I'm very fortunate to have received a lovely Wilkinson Pall Mall 7-Day Set from my good shaving friend Paul.
I am a great fan of the Empire which appeared around 1930, and the Pall Mall is its direct (and much fiercer) predecessor.
Stropper.com put my Pall Mall around 1926.
Six of the blades have survived, and I was very pleased to find that Monday's blade was shaving arm hair straight out of the beautiful oak box!
So I touched it up on slate and cromox before stropping on a Wilkinson strop pasted with feox.
The set comes with a stropping attachment which screws into the razor handle and this is extremely useful for honing the OEM blades as well as other wedge blades.
It also comes with an automatic stropper for the Wilkinson hanging leather strop and the two different attachments make the blades relatively easy to maintain.
The razor is adjustable by a small screw on the head which varies the blade gap above the Archimedes screw guard, an excellent feature which was retained on the Empire. The rolling guard moves lather away as it rotates across the skin making for a very smooth shave.
The angle of the head against the handle can also be adjusted as the head pivots.
So I set the Pall Mall to near maximum blade gap, found a suitable angle for the head and started shaving.
The feel of the razor was somewhere between the smoothness of the Empire and the aggressive blade feel of the Rolls and I got a great shave which left my skin feeling fantastic and gave a very smart DFS finish.
I find that the wedge blade safety razors like the Empire, Rolls and early lather catchers really do give the most amazing shaves with their OEM blades that combine great comfort with extreme smartness and a whole a lot of fun!
Of course the big issue is blade maintenance which is more work for these razors than it is for a str8, but the reward is an incredible shave which can't be had any other way.
And these blades settle in with subsequent use, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Pall Mall shave which should be even smoother and closer than today's
Pictures to follow of course...
I am a great fan of the Empire which appeared around 1930, and the Pall Mall is its direct (and much fiercer) predecessor.
Stropper.com put my Pall Mall around 1926.
Six of the blades have survived, and I was very pleased to find that Monday's blade was shaving arm hair straight out of the beautiful oak box!
So I touched it up on slate and cromox before stropping on a Wilkinson strop pasted with feox.
The set comes with a stropping attachment which screws into the razor handle and this is extremely useful for honing the OEM blades as well as other wedge blades.
It also comes with an automatic stropper for the Wilkinson hanging leather strop and the two different attachments make the blades relatively easy to maintain.
The razor is adjustable by a small screw on the head which varies the blade gap above the Archimedes screw guard, an excellent feature which was retained on the Empire. The rolling guard moves lather away as it rotates across the skin making for a very smooth shave.
The angle of the head against the handle can also be adjusted as the head pivots.
So I set the Pall Mall to near maximum blade gap, found a suitable angle for the head and started shaving.
The feel of the razor was somewhere between the smoothness of the Empire and the aggressive blade feel of the Rolls and I got a great shave which left my skin feeling fantastic and gave a very smart DFS finish.
I find that the wedge blade safety razors like the Empire, Rolls and early lather catchers really do give the most amazing shaves with their OEM blades that combine great comfort with extreme smartness and a whole a lot of fun!
Of course the big issue is blade maintenance which is more work for these razors than it is for a str8, but the reward is an incredible shave which can't be had any other way.
And these blades settle in with subsequent use, so I'm looking forward to tomorrow's Pall Mall shave which should be even smoother and closer than today's
Pictures to follow of course...
