but for now I can see that it is somewhat useful as a diagnostic). Some other causes, which I am working on is that I can be using too great of an angle. My hair is denser in those areas, and so I might not be giving it a good enough hot water soak to soften the hairs. I also tend to hit those areas more often with blade passes, which also can add irritation. I think I also add too much pressure in the mix of the things I just mentioned so that I can mow down the thicker hairs. Finally, it is most likely that I am just a n00b.

 

[global_dev]

I really wanted to get a straight razor shave in last night, but as the kid's activities start to increase, i feel less inclined to want to shave and straight shaving takes a back seat when I am tired.

The linen strop that I cleaned went from a tan with some orange spots ("foxing"?) to nice and white with little tan spots. I hope it's not anything worse than age discoloration. I hand washed with wool-lite, no scrubbing with brushes, and them some oxi-clean.. while air drying it was rock hard and upon full dry it is nice and "soft". i put it in the sun near a vent and the structure like a tube and the rigidity while wet let it stand and dry well.. can't wait to try it...

instead of the Herder, i grabbed the vintage slant with a slightly used feather, a plisson restore, some MdC and 2 quick WTG passes and done... finished up with some Thayers...

my mother was visiting for the long weekend and she is flying out tonight, her friend is driving her, so i hope I get a chance to get some straight-something in.

 

[global_dev]

the linen finally dried to a nice flexible state and i was psyched to try it out

it was very fast, much faster than i expected given the texture I was used to, however in reality, my expectation was probably unrealistic.. The linen component of the dovo-style is way slower and this linen was way different.. going from that to the scrupleworks leather, was completely extreme, the leather felt like stropping in molasses...

The recent buzz about AdP got me to break out the tub again and the scent is just awesome... grabbed my 2 band fan thater (tips so soft like gel, decent backbone, great flow) and lathered up..

grabbed the Herder and after 40/40 linen/leather, the edge was silky smooth...

1st pass all WTG, face n-s, neck s-n... i am paying critical attention again to the phases, it's obvious the result on my face is different based on the face and neck. A WTG pass on the face is very close to BBS- even the chin. under the jaw I get a CCS+/DFS- on that pass. In order to get a BBS- i absolutely need to do a XTG (n-s) on my neck... i feel like I have tried several technique changes, angles, pressure, scoops and while they get closer to DFS+, they don't get BBS-, maybe my skin stretching is off, maybe it's my edges, I'd like to get to a one pass comfortable,non-irritating BBS... sounds like a goal, but i am not sure I am not setting the bar too high..

regardless, I am happy with the results as it's enough to keep my skin irritation free and comfortable and my wife doesn't complain that's it's not BBS..

III

 

[global_dev]

got to start shaving last night.. very late, about quarter to midnight...

I am looking to see how far I can push my "WTG" shaves...

again Herder with thater fan, some red tub soap (totally spaced on the name for Cella), the herder.. stropped on royal linen/scrupleworks 40/40

3 passes WTG and fairly close everywhere... i just kept opening up the angle with each pass.. truly is inefficient and not as effective as a decent XTG pass.

a bit of razorock salt and slapped on some Nivea 2x balm ( i don't think i will be re-stocking this when it passes)

IV

 

[global_dev]

lately, every hone job and every couple of shaves I break out the microscope to observe.. I am noticing the scratch pattern on the bevel, but also the edgre.. i think of late i was focusing more on the scratch pattern, but kinda still watching the edge, but not so much in the finishing phase, more so just at the bevel setting and that's probably not the best to neglect. so I decided to take a better look and focus on the view at the edge and think i noticed some edge aberration... now i don't know what to attribute to yet. it it could be from use, stropping, maybe even too many laps on the Escher... it looked okay.. but (isn't there always a but)

regardless i decided that the edge, even though it was really really good and about only 4 shaves in on the Herder, could be even better and i grabbed the Jnat ( Nakayama Kiita Maruka w/ Nashiji) and did about 15 x-strokes on water and kept watching the edge and scratch pattern. i wasn't overwhelmed with the result (HHT was around 4) and decided to grab the tomanagura and create some slurry, not thick slurry at all, kinda hard to make slurry with my very fine very flat tomanagura..

i ended up in a zen state where i have no idea how long i was doing circles and x-strokes for, but i gauge to to be in the 10 - 15,000 stroke ballpark... seriously i kinda zombied out and probably closer to 60 laps and looked through the scope. complete kasumi under the scope (if i am using that word correctly).. couldn't see any of the previous scratch pattern and the edge was laser straight.... did some x-strokes with a tiny dilution and went to the kanayama 5260. I grabbed a chest hair (that's what i typically use for HHT and hit a 4. I always hear a pinging, then i grabbed a sample of my wife's hair and the edge was resulting in HHT 5. no sound whatsoever..

It was only about 8pm and typically too early for my night shave, but since i have Friday off, i figured why delay, let me enjoy result while awake a bit more than usual.

put the Herder down on the countertop, ran and grabbed the Plisson EW Plexi 16, some TFS B-N, and loaded up... people typically call the Plisson "floppy". i gotta say that the Plisson for such a high loft has some serious backbone.. yeah, it's not RV 2011LE 2 band fan, but it's got a great compromise of tip feel and flow...

I have been very conscious of my lathers lately trying to really do a review and the TFS B-N delivers just as good as MdC. I just got a most beautiful (dense/shiny) lather, hit the great water/soap ratio and the scent was just so different than MdC and Cella. I had a crazy thought and wondered if I could handle the awesomeness of a 85:15 load of B-N:MdC ...neroli and lavender.. would i survive? after basking in the glory of the wonderful lathering job, i remembered that the Herder was waiting...

first pass on face N-S, ridiculously sharp yet super smooth, not even a hint of negative feedback, i wondered if it would even make sense to make a second pass..how much better could an edge get, lost in thought thinking of my hone collection... it was like "excuse me while i kiss the sky", more amazing than riding a unicorn on a double rainbow.

it was amazing, i couldn't stop crying ...

I decided to continue N-S on my neck.. same feeling...i had to wipe away tears, since i couldn't see, barely any skin stretching needed... i decided with the remaining lather i would do a in out pass and i could still hear some slight audible feedback.. but i couldn't see it.

I have decided not to call my shave results by the typical BBS and DFS nomenclature of late.. I have redefined the paradigm for the concept.. i dub it

Umami Lv 9+...​

 

[global_dev]

used the Herder "77" twice since last post... Friday night and Sunday morning, Fri night gave myself a small little slice in upper chin area it was so sharp.. and subsequently ere-injured that this morning... i left saturday alone to let it heal. I was also meeting up with some really nice B&B/SRP folk to talk restoration in the early afternoon. quite an experience for someone new to straights/restoration and a couple hours to spare... and smoking some chicken in my Primo ceramic latter in the day (about 4PM). had a bunch of Flying Dog "Raging *****" belgian pale ale that was pretty friggin strong @ 8.3% abv and some Guinness. needless to say i passed on my evening shave.

in some of my discussions, we were talking about "linen" components and how truly the gamut ranges on really fast fabric to really slow. just as it is with leathers

i happened to read a post on P.160 today so i grabbed my tub of P.160 this mornings shave and the RV11LE (which i think even with such soft tips, is really too much backbone for my preference) and the Herder.

P.160 is really nice, gotta work a bit harder than MdC, but truly we are talking 30s extra give or take.. also i find a teaspoon or 2 of more water than once might think really makes a difference... i use the vdh bowl as a water vessel soak a brush (pre and post shave) and to dip the brush...

nice 2 pass shave, really love the straights.

i also remember reading about "workhouse" razors and was wondering if the "77" could be one of those workhorse for me.. but to tell you the truth, i'm really looking for a big workhorse with a small to medium smile-profile right now. that kind of flies in the face of my love for spanish 14s, but it's nice to have diversity...

III

 

[global_dev]

took 2 days off and let my beard grow, just really too tired, in addition to receiving some super sweet blades on Monday after work... I also got a couple cool stuff from some great members.. a beautiful wooden handled sensor that i need to try out, a bottle of lucido from rxonmymind, and hopefully dakotaev and bziel will be hooking me up with a nice straight in a couple days. Thanks guys!!! can't wait to try it all out..

I have been reading quite a bit about edges straight from the factory hone and i have to say i don't know if i have ever tried one, the closest i may have come would have been a hart from classic, but i wasn't the first to use it... everything else seems to have been re-finished or just in bad shape. Well, I can't talk to "factory" shave ready edges, but if you had any doubts about the quality of a edge from Buddel, let me assuage any fears you may have had.. holy crap!

this edge was plenty plenty sharp, i have asked how he hones/finishes (just recently, waiting to hear back). It was significantly keener than many of the edges that come off my stones and the first pass was ridiculous and just wiped off the beard like butter... I don't know if i love this keenness level, i kind of like the comfort i get off my coti and jnat... however it was not a negative experience at all.

no pictures today, maybe tonight... but 2-band thater, Alpha Kappa 1869 shave soap, 2 passes followed up by some razorock salt and some thayers...no irritation, nothing but sweet sweet smoothness...

yesterday early evening after work, I went back to a thread from 2007 (it was a suggested link at the bottom of a recent confessions of a classic shaver thread) called "Top 5 DE confessions " or something like that. I read a couple of pages and it was funny to see similar discussions. one confession in it was from Ouch (i am not calling Ouch out, just a sentiment that many i am sure many have thought about or expressed as Ouch did, " 4. I started shaving with a straight, have a dozen or so stones, consider myself to be pretty decent at honing, and still think that folks who say that straights are smoother than DE's are making it up." i was thinking about this in terms of many of the documented experiences here (and there) and wondered where he might have been in terms of experience... i wanted to revive it, but for some reason i blanked when thinking for 5 thing, which is typically not difficult for me. one of the ironic things was the controversy over slants which still goes on.. it killed me or it didn't do enough... : )


I

 

[global_dev]

skipped another day on Wed, as excited as I was to get in another nice shave with the buddel, I wanted catch a few zzz..

last night was a different story, grabbed the omega 10098, MWF, and the buddel around 11PM. 2 nice passes and bazaam. I really like this blade, the smile, the length, very different from most the "straight" edges I have. going E-W (W-E) on the neck was much easier... gotta watch the point as it sticks out much farther than the spine and usually use that spine end as a reference..

great shave,

II

 

[cameraflier]

Wow. Pretty razor. Is that a notch in the wedge? Nice touch.

 

[global_dev]

a few of the custom razor guys seem to add the wedge notch

 

[global_dev]

got up early this morning and decided to put in a shave ~7:30am. this was the earliest i remember having shaved with a straight. nice warm shower.

grabbed the thater 2 band fan, TFS Bergamotta-Neroli, and the Herder "77". almost fully loaded up the thater with B-N, but stopped short of the full, brushed some on my face and grabbed some MdC and finished the load with a couple swirls. prior to lathering i could smell the B-N "sweetness" and then i got a blast of MdC and thought "oh, well,.. MdC is pretty overpowering", but during the lather the complexity changed and the B-N came forward and only a bit of the spiciness of the lavender remained, enough to remember it was there though...a great mix... the lather of course was outstanding and the brush felt so great. I am loving these thaters, maybe even more than any of the Simpsons brushes i have tried... i haven't tried many of the really really popular Simpsons though.

on to the shave, the feel of this blade is so different than the Buddel, everything about it feels different. the results are similar, but the feel during the shave is much different. very different blades of course... i am pretty sure i like the feel of Buddel much much better.

since i had a lot of time today, i decided to go all out . 2 passes WTG/XTG then ATG/WTG - no touch up and unbelievable shave.. no irritation, no slices, but there are some areas that have the tiniest hint of micro-stubble that i just don't worry about..


finished off with some salt*, cucumber juice*, and then i thought i would just put on some AdP Assoluta "in villa", but my skin was feeling kind of dry, so I first grabbed the AdP barbiere ASL, which made my skin nice and soft/smooth and then some AdP Assoluta AND

* razorock alum and thayers cucumber

IV

 

[global_dev]

although technically the edge on the buddel is buddel's, it was nice to have another person's edge to give a whirl.. i got a chance to try out dakotev's handiwork on a restored solingen PIF'd thru Bziel.. nice guys. thanks

The solingen was an atypical example of razors i look to add to my collection, but it was a nice change of pace... the edge was awesome and I guess the lesson that came out of it was it's not a bad idea to try an edge honed by someone else to give you reference.

great 2 pass shave on Thursday evening...

decided to shave quickly this morning and decided to give the slant a go... nice 2 pass with a feather, restored plisson and Santa Maria Novella shaving cream... great lather, smooth shave...

 

[global_dev]

sunday late morning decided to whip out the herder 77 and some conair heated foamy... 2 passes and it was pretty freaking good, but it was not the same feel as dakotaev's edge. yeah it's a different razor, but my edge had a totally different feel and I don't know which i like right now more... i would say evan's edge off an Ozuku type 100 felt a bit keener, it did not lack smoothness, but doesn't feel as velvety as my edge..

just noticed this whole jnat pre-polisher final polisher stuff and wondering if my kiita is considered a pre-polisher and saw some final polishers type 100 (which i guess regards the $100 price point) so I decided to try out a final polisher...

IV

 

[global_dev]

hadn't used a feather pro in a while and i decided to go with the Cobra SE as i also hadn't touched it in a while.. grabbed MWF, three band thater plexi and went to work. this thater i think is the first brush where i thought i might want to buy a backup, really, it's that nice for me...

the first pass all N-S was magical second pass.. meh... didn't load enough MWF.. finished off a comfortable shave with salt and cucumber


(razor rock alum and thayers cucumber)

 

[global_dev]

used the generic Solingen (bziel/dakoatev PIF) couple days ago, 2nd time i believe and it was very nice, but not as nice as right off the hones... i think i understand the feelings behind a "nimbleness" argument but i think it's all in your head...



II

 

[global_dev]

night before last, grabbed the herder 77 and with very careful attentive stropping (i think the scrupleworks strop is smoothing out, the draw doesn't seem as ridiculous as it was at the beginning. i don't know if i am just getting used to it, though.

still having rouched up this edge and it's still going strong... like the "Solingen" above, it's lost a bit, but nothing significant. still plenty sharp and smooth, no tugging. three passes. WTG, ATG and the XTG. i onnly did XTG to see what was gonna happen (and not much).

been finishing off with Mandom Lucido and the original medicinal smell is nice and the has gentle cooling from the menthol, not so cooling like lathering proraso over proraso pre followed by proraso ASL, but very nice...


V

 

[global_dev]

this mornings shave was late... been a bit under the weather this week and taking my time.
grabbed the Herder and Caravela and took a nice long shower and was thinking i was gonna try some cade again, it's been a while...

then i realized i had left some new to me Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouquet SC and AOS Lavender SC in the bathroom.. BB it was!! transit and heat made the SC very runny yesterday and all over the inside of the cap. some refrigeration for a while and creams were good to go...

I love the smell of Pen's BB. something about the spiciness of that, and MdC, i love...

dipped the caravela onto cream that managed to be attached to bottom of the lid of the SC and took off only a bit or so i thought. that was enough for at least 4 passes. carefully stopped the herder with the lroyal linen/scrupleworks 20/40 and in 3 passes WTG, XTG x2 i was ready and done.. got a nice small red line on my jaw, very slight, i knew i had done it, the slightest of pain feeling, like a needle *****, and it's barely perceptible. a quick wipe of the styptic and gone for the moment until it starts to heal later.

a quick warm water splash was followed by a cold water splash from the faucet. grabbed the Lucido and a nice easy menthol breeze... a bit tacky until it dries and then hit myself with a couple sprays of Pen's BB EdT.

very nice overall.

the edge could probably be refreshed somehow, it still isn't dragging, i guess i'll wait it out until theedge has significantly degraded, but then again I want that super nice squeegee feeling. maybe i'll try to get a pic on the edge.

man that Caravela is nice...

VI

 

[global_dev]

i am really struggling as to whether not i should ride out this edge... been reading a lot about people not liking the hard felt.. maybe i'll spray some diamonds on the cnat.

 

[global_dev]

i decided not to ride it out... i did about 5 passes on the .5 diamond felt and wasn't that impressed with the outcome.. It didn't feel that much different... I also used Cade, but i don't think Cade accounts for much of that issue as much even as i don't find it to be a great soap... also i think i didn't soak the caravela enough.. it was fine after a bit, but it needs a decent soak IMO.

2 WTG passes and called it a day.. decided to do 15 more light passes on the .5 Diam and we'll see how it performs later...



VII