This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
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Nov 7, 2023 - Cosecha Catalana
Cosecha Catalana has really grown on me since the first use. The AS highlights different aspects of the scent from the soap.
Rating: 4.5/5
Nov. 7, 2023
Good shave. Nice shave lots of bang for your buck in this soap.
I miss having Executive Man, will have to buy more soon. After I killed my tub I bough Sharp Dressed Man to replace it, and while it's good, it's just not the same.
lots of bang for your buck in this soap.
It's the Stirling way 💥🦌
November 7, 2023 Bleu Teusday
Brush: Elite Razor Neo-resinate 26mm Mother Lode
Razor: River Razor 14 8/8" Full Hollow (Straight Shave 372)
Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Deep Blue Sea - Soap
Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. - Deep Blue Sea - Aftershave
Post Shave: Thayers - Cucumber - Toner
Fragrance: Chanel Bleu de Chanel
Another "14" style razor. This one is a River Razor fabriqué en France. I became aware of this maker (Boris) a number of months ago via (you guessed it) YouTube and decided to look into his razors. I procrastinated. Then, DrMatt357 (YT again) released a video in which he suggests this might be the best razor ever. Yeah, I thought it was a stunt, but I contacted Boris with some questions. After a bit of discussion I ordered the razor you see in the photo.
Is it the best razor ever? Well, it is very good. I have three other razors in the form factor, though, and they are also very good. Today's shave was with the "factory" edge. It was very comfortable, but for me to compare properly, I'll need to put my own edge on this razor. It doesn't really matter which one is best, though. Having any razor that shaves this well is a joy.
Ou, làlà!
That thing looks splendide, magnifque!
Merci! It begs the question, though, are there any "14" style razors that aren't superbe?
🤔 if there is, we will find it eventually 😅
A very good looking razor! Though for my taste the tang is a bit small (same basic design as TI).
Actually, the tang is quite large. Much larger than the one on a Filarmónica 14. It is a trick of the camera angle.
The Bismarck truly grew from ugly duckling into beautiful swan when I learned to hone it right. Exceptionally smooth, with a comfortable round point and ergonomic shank and tang geometry; this razor would be a great daily driver if I had such a thing.
Yes, it's Tuesday again 🙂
Tabac++;
Today I'm going bleu.
Teusday 🍻
Hah! For my SOTD, I almost wrote, "I'm bleu da ba dee da ba di". Naturally, I went the wordy route.
Great minds think alike, and fools rarely differ. We're covered either way 😄
👍
November 7, 2023
Another very pleasant evening shave. I felt that it would be a good idea to use an aftershave balm this evening and was surprised at how well the notes of The Traditionalist complement those of Marilyn.
I haven't used the MM24 in quite a while but it was very comfortable shave, as expected.
Those two-tone MM24s are 👨🍳😗
They don't show up often and when EldrormR offered this one I bought it for its looks. I don't actually like the design of the MM24 head. As a "blade holder" it is not as elegant as the MMOC IMHO.
I like the looks of the MM24, and that it's Eld's pet project. But the Micromatic series of razors is the pinnacle of safety razor design, functionally better that anything that came before or after: two degrees of freedom actuated by a single rotary knob to both align the edge against the blade stops and clamp the blade down while keeping your fingers far from danger. It's just the best for this mechanical engineer/nerd 🤓
Wolfmen, Blutts, Blacklands, and all the other CNC milled expensive high precision pieces that cost 100s of francs can't do that simple trick of guaranteed reproducible perfect blade-to-comb/safety bar alignment regardless of blade geometry tolerances. Pet peeve rant over 😅
And, this was done before planned obsolescence became a "thing". The TTO mechanism in my MMOC works perfectly after 85-ish years.
I note that the modern CNC razor makers don't do TTO and limit any mechanisms they produce to adjustability of blade gap (or gap and exposure in the case of Tatara's Muramasa).
Yeah, these old brass mechanisms really don't break down, it's really fantastic.
About the CNC mechanisms, yeah, there isn't a whole lot of innovation, with the exception of the Muramasa, as far as I can tell. It's more about making fancy razors than clever razors. That's nice, too, though 😅
Tuesday, November 7, 2023
After what was promising to be a pretty decent shave, I somehow managed to cut the shit out of my lower lip. That was a first. And the amount of blood was impressive. I'm really struggling with what I believe is considered to be a pretty basic razor. At least I got to use Stag today, that always helps.
One more new delicious combo: Sweet, warm MOTI and bonfire-in-a-bottle BtF.
The MOTI splash is in a little marmalade jar because I dropped the splash bottle a couple years ago and it broke in a way that about a third of the content was salvageable. The rest had made my bathroom smell delicious for a couple days.
It feels good to use the horsey again. Very different feeling than badger, boar, or bogus: the tips are clipped, so they aren't soft like the others, but horse hair has less bending stiffness, so the fibres can't really poke the skin.
Bismarck++;
Great photo! Love the look of that soap!
Bismarck++;
Thanks!
November 7, 2023
I usually end up trick-holing when I use Hamami. It's such a unique scent. I wish the Noble Otter aftershave formula was a bit less rich. I know a lot of people appreciate that, but my skin doesn't need all that stuff and my face gets shiny.
I bought and installed a small solar setup in my shed today. I still have some tidying up to do, like mounting the panel to the side of the shed instead of having it on the ground, but it works. I also need to buy more batteries, because right now I only have 1 car battery which was replaced because it couldn't start my wife's car. Either way, I'm pretty excited to have electricity there. I got a 100W panel, a charge controller, and a 1000W pure sine wave inverter for about $400 USD from Harbor Freight. Much cheaper than hiring an electrician, getting permits, etc.
Nice! I had a smaller setup to power the lights, water pumps, and moisture sensors on our balcony garden (#cityLife) before Djunior claimed the balcony as play area. It was fun to set up!
It's super fun, not going to lie. I was ready for it to be really confusing, online order only type of stuff, but I was able to grab the stuff from a store 20 minutes from me.
Right now I'm using the old battery from my wife's car which is sufficient for basic shed stuff, but it's already 3+ years old. I'm going to check the water level, maybe that'll bump up the capacity. Otherwise I should probably get a Deep Cycle battery, which will add $160 to the cost, but in the long run is much better.
Otherwise I should probably get a Deep Cycle battery
That's what I bought, a small deep cycle battery marketed for RVs. Worked like a charm. Enough capacity for hours of light, pumping water, measuring temperature and soil moisture, running a little LoRa node to send the data home
I did end up purchasing one today. It's advertised as having 105 Ah, which is great! I thought about connecting the old battery in parallel to get more juice, but there's no point.
Today I moved my soldering equipment out there and soldered up some new connectors for my RC charging setup, which is also now out in the shed. I'm super excited about having this little solar setup.
That’s right. I have one of these which I haven’t flown in a while, and one of these that’s a lot easier to throw in the car and go.
