Help me decide which Yaqi DE head to buy.

[Iridian]

Is this cartridge Yai Halequin much more aggressive even than the Yaqi Telstar?

I don't have a Telstar but given other comparisons it is guaranteed to be more if not much more aggressive.

 

[WVShaver]

This is great info. I would love to try out all the Yaqi & DS offerings but I wish it was easier shopping for them. I’ve never ordered anything on Aliexpress and instead of a list of razors they offer you have to scroll through them all trying to see what’s different.

Also I see for my first purchase on Ali the first item is much cheaper. Can I purchase just 1 item then get the discount on the next single item I purchase or is the discount a one time thing?

For handles I love my RazoRock BarberPole & RadioKnobs. They are cheap, extremely grippy and just feel great. I’d rather every razor was available without the handle since I use the RazoRocks on everything.

I’d love to find one or two more RadioKnobs. Not sure why they were discontinued.

 

[Iridian]

@WVShaver ideally use the browser instead of an app and then go to the store or say Yaqi, DSCosmetic or Yintal. There you get categories like razor head, razor handle, sometimes they mix stuff in though. You can also use there the option to search within the store. Use English as language, it's better translated than the rest.

The first item cheaper thing is more a Banggood and Temu thing. Temu is cheap but they are much more Wild East than AliExpress. They also seem to offer almost no quality razors.

There are regular coin actions (and hopefully no con actions) and welcome back rebates and sales.

One gets the hang of it after a while.

It can't hurt to ask on the forum about experiences with this or that seller. Also regarding quality.

Shield razors doesn't ship to Germany but others here highly recommend them.

 

[Chelko]

@WVShaver, if you check by store, like @Iridian mentioned, you'll mention that Yaqi and DS offer heads only, no need to purchase a whole razor with handle if you don't want to

 

[cjmalagon]

@WVShaver
Links to the official stores:
Yaqi Factory store
DS Cosmetics store

Alliexpress can be a bit overwhelming but it's the better online east web store, their mobile app is not bad but as @Iridian mentioned the desktop site it's a lot better to navigate, they have a very gamified style of web-store (their mobile app a lot more) so it's easy to get overwhelmed. Per personal experience try not to buy from the other "alike" stores, i just had a bad experience, yes i got my money reimbursed pretty fast but even if they said it was an error i can't see how that store send 2 wood pop sticks and not the Tile razor head, they don't even sell other kind of products than shave stuff... very shady if you ask me. The Yaqi official store has never failed me, professional people no doubt the DS cosmetics official store is good too.

And yes you can buy just 1 item and later take advantage of the other discounts, i did that with my brass handle and i get it for a really cheap price.

I am a bit late to the party. Voted Telstar since you said you want a steep angle shaver. But the Telstar is more aggressive than all the 3 past razors you mentioned in your first post. It has 1.15mm gap and some serious exposure. The moment you go to neutral or shallow angle you start getting unexpected cuts.

No problem, i think this post / conversation can help others in the same situation, lastly i didn't got the Tile head so i'm still interested to get another shave head. But after looking at the Yaqi sentinel post that is around here now i have my eyes on other Yaqi heads, but i still like the Tile because the top of the head is very flat, l have trouble shaving under my nose a lot but maybe that's because my technique is not good enough, i feel heads with big round tops make it harder. The Telstar will be my next zinc allow head acquisition.

I have a question for the more experienced shavers, a bigger gap always means more aggression? or blade exposure is a bigger factor. And correct me if i'm wrong, but a more aggressive shave head ≠ more efficiency. Those two factors are somewhat related but they not always go hand to hand.

Lastly, have anyone tried the Hallow Sentinel head? i saw few users speaking about it in the sentinel threat here in B&B but seems nobody pulled the trigger and bough it. Stuff with "unique" aesthetics always grab my attention, I tend to buy things that aesthetically please me as the main factor.

 

[ivan_101]

I have a question for the more experienced shavers, a bigger gap always means more aggression? or blade exposure is a bigger factor. And correct me if i'm wrong, but a more aggressive shave head ≠ more efficiency. Those two factors are somewhat related but they not always go hand to hand.

A bigger gap doesn't always mean more exposure. Imagine a 1.30 gap razor with negative exposure of -0.15. It will not be aggressive neither it will shave close. Actually it probaly won't shave close at all. On the other hand a razor with an exposure of +0.25 but a gap of 0.40 will not necessarily give you a close shave.

The closeness of shave of aggressiveness are not only defined by the gap and the exposure. There are at least 2 other important parameters of a head that are very often ignored. Degree of bending and clamping. The clamping actually can be divided into two or more factors. How strong is the clamping and what percentage of the blade is clamped strongly. I could even tell you there is one more thing related to the clamping - where the blade is clamped. Let's not forget the blade reaveal plays a certain role too (How much of the blade is uncovered by the cap when you look from above, not to be mistaken for exposure).

And finally I can recommend to you the Yaqi scalloped head that looks like DE89. It is more aggressive than DE89, but often you might need a bit of manual alignment. I like it so much that I bought more than 10 spares.

 

[cjmalagon]

A bigger gap doesn't always mean more exposure. Imagine a 1.30 gap razor with negative exposure of -0.15. It will not be aggressive neither it will shave close. Actually it probaly won't shave close at all. On the other hand a razor with an exposure of +0.25 but a gap of 0.40 will not necessarily give you a close shave.

The closeness of shave of aggressiveness are not only defined by the gap and the exposure. There are at least 2 other important parameters of a head that are very often ignored. Degree of bending and clamping. The clamping actually can be divided into two or more factors. How strong is the clamping and what percentage of the blade is clamped strongly. I could even tell you there is one more thing related to the clamping - where the blade is clamped. Let's not forget the blade reaveal plays a certain role too (How much of the blade is uncovered by the cap when you look from above, not to be mistaken for exposure).

And finally I can recommend to you the Yaqi scalloped head that looks like DE89. It is more aggressive than DE89, but often you might need a bit of manual alignment. I like it so much that I bought more than 10 spares.

I think i understood, thanks for the explanation.

Would you say that a bigger blade gap than .40 lets say something around .90 / 1 with positive blade exposure, lets say .25 to .5 would tend to be aggressive?

And lastly, any of those factors could tell you or at least give you an idea if a shave head tends to work better in a shallow or steep angle?

Looking at this image, seems i been mixing what it means shallow and steep angles.