SOTD 20-26 September 2020

Sunday September 20, 2020

Razor: Blackland Vector
Blade: Schick Proline (7)
Brush: Stirling Synthetic
Soap: Mystic Waters Leather & Smoke
Aftershave 1: Humphrey's Alcoholado Maravilla
Aftershave 2: Avon Leather
Fragrance: Azzaro Visit

Razor: H&S NO75
Blade: Gillette Perma-Sharp stainless
Brush: Simpsons Trafalgar T3
Pre-shave: Castle Forbes
Cream: Baum.Be
Balm: OneBlade lavender
Finale: Stetson

PAA Ascension Cu & King C. Gillette Platinum

Knothead 28mm Tux African Blackwood/Blue Resin

Grooming Dept. Incense&Rose 

LEA Classic a/s Locion

Narciso Rodriguez for him Bleu Noir eau de toilette

8/8 Spanish Point ∙ Paua ∙ MOP

The Varlet 29 XD

⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣⁣Sē'bŭm Gold - SG Customs

Wow, just wow.

Max Sprecher 8/8 Spanish Point
Sē'bŭm Latte
Saponificio Varesino 2.0 Cocobolo

Catie's Bubbles | 322
Leo Frilot Tru-Stone 322 | AP Shave Co. SilkSmoke 28mm
Ever-Ready SE | Gem PTFE

Sunday, September 20

Santa Maria Novella~~Simpson CH3~~Detroit Cut Co. "National"
Have a great day!

SEptember 20th
Razor: RR Hawk V3 OC
Blade: Schick Proline (2)
Brush: Heritage Collection dubl duck/gelled boar
Pre-shave: PAA Mentholated Cube
Soap: Stirling Pumpkin Spice
Stirling Orange Chill Witch Hazel
Stirling Glacial Balm
AS: Stirling Pumpkin Spice

Stirling SEptember

Good morning!

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

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[b]SOTD SUNDAY MORNING, SEPTEMBER 20, 2020[/b]

Today’s shave deserves to be framed. I spent yesterday afternoon applying some of the honing principles my son, Ben, has taught me. I began with the Imperia La Roccia (ILR) stone I nationalized from Ben’s rock garden. Worked up a slurry on the ILR after first lapping it with Ben’s coarse Atoma diamond plate and followed with a tomo nagura slurry stone and kept gradually diluting the created slurry until I was working with just water and the blade began to stick. I then spent about an hour with the UF side of my jasper stone and plain water until the blade again began to stick. Three pasted stroppings (0.5, 0.25, 0.1) and 30 strokes on the leather paddle strop and the blade began to resemble my Diamond Hayashi Nichiri Tokusen Silver Steel Razor’s edge under 200x magnification. The pattern is not identical because the steel’s different, but the smoothness is evident as is the slightly more acute angle as I did not use tape on the spine.

I just can’t stop grinning after today’s mug shave. Yesterday’s shave was ok, and many would be happy with it. Maybe it’s just the fact that I rebuilt the edge by increasing the angle slightly and smoothing it out. Despite the slight stubble, the blade floated through the MWF lather both above and below the jawline. The weep from yesterday reopened, but the MWF lather did its thing and by the end of the first ATG pass was no longer bleeding. The second and final XTG pass put the baby in the velveteen cradle. My greatest learning which was truly freeing was recognizing that my straight shave was just that and need not mirror many of the straight shaving exemplars on YT. It was Jared Connerty’s video and his unconventional - at least according the others I’d viewed - two handed blade hold on an ATG neck pass that helped me realize it's my shave, freeing me up to use a variety of unconventional holds.

After that great mug shave, I loaded the RR Hawk V3 with a fresh palm-stropped Feather Super and had at it. The huge 26mm Two Band Badger ferrule in the Alpha Shaving T-400 Tribute brush worked up a rich, yogurty, slick lather. Applying the lather with this huge rush really felt good and just contributed to what turned out to be a truly paradigm-shifting shave. Particularly so when my mug shave feels so much closer than my dome shave. I had this same experience two days ago with the Feather DX. Now don’t get me wrong, I do believe that technique trumps tools. It just appears to me in retrospect that the infinitely flexible angles afforded the open edge shaver do provide a leg up technique wise when compared to the fixed angle built into a safety razor. I’ll have to think some more on this recognition. Maybe I just experienced my first Kuhnian Shaving paradigm shift! In any case I feel velveteen, clean and refreshed on this beautiful morning in Philadelphia!

RAZOR: Riga Razor 7/8 (Mug), RazoRock SS Hawk V3 (Dome)
BLADE: Feather Super
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by Argan Oil
BRUSH: Alpha Shaving T-400 Tribute w/ 26mm Two Band Badger Ferrule
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by Humphreys Lilac WH and Osage Rub. Finished with Alt-Innsbruck and A&E Post-Shave Serum.