Soap scum?

Ok gents, I've been looking at all those lovely Shave Of The Day pictures, and I see gleaming razor after beautiful gleaming razor.

And yet, mine are utterly covered in scum after the very first shave. This seems to happen regardless of soap. (Arko, Tabac, MWF)

What's the secret? Is everyone secretly cleaning and polishing their razor before snapping the pic?

Am I doing something wrong here, or does this happen to everyone?

There is no less primping, staging and preparation going into those photo shoots than there is in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.

I doubt it is being done secretly . . . I rub my razor down when I change the blade.

I don't have a problem with soap scum too much...maybe rinse more? Do you have hard water, that might make a difference.

But I agree that most pics are well prepared for

Thanks Phil. I feel a bit better knowing that there is an air of... idealized reality to those SOTD shots.

As for my water, it seems pretty good here. It's San Francisco's city water supply, and I have no trouble rinsing off soap in the shower.

I have a feeling it may be that I tend to use one sink-full of water for an entire shave, splashing it on my face and rinsing the razor in it. By the end, it's pretty soapy water.

I just rinse mine after the shave is done. Every couple of weeks I just rub them down with a towel, but I don't do anything special to them.

Could be something in the water there?

I rinse the razor while shaving, by sloshing it around in a little standing water in the sink. Razor, sink and bowl-o-lather all end up scummy/stubbly when done. A few spritzes of "Clean Shower" and some paper towel work takes care of all of that. Careful when wiping the razor of course.

sofauxboho said:

Thanks Phil. I feel a bit better knowing that there is an air of... idealized reality to those SOTD shots.

As for my water, it seems pretty good here. It's San Francisco's city water supply, and I have no trouble rinsing off soap in the shower.

I have a feeling it may be that I tend to use one sink-full of water for an entire shave, splashing it on my face and rinsing the razor in it. By the end, it's pretty soapy water.

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I rotate through my razors, and I do start to get hard water stains under the heads of DE's after a week or so.
I just spritz 'em with the scrubbing bubbles and clean 'em quickly before they go out of the rotation and the new one goes in.
Comet LIQUID bathroom cleaner (not the powdered cleanser) also works excellently, and the scum and hard water just rinses away.

I give mine a few sprays of alcohol after a thorough rinse. Also, at least once a week I give them a spray of Scrubbing Bubbles.

Mine are all scummy too. I'll get around to giving them a thorough cleaning sooner or later.

When I change blades I soak the razor in scrubbing bubbles first for about 10 minutes then after rinsing and drying I hit hit with a pipe cleaner. About once a week.

I have been using Scrubbing Bubbles and have been amazed at how well that takes soap scum off with a very little help from an old tooth brush.

I use Ka-boom on the sink and the rest of my stuff.

LOL! It is just like swimsuit models. Nothing looks that amazing naturally.....

luvmysuper said:

There is no less primping, staging and preparation going into those photo shoots than there is in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition.

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