Anything that can go wrong will happen while I'm shaving...

Just a quick thought, Paul, that erupted in my little gray cells. Is the Glacial balm mentholated? I know I can look it up, but my real point is that for my face (and I have rosacea which makes keeps me on my toes as to what can and cannot be applied to my face!) I found menthol products way too irritating. My face would flush like I was benching a piano and after the initial cold tingle, start feeling warm and the skin felt tight. I used it once by accident (didn't thing a sample of unscented balm from Soap Commander would have it) and once on purpose. Same result both times. Stirling's unscented balm I am really liking this winter. It is a little thicker than the facial moisturizer I was using. And Zingari Man has 2 unscented balms, with the Sego base being thicker. I have not tried it, as I had the Stirling already, so I did get the other, lighter, one.

For years I have used a moisturizer from Paula's Choice, the Skin Balancing Invisible Finish gel. Great stuff, but expensive. Thankfully, a little goes a long way. When I have really irritated my face, that is what I turn to. Not pushing it at you to buy! My thought was try something without menthol if that Glacial has a chemical in it to "cool" your face.

In happier news, my replacement Henson is shipping. That's a good thing.

I have to say, they've been very good to deal with.

In happier news, my replacement Henson is shipping. That's a good thing.

I have to say, they've been very good to deal with.

Any explanation as to what metal the handle was as I can't imagine titanium doing that ? Or did they give an explanation as to what happened to it ?

In happier news, my replacement Henson is shipping. That's a good thing.

I have to say, they've been very good to deal with.

Any explanation as to what metal the handle was as I can't imagine titanium doing that ? Or did they give an explanation as to what happened to it ?

Oh, they don't have it yet. I just shipped it Saturday. My guess is, they'll receive it sometime this weekend or early next week. I did ask them to let me know what they find. It's quite shocking. Even they were stunned by the photo.

The only thing that comes to mind for me, and it's complete conjecture, is maybe I got some sort of demo handle by mistake. But what crumbles like that? The most deteriorating thing I can think of is zamak. But doesn't Zamak look non-silver once you break through the outer coating? If you look at the picture, it's silver, in a smooth even tone, through and through.

Very odd situation.

So I mailed the razor back to Henson's on Saturday. I used the lowest cost postage option the USPS had, as the next level up was was 40-something dollars. I did briefly look at UPS, but that was higher (I want to say $60-ish). This supposedly only had tracking up to customs. Today is Wednesday and it still shows USPS in possession, no other updates. I'm wondering if they meant it would only tell me that it has passed customs (not stop-by-stop tracking up to it).

Nonetheless, I received the email for the replacement days after (see above). Yet, it's now saying my replacement will be here tomorrow. Wow! That's fast!

Kudos to Henson for the speedy service. I even told them I had razors to use in the meantime... It wasn't an urgent matter. I wonder how they would have sent it if it was urgent... Teleportation?

This evening I showered, then I applied water. I set my Fluffy Ind Boar to soak, and applied the Stirling Glacial. I let it sit for 2 minutes then I rinsed out the brush and built the lather. I then applied the lather and let it sit for a few minutes, adding water as needed.

I did three passes with the Overlander. It is a smooth shaver, for sure. How much... That might be hard to gauge right now. I did the maximum prep because of irritation I've been having. I also used what may be one of my best soaps: MacDuff's. This stuff is as slick as they come.

Post shave was more Stirling Glacial, followed by some water splashes. After it dried, I applied some Lucky Tiger.

Other than some dry post shave feeling, it's darn good. Almost no redness and zero pain.

Now I've read a few times people talking about getting a BBS with this razor in two passes. I cannot fathom how. It's good for sure. Probably as competent as the GC 84, with less aggression. But two passes!? I needed three plus cleanup here, as usual. My guess would be, my hair is much more wirey?

Nonetheless, it was a good shave on day one, shaving the copper wire with the brass Outlander. Have a good evening folks.

I’ve never used the Stirling Glacial Pist Shave so I can’t comment. It’s possible that if you’re having winter dry skin related issues like Dave in KY mentions that slum might irritate you but it’s worth trying on a small patch of skin.  Alum will sting initially if you’ve had a rough shave of a bunch of nicks or weepers but then calms down after the cool rinse. 

I was looking back at that Henson titanium handle. Not pretty. It looks like the threaded part is an insert pressed into the hollowed out end of the handle. I’m not sure why they’d do that rather than machining the threads into the handle but I’d say the insert is not titanium. Maybe they save money not having to machine threads into very hard titanium but that insert flaking away like that must be super soft/cheap metal if brass, which is a very soft metal, does that to it. I’m wondering if it’s maybe a case of dissimilar metals corrosion? (Galvanic corrosion) you’ve got interaction among titanium, brass and whatever unknown metal that liner us made of.  Not impressed with that particular detail.

https://www.allmetalsfab.com/galvanic-re...ar-metals/

I’ve never used the Stirling Glacial Pist Shave so I can’t comment. It’s possible that if you’re having winter dry skin related issues like Dave in KY mentions that slum might irritate you but it’s worth trying on a small patch of skin.  Alum will sting initially if you’ve had a rough shave of a bunch of nicks or weepers but then calms down after the cool rinse. 

I was looking back at that Henson titanium handle. Not pretty. It looks like the threaded part is an insert pressed into the hollowed out end of the handle. I’m not sure why they’d do that rather than machining the threads into the handle but I’d say the insert is not titanium. Maybe they save money not having to machine threads into very hard titanium but that insert flaking away like that must be super soft/cheap metal if brass, which is a very soft metal, does that to it. I’m wondering if it’s maybe a case of dissimilar metals corrosion? (Galvanic corrosion) you’ve got interaction among titanium, brass and whatever unknown metal that liner us made of.  Not impressed with that particular detail.

https://www.allmetalsfab.com/galvanic-re...ar-metals/

That was my initial thought... A reaction with the brass. Unfortunately, everyone and their uncle wants to talk about aluminum v steel... No one wants to say anything about brass v titanium. So, I'm not sure if these two have a corrosive reaction. If you ponder all of the amazing technology we have, and employ, in this day and age... You'd think "is titanium and brass" would have been figured out by now. Shocking I can't find anything.

(This is all presuming it's actually titanium. I'm not 100% sold that it is. Judging from their reaction, I think it's supposed to be. Which is why I wonder if I got a demo they were muddling with by accident.)

I’ve never used the Stirling Glacial Pist Shave so I can’t comment. It’s possible that if you’re having winter dry skin related issues like Dave in KY mentions that slum might irritate you but it’s worth trying on a small patch of skin.  Alum will sting initially if you’ve had a rough shave of a bunch of nicks or weepers but then calms down after the cool rinse. 

I was looking back at that Henson titanium handle. Not pretty. It looks like the threaded part is an insert pressed into the hollowed out end of the handle. I’m not sure why they’d do that rather than machining the threads into the handle but I’d say the insert is not titanium. Maybe they save money not having to machine threads into very hard titanium but that insert flaking away like that must be super soft/cheap metal if brass, which is a very soft metal, does that to it. I’m wondering if it’s maybe a case of dissimilar metals corrosion? (Galvanic corrosion) you’ve got interaction among titanium, brass and whatever unknown metal that liner us made of.  Not impressed with that particular detail.

https://www.allmetalsfab.com/galvanic-re...ar-metals/

That was my initial thought... A reaction with the brass. Unfortunately, everyone and their uncle wants to talk about aluminum v steel... No one wants to say anything about brass v titanium. So, I'm  not sure if these two have a corrosive reaction. If you ponder all of the amazing technology we have, and employ, in this day and age... You'd think "is titanium and brass" would have been figured out by now. Shocking I can't find anything.

(This is all presuming it's actually titanium. I'm not 100% sold that it is. Judging from their reaction, I think it's supposed to be. Which is why I wonder if I got a demo they were muddling with by accident.)

I’m not a metallurgist but from what I can see galvanic corrosion isn’t restricted to aluminum and steel but can occur in any situation where you have dissimilar metals in contact in the “right “ environment such as moisture. That metal flaking like that sure looks like corrosion and not wear or stress cracking. It’s interesting because even if the Henson guys don’t have a background in metals and machining, you’d think that someone at the machining/milling contractors they deal with would have said something. I’d be interested to know if there are other similar handles out there with the same problem. It’s possible the problem only shows up with frequent use/exposure to water. You say you used the razor 160 times- that’s probably above average usage for shavers with multiple razors to choose from.  If you send the razor back to Henson, I would hope they’d be honest with you about what the problem really is. Inquiring minds want to know. If they just replace it with the same thing what’s to stop it happening again?