Welcome to B&B and to the art of wet shaving!
What's in the jar is cream. You use the cream (or soap) to build a lather. There's a sticky at the top of the cream subforum with guides on lathering creams. The soap subforum has its counterpart as well.so I watched some youtube vids of that odd man shaving and teaching wet shaving. I realized I wasn't using my Art of Shave lather properly. Before I was just putting my badger brush in the jar dry and smearing the lather on my face. I think I wasted quite a bit of AoS lather, as i'm already on my second jar from december.
So, this morning I wet my brush, and only used a small amount of lather. I built up the lather on my face and it worked really well. It was 100% different. It actually felt like I was having a WET shave. I'm still rocking my Schick Hydro 5 blade. I'm going to check out British Isle today for a safety razor.
Select one of the commonly suggested DE's (EJ DE89, Merkur 34C, vintage of your choice, etc) and a blade sample pack. It's very difficult to give recommendations to novices with no experience. Once you have some experience under your belt you'll be better equipped to ask questions for others to guide you. First hand experience is how you'll determine what's best suited to you whether it's the DE itself, blade, brush, cream/soap, aftershave, prep, etc. Once you get your basic technique down you may want to switch to a more aggressive DE/open comb/slant as some who have thick/coarse beards do but you probably don't want to start out with one.I've been shopping around, and i'm a little intimidated with the selection that's available. What do y'all recommend for a newbie who has thick/coarse facial hair?
I went through all of those mach3 to schick blades, and now i'm at the Schick Hydro 5 blade.
Nitpicking but the M3's and Hydros are safety razors as well.I was in San Francisco in november and a girl at the AoS store recommended a safety razor since the blades are less expensive.
Takeshi, thanks for chiming in! Nice to hear from a local. AoS stuff is sold in almost every store in the Galleria. I had a gift card from macy's and bought some lemon scented lather.
Do you know where in Houston to buy Safety razor's? Besides British Isle
where do people typically find vintage razors, besides online? Pawn shops, antique shops?
There an antique store in the heights called Yale diner on Yale and 21st... They had a lot of vintage ones in a glass case.. But new ones?? Not sure... Also if you want to try Portland general store whiskey soap go to "reserve supply" in the heights...they sell great boots, shoes, and heritage style jeans and clothing.. Owners name is Jason... Great dude
went by British Isles today and picked up an Edwin Jagger
This one
I had a really good shave this morning, and I'm not sure I'll need another one tomorrow so I'm going to wait till Friday to try it out.
Hey alright, always good to see another Texan (I'm in Richmond myself). Been lurking for forever, but I just registered here yesterday, so this is technically my first post. Fancy that?
In any case, as for where to get stuff, I haven't found many good local places around here. So far I've been buying my stuff from Amazon and West Coast Shaving online. As for aftershaves, I've been using Nivea Sensitive Aftershave Balm with a styptic pencil for weepers, but I also have an Alum Block and a bottle of Captain's Choice Bay Rum on the way from WCS that's supposed to arrive on my door today. I'll have to report back how that goes.
My post shave regimen: wash off residue of soap with warm water, then cold water rinse, towel dry face, apply WH (witch hazel ), while face is still damp with WH apply AS balm ( I use Proraso ), allow face to air dry. Works for me. YMMV.
What kind/brand of witch hazel do you use?