analog_kid
03-10-2007, 07:28 AM
Well, after a few weeks with many lost battles and little progress I'm happy to report everything seemed to fall into place for my shave yesterday. After 4 passes and a few touch ups, I walked out of the bathroom with the shave I've been looking for since I was 18.
After experimenting with what works and what doesn't in respect to blade angle and pressure, I seemed to have found the proper method. The blade seemed to effortlessly glide across my skin removing any whiskers in it's path in a close, precise manner.
While I think a lot of my troubles originated from simply learning how to shave with a safety razor, I found that in previous shaves my lather and blade weren't up to the challenge and were perhaps slowing my progress. If this shave is any indication, the Derby blades are fantastic and quite honestly leave the Merkur blades in the dust. Also, if the lather quality of the shave cream I used for this shave was a 5, my previous attempts at lather were a 2 at best. In previous shaves the lather seemed to just be "on my skin", and not really providing any kind of lubrication. I played with the lather for about 10 minutes, determined to get it just right(I was using Nancy Boy). I learned that lather can be very misleading, while on the surface any lather can look good, you need to feel it to tell if it's ready to get the job done. Just because you have gobs and gobs of foam in your mug, doesn't mean you can shave with it.
In closing, I want to thank all the helpful people here at B&B for answering my questions, pleas for help, and setting me off in the right direction. And if you are new to all this, still struggling with getting a close shave, hang in there! If I can do it, anyone can. Really experiment with your lather and get a blade sampler from letterk(which I will be doing soon as well, big thanks to Kyle for the Derbys!), believe me, shaving with a sub-par blade and sub-par lather is like driving a Ferrari stuck in first gear, running on 5 cylinders, on an icy road with bald tires.
Thanks B&B! :thumbup1:
After experimenting with what works and what doesn't in respect to blade angle and pressure, I seemed to have found the proper method. The blade seemed to effortlessly glide across my skin removing any whiskers in it's path in a close, precise manner.
While I think a lot of my troubles originated from simply learning how to shave with a safety razor, I found that in previous shaves my lather and blade weren't up to the challenge and were perhaps slowing my progress. If this shave is any indication, the Derby blades are fantastic and quite honestly leave the Merkur blades in the dust. Also, if the lather quality of the shave cream I used for this shave was a 5, my previous attempts at lather were a 2 at best. In previous shaves the lather seemed to just be "on my skin", and not really providing any kind of lubrication. I played with the lather for about 10 minutes, determined to get it just right(I was using Nancy Boy). I learned that lather can be very misleading, while on the surface any lather can look good, you need to feel it to tell if it's ready to get the job done. Just because you have gobs and gobs of foam in your mug, doesn't mean you can shave with it.
In closing, I want to thank all the helpful people here at B&B for answering my questions, pleas for help, and setting me off in the right direction. And if you are new to all this, still struggling with getting a close shave, hang in there! If I can do it, anyone can. Really experiment with your lather and get a blade sampler from letterk(which I will be doing soon as well, big thanks to Kyle for the Derbys!), believe me, shaving with a sub-par blade and sub-par lather is like driving a Ferrari stuck in first gear, running on 5 cylinders, on an icy road with bald tires.
Thanks B&B! :thumbup1: