Shave Of The Fortnight! - 12th Dec '10

It's been a hectic two weeks and apologies for being so quiet. I had a funeral to go to and some visitors from Dublin. So, to give myself and my legs a nice treat considering the damage done in the last SOTW I used a nice safe bet for this fortnight to right my shavely wrongs.

Here's the set-up:

- Gentlemen's Best "Signature Series" shaving cream

- Gillette 7 O'clock blades

- Badger brush

- Gillette Super Speed razor 

I love everything about this set up. The brush is great and so reliable regardless of if I'm using a soap or a cream. This cream is also great, it's quite thick and I actually use it like I would a soft soap. I just load my brush in the container and then leg lather. The lather is great and so, so slick with a lovely mild smell that is neither overpowering, nor does it linger on. The lather is easy to create and doesn't require any extra water than normal. Just wet the brush, load the brush and lather onto wet skin and it's the perfect balance. The razor is a great weight and requires no guess work or extra attention in terms of pressure or aggressiveness. And the blades are an old reliable of mine. They are one of the first blades I ever used and they still hold up well against anything I've tried to date. Though I find the yellow 7 O'clocks to possibly be slightly better, I still think the green are consistently of great sharpness and quality. 

I barely even felt this shave, it was nice and smooth and easy and my skin thanks me for it.

This coming week I'll be trying a new soap and a new style of razor and blade so it'll be a complete change of things - wish me luck!

- BE

Shave Of The Week - 28th Nov '10

Ouch, ouch, ouch! This week's shave was full of itchiness and irritation!
Here's the set-up:

- Penworks Badger Brush

- 2-piece Gem razor with a lather catcher

- Gem Blades (grrrrr...)

- Prairie Creations Honeysuckle Tallow Shave Soap

The brush, as always was great. I find it performs equally well with soaps as with creams while the B&B LE I used last week is probably more suited to creams given the fact that the bristles are so floppy. This soap is lovely too. A nice mild honeysuckle scent that I love, but that is unfortunately not strong enough for my liking. I can smell it just fine in the tub but when whipping up a lather it's hard to get a hint of it at all. In fact the smell of my conditioner seemed to completely overpower it. Still, it creates a great lather. I find I need to load up quite a bit of it but at the rate I use soaps this should still last me ages even with quite a bit of product being used each time. It's not an overly hard soap either though so it's easy to load up and to add a little bit more to the brush halfway through. It's slick and provides good cushion which I was very grateful for considering the shave I was in for this week!

So onto the razor and the blades. Now this week something went very wrong here. I have it narrowed down to three possible causes, with my strongest suspicion being that the blades are old and aren't sharp enough. I've never used a razor with a lather catcher like this before and indeed it's only the second SE (single edge) razor I've ever used. Having been blown away by my Gem G-Bar I thought this would be amazing but I couldn't have been more wrong.

I think the lather catcher and the set of the blade in the razor could make this quite an aggressive razor to use but I'm not sure. Here's a picture of the blade in the razor so you can see:

The handle screws onto the top of the razor and it's a really lovely piece to hold. It's got a good weight to it but I must have put too much pressure on it for the very first stroke I did because while it felt fine, the minute I lifted the razor and went for the second stroke the red dots of doom began to appear and I had 9 nicks on my first pass (yes I counted just so I could tell you all here!). I took the rest of the shave with much more care and zero pressure and to be honest it was an ok-ish shave but not great.

The second shave I did a few days later I loaded up another blade and off to work I went again. At the start of the second leg (not the same leg as last time) I must have pressed down again because while it glided over the skin, I started to get many red dots appearing again. The blade felt mostly okay but it was hard to tell as I was a little cold (more about that in my next post) and possibly goosebumpy.

So I finish the second shave and put on some lotion this time to try and calm the irritation I could feel flaring up. It was fine for the day but when I got into bed that night - GAH! My legs have never been so irritated and uncomfortable. Every brush of the covers or touch of any fabric off my skin was like sandpaper on sunburn. I eventually had to get out of bed and put on some knee-high socks so that they would form a barrier between my skin and the covers.

Now I put this down to either:

1. the razor is simply too aggressive for me, 

however I've used aggressive razor before and I can normally feel it.

2. the bathroom was too cold and I was shaving over goosebumps

and while this is likely I have shaved in much colder conditions and its never been this bad.

3. the blades (which were gifted to me) were old and had blunted

in my opinion this is at least part of, if not all of the cause I think.

So some day when it's warm again and my legs are feeling brave I'll take out this razor again and pop in a brand new blade and see how it goes. But right now it's -2 degrees outside and my legs are still recovering from the shock. Time to get them a nice cup of tea I think.

- BE

Shave Of The Week - 21st Nov '10

So thanks this week to Ryan on B&B for helping me pick out this weeks shave. I was looking for something luxurious and feminine and he made all the right choices!
Here's the set-up:

- Mama Bear's Pearberry Shaving Soap

- Badger and Blade Limited Edition 2006 Finest Silvertip Badger Brush

- Wade and Butcher straight with cameo-style scales

- Vintage paddle strop 

Okay while typing this I just realised that the soap is not the scent Ryan suggested for me - sorry Ryan!

Firstly a bit about the brush. I won this as part of a competition on B&B and it came with a matching DE razor. It's a lovely brush and the handle is stunning but this was my first time using it and I just couldn't get a good lather from it. I'm sure this is just due to my inexperience with the brush but it just goes to show how different brushes take different techniques. The bristles are incredibly soft and seem to have no backbone to them at all which I found tricky to get used to . I didn't want to be applying too much pressure but they just smushed down on my leg while I was trying to build the lather. I should note that I leg-lather. This means that I load the brush with soap or cream and then swirl it on my leg, creating my lather directly on my skin. This is opposed to bowl-lathering; where the lather is built in a bowl and then just spread on the skin. I must try bowl lathering with this brush until I get it figured out. I couldn't work out if I was using too little product or too much water. The lather seemed runny and thin yet I've used this soap before and had no problems with it so I'm lead to believe that it's the brush that's causing me problems. I got a poor lather worked up this week but the shave was still fairly close and smooth. Not very cushioned though and I could feel the blade drag a tiny bit in parts.

As for the soap - I love this smell. It's sweet and fruity and sort of like candy but not overly sickly either. The scent doesn't last very long and while, as I mentioned, this soap normally gives me a good lather, this week it just wasn't happening.

The straight is lovely and it is shaaaa-aaarp! It was honed by ShavedZombie (a member on B&B) and this is the sharpest straight I own I think. Wade and Butcher are a well known and well loved make of straight and the quality of the steel is top-notch. Feeling my legs now 12 hours after shaving and they are still smooth with zero hints of stubble. I also love the scales on this straight. Here's a picture that shows some of the detail of the scales as well as the bottom of the brush:

So though the lather was poor the shave was luxurious and contained some wonderful things. Once I have perfected using this brush I think it will become a favourite and maybe it just needs a bit of re-breaking in. I also tried again to shave under my arms with a straight (why I keep trying is beyond me but I guess I'm just a stubborn glutton for punishment!). Anyway I actually got a okayish half-ass job done of it but it's safe to say that shaving under your arm, using your wrong hand, with a large sharp piece of metal is not advised. I got a little nick under there unsurprisingly! Don't try this at home!

- BE

Shave Of The Week - 14th Nov '10

This SOTW is for a friend of mine on B&B: Telecaster52, who picked out everything for me to use this week.
Here's the set-up (sorry about the bad photo):

- Musgo Real shave cream
- Astra blades 
- Slim Adjustable razor
- Penworks brush


I've used adjustables before in the past, so I'm guessing it is the blades, but on my first shave with this set-up I cut myself a couple of times on the first leg. I had it set at a 3 so I dialled it down to a 2 and it seemed fine after that. Nice sharp blade, but I'd be curious to see if it's too sharp for me in a non-adjustable. The razor is quite top-heavy but easy enough to hold and the weight helps the razor to just glide on the skin.
A problem I've been having lately is the cold weather. The window in my bathroom is a little broken and it's cold, cold, cold outside so my bathroom gets freezing. One thing ladies (or at least traditional shaving ladies) will tell you is that you just can't shave legs that have goosebumps. It gives you horrible irritation. So I've been trying to stuff a towel in the crack and turn on the heat before a shave so as to heat up the room a bit more. Im considering just duct-taping the gap!


As always I love this brush with it's lovely soft bristles and large comfortable handle. It lathers creams very well and the big knot is great for covering large surface areas like my legs. The cream is nice. It had a pleasant smell that is just like soap but less powdery. It actually smells a little like mild Arko (a shave stick). It provides a good lather though I found it required a bit more work than some other things. It takes a fair bit of water and swirling but once it hits the "sweet spot" the lather is good and cushioning.


Again, the cold bathroom and sharp blade didn't make this the best shave of all time but now bad either. I think this coming week I'll use something with a nice girly smell. Hmmm...


- BE

Shave Of The Week - 7th Nov '10

So it'd be wrong to say this SOTW (Shave Of The Week) is made up but some of my least favourite things, but rather it's made up of things that I don't use very often and prefer less to other types. Mainly I'm talking about using a boar brush instead of badger and a cream instead of a soap.
So here's the set-up:

- Gillette Flare-tip razor replated in rose gold

- Boar brush (not one of the higher end ones admittedly but a good worker)

- "Wilks" blades

- Taylor Of Old Bond Street (commonly referred to as TOBS) Eton College Collection Shave Cream

I'm not a boar kind of gal. Some guys love them as the bristles are stiffer and more exfoliating, but I just can't get used to them no matter how much I try. With badgers I know how much water each of my brushes will hold and therefore how much needs to be added to get a good lather, but boars just don't hold water terribly well so the ratios are all different. Using this brush is fine. I've used it many times before and it does the job but there's not the luxury in it that badger provides in my opinion. 

To top that off I decided to use a cream this week. Again, not something I generally do as I like soaps better and man, I sure picked one MANLY smelling cream to use! I'd never used it before but had picked a few TOBS creams up on uber-sale a while back. The lather itself is good and abundant and the scent is one of the strongest I've found.  'Hurrah' you might think, ' You only just mentioned a few posts ago how you love strong scents!', and indeed while sitting here typing I can still smell it on myself. Which is a bad thing. I smell like I've dosed myself in men's aftershave.  Not entirely replusive aftershave I might add (it's no "sex panther" anyway!) but there's nothing I could even vaguely describe as unisex about the scent. Looking at the back of the tube I get no hints as to what the smell is and my nose isn't trained to pick out the notes in it. However the terms "Eton College" and "gentlemen" do seem to fit the scent well. And I'd rather not choke my work mates by trying to mask it with perfume so I will shortly be going into work smelling like a refined gentleman. Oh joy. At least the lather was nice and heavy and cushioning to use.

Onto the razor. This is one beautiful razor and the picture above doesn't do it justice. It's got a fair bit of weight to it which is a little more than is fully comfortable in my hand but it's still a cinch to use and combined with the wilk blade it gave a close irritation-free shave. In fact combine these two with a badger brush and something that doesn't leave me questioning my gender everytime I close my eyes, and it's be a great set-up!

- BE

Shave Of The Week - 31st Oct '10 (Halloween!)

It's been a bit quiet on here as I was back home for a couple of days at the start of this week for a friend's birthday. 
I had a great time, ate lots of birthday leftovers, and it made my shave of the week this week extra special. I finally got a chance to use my dinky little Gillette 3-piece travel razor and a couple of samples of The Bomb shaving cream that had been given to me by a member on B&B (not the vendor I might add).


So here was my set-up for this week:

- Gillette 3-piece travel razor with the tin I keep it in
- Badger Brush
- Israeli Super Platinum blades
- The Bomb shaving cream samples in Sage and Menthol


Sorry I don't have a picture of the samples but they were just in tiny clear baggies and I used them up. You can find the product here if you like: Al's Shaving 
The best point about this cream I have to say is that a tiny bit goes a long, long way. I put about a pea-sized amount into my brush and it was enough lather for both legs and underarms and still some to spare! No need to reload my brush between legs. The lather itself is nice and smooth, not as "big/fluffy" as some I've tried, but slick and even, and, while not moisturizing per ce, it's certainly not drying either. The scents are nice too. Scent is normally a huge selling point of this product when mentioned in reviews, and maybe it was because I was using a small sample, I found them pleasant but quite mild, not nearly as strong as I would have hoped for (I like my scents quite strong though). The menthol was nice and refreshing though gave no method feel/tingle to the lather. The sage again was fresh and much lighter than I guessed sage scent would be though I have nothing to compare it to. Much more like the actual plant rather than sage incense.
The blades were good and sharp and easily glided through a full shave with no nicks or cuts. I'd like to try these again in a different razor though to get a better feel for them. Also I'm not sure if these have another name so if you know please leave a comment!


Now onto the razor. I love this little thing. This is the first time I've had the opportunity to bring it along somewhere and give it a whirl. In saying that, I carry it in my bag wherever I go. I love having it with me, kind of like having the tools of my trade at hand. I have it in a tin I bought years ago that fits it perfectly and I just keep it in my purse the same way some people carry around a lucky charm or memento.
It's small, shiny and surprisingly does the job well. The handle is obviously smaller than my normal liking but the ball-end gives it enough grip and it was much easier to hold and use than I would have thought. Here's more pictures, one of it taken apart and in the tin quite I have some velvet lining in, and one where you can see the tin is as small as a box of matches!

Cute huh?


Here's a picture of my pumkitty to wish you all a Happy Halloween!

- BE

Shave Of The Week - 17th Oct '10

Here's the set-up:

- Barden straight razor (honed by ShavedZombie)

- Penworks pine wood handle badger brush

- Mama Bear's Northwoods shaving soap

- Vintage paddle strop restored by ShavedZombie on B&B

So, I was so awed by the SE razor last week that I though I'd need to whip out another one of my straights just to remind me that each style of razor has it's merits and not to go running off hand in hand with my GEM into a shave happy future. 

My Barden was one of the straights I sent off to ShavedZombie (a member on Badger and Blade) for honing and this was it's first run since getting it back. Unlike my Red Imp I actually remembered to strop it before use too!

The strop is a vintage paddle strop which SZ gave me as a gift so I'd have something to keep my beauties sharp on. He restored the leather on both sides, numbering each so I'd know which one to start with. Though I have to say the difference in draw between the two sides is very apparent and you can really feel the smoothness of the second side finishing off the blade's edge nicely. It also gives that lovely "shhhing!" noise at the end of the stroke. Because the leather is mounted onto the paddle I don't have to worry about the tension being wrong or curving the leather around the blade and thus blunting the razor more than sharpening it. For those of you interested in learning to strop I recommend checking out this video. It's quite long but very good and informative about all of the basics:

I gave my razor about 15 laps on each side before each shave this week (I could have done more but was eager to shave!). The razor shaved wonderfully smoothly. No nicks or cuts and as easy to manoeuvre around tricky spots like the ankle and back of knee. As always when shaving I had to use both hands which can get a bit tricky, but I avoided amputation!
The lather from the Mama Bears was great. Not as "heavy" as tallow based soaps and a little less moisturising but a nice lather none the less and I love this scent. It's like going for a walk in a pine forest after rainfall. I hate pine car air-fresheners so trust me when I say this is nothing at all like that. It's nicely unisex too which is good as I don't really do for "girly"scents. Also as there is no tallow it doesn't leave the residue that tallow soaps do. Just washed off nice and clean.


As for the brush... well this is my baby. I hadn't used her for a few weeks to give her a rest as she had developed a crack in her handle. Tony in Penworks kindly took her back and restored her and she's now almost as good as new but I still like to give her a break. I love the handle of this brush. If I had my way all my brush handles would be like this. Big enough and heavy too and fits perfectly in the palm in my hand. No sharp corners or bumps or anything. Just smooooooth curves. The knot is soft and large and holds water brilliantly.  I had forgotten how soft it was having used the other one for a while and got a bit surprised to see the bristles bend on my leg. 


So all in all a lovely shave this week. I seem to always get the closest shaves with my straights. My Barden needs to have the pins tightened as they are a bit loose which I don't like, but until I can figure out how to do that I'll make do. Time to oil him up and put him back into storage though as tomorrow's another week!


-BE

Shave Of The Week - 10th Oct '10 (10/10/10!)

Shave of the week time for 10/10/10!
Here's the set-up:

- A GEM G-Bar SE (single edge) razor
- GEM SE blade
- Dr Harris & Co. 'Arlington' Shave Stick
- Badger Brush


So this was my first ever shave with a SE razor and I have to say I might just be a convert. It was incredibly smooth and easy. I was a bit worried that the blade wouldn't last for one whole shave (two full legs and both underarms) but I needn't have worried as it stayed nice and sharp with no drag at any point. With a DE you have both sides of the blade to use during a shave so my thinking was that this would essentially be like using half a DE. I was wrong. A SE blade acts like something that's between half a DE blade and a straight razor. It's a bit thicker and sturdier and, as far as I can tell so far, gets a smidge closer too than a DE, but not as close as I can get with a straight. The lather was caught nicely and rinsed away clearer than I find when using a DE. It didn't seem to get inside the razor or caught in any nooks or crannies.
The lather itself was nice. Shave sticks are easy to use, just rub them on the skin and then swirl your brush around. For good measure I gave the brush a swirl on the stick too just to load it a bit more. The scent is fine though nothing that particularly calls to me. It lathered easily and gave a good lasting lather.


I'll have to try this SE with another soap later on to see if I can make this an even better shave but I'm very, very happy with this. A good balance of nice and close with super easy to use.


- BE

Shave Of The Week - 4th Oct '10

It's that time again... (though I'm a day late - sorry guys, I had a guest over for the weekend! ... I say this as if you would even notice!)...
It's my Shave Of The Week just gone - Hurrah!
Here's the set up:

• Badger Brush
• Shark Blades
• Queen Charlotte Key Lime Soap
• Champagne Lady Gillette Razor

You might recognize the blades and the soap from my "80 Shaves" post last week. 

I had tried the blades before and liked them and was keen to try the soap based on some great reviews I had heard, and I have to say the hype is very much justified.

I own quite a few shaving creams and soaps and I can see this one very quickly becoming one of my favourites. The scent is lovely and fresh and not too sickly sweet or overbearing. A perfect lime scent in my opinion. It's packed full of good ingredients like tallow, olive oil, glycerin, kaolin clay so it produces tons of very slick rich lather very easily and the scent just bursts out. Very moisturizing and protecting and gives great slickness and is also paraben free which is always a good thing. I would even say it is probably the easiest thing I have ever lathered (more so than Arko, Cella or LaToja). 

This soap is handmade by a member on B&B and as I like to support independent shops (though I must mention I have zero affiliation to the seller) here is a link to his website: http://www.queencharlottesoaps.com/ - give it a look!

The blades were good and gave a comfortable shave, though I'll have to try them when I have a little more time. My shaves this week were a bit rushed due to having a test to study for, and a guest visiting, but even while rushing I got no irritation and only two tiny nicks due to my own carelessness.

The brush was great as always and stood up well to one bad fall into the bath (did I mention that the soap gives lots of slippy lather as well as me being a butterfingers?!?).

As for the razor... she's my pet. I love her so and she was the first DE (double edge) razor I owned. I love the colour of her and she's the perfect level of aggressiveness for me. I can use her as fast now as I ever could my old cartridge monster of a thing, though I like to take my time and enjoy my shave now.

So there you have it. I have yet to pick my set up for this week but it'll be tough moving away from Queen Charlotte having only just gotten acquainted with her majesty. Maybe using a straight again will ease the separation anxiety!

- BE

Shave Of The Week - 26th Sept '10

So I thought it'd be fun to have a "Shave Of The Week" section where I'll use one razor, one blade (if I'm not using a straight), one brush and one cream/soap for the week and then do a little write-up on here.
If anyone has any requests (ie. more creams, more DE reviews...) please let me know and I'll see what I can do!


Here's my set-up for the week just gone, which contains some of my favourite things as well as being unintentionally colour co-ordinated!:

I recently got my beautiful straight razors back from honing. (Many thanks to ShavedZombie on BadgerAndBlade.com who honed them wonderfully for me.) -  ShavedZombie on B&B

My favourite straight is my Red Imp so I have been using it as my razor all of this week having been excited to try its new sharpness! Using a straight razor (sometimes referred to as a 'cut-throat razor', or simply a 'straight') does have quite a learning curve on it but I am lucky enough that am an ambidextrous shaver so this makes some of the angles, like on the backs of my legs etc., a little easier!
It's the 132 version and is square-point 5/8ths razor which means its a nice small thing which fits perfectly in my hand.  It gives me a smooth, close shave and is very well balanced.


The "soap" is Cella. I say "soap" because this stuff is really more like a soft putty type of texture. It's an Italian made soap and is light cream in colour and smells of almonds. It lathers fantastically. It's one of my top products to use and is thick and slick and a dream to shave with. It's not drying at all and provides great cushion.


The brush is a black handled badger hair brush. Though not my favourite brush it's a lovely one and I like how the handle looks like it could be a chess piece. The badger grade is "finest" as far as I recall and it's a great worker that creates lather easily.


So a close comfortable shave this week with a setup up that I love.


But here's the bad news...
right after using this set-up today I accidental banged the edge of my straight against the tap!
It now has a tiny, tiny ding in the edge so I'm going to have to see if I can fix it on my barber's hone or if I'll have to send it out again! Poor Red Imp didn't know what hit it!