Sweet Braeburn for an on theme SLS. I smell delicious.
This concludes my run through all Seaforth! Fragrances. I skipped Sea Ice Lime because it shares the fragrance with Sea Spice Lime and nobody needs koolada in western Swiss November. With Black Watch, Sea Spice Line, Heather, Spiced, and Fleur de France, Dennis and Shawn brought five of my all-time favourite fragrances in wetshaving, an astonishing hit ratio.
One thing I realised over the last week is that i prefer the 20.1 base over highland, but I get great performance from both, so I conclude that I must prefer the uNoBtAiNiUm one solely because it's gone. Silly, but apparently I'm that guy.
Roman Spice was my AA setup, so it immediately felt routine. Great shave, nice šmellz.
The R41 GT still rocks, the Purist badger still sucks, now off to the office.
I wonder whether it may be more a function of the shape. The R41 GT in titanium has a matte, stone washed-like finish, and I don't feel any drag from it either. So smooth stainless steel (polished), zamac (chrome plated), and rough surface titanium all don't drag.
Indeed!
"Sniff, sniff – ooh, is this my favourite?" - my wife
Yes, we are on the same page, I think.
my Stando Perun really pisses me off in that regard. A 100+€ stainless steel razor simply shouldn't catch rust, period. 😞
Yeah, this one is infuriating. I'm sorry this happened to you.
Both PantaRei and Zenith could be good examples for Mühle IMO. Luxury quality, or good value.
It's cool that they even came out with the GS model after the success of the Rocca.
Yeah, it really is. The GS is really well made too, tight fits, good surface quality. For a European made razor, even the price seems reasonable.
I apologize for rambling way too much, but you brought up so many valid points and instigated such a meaningful discussion that I wanted to share my two cents, but instead dropped my whole bank account on you. Sorry 😅
Oh please, this is exactly what we have this instance for 😊
@[email protected] mentioned that he finds that chrome-plated razors glide better on his skin that stainless steel razors. Since I have my R41 comparison going anyway, I used them both and tried to feel a difference. It's tricky since they feel different being of vastly different weight, but I couldn't really feel a meaningful difference in how they slide over the lather. YKMV, I guess.
I never noticed a difference. Now I have a homework for my SLS 🙂
Because if we're being honest, a well made safety razor (or straight razor, or shaving brush) is a luxury item.
I both agree and don't. Yes, in the sense that nobody needs a stainless steel safety razor for over €100 if a brass Tech will cost a fraction. On the other hand, nobody would call it luxury if you shave with Mach3 cartridges, but those are more expensive than the "luxury" stainless steel razor in just a few years. So it's all kind of messed up in my opinion.
Worst case scenario, someone has a broken and unusable razor at home that has cost them 200+€.
Yeah, this one gets to me. The meissner series they sell is a porcelain handle zamac razor that might just break after a some years of use because the threads wear through the plating for €655, and a brush that has the same lame knot as my brush and costs €675. I don't understand.
Compared to razors offered in plastic with many tiny blades of the cheapest possible stainless, chrome-covered zamac is still a large improvement in quality. :)
I agree! I still recommend the Merkur 34C for beginners for instance. It's just praising it as peak durability that irks me and it leaves no room for making the case for steel.
Was it just that special edition
Yes, they made just two editions, the London and the Berlin edition with I think a couple hundred razors.
few would buy the machined one if they sold it at the same margins as the zinc alloy.
That sounds right, unfortunately.
the time it takes to winnow the quality offerings from the grift as doing my part to signal a better direction for society.
I like this perspective a lot.
R41 gang 🍻🍻
This Moar Boar of a sub member was loosing a lot of bristles. They were done with it and let me have it.
I was surprised how hard it is to cut off all the bristles of a boar knot!
It was so hard that I was convinced I was cutting into the glue bump and had finally figured out its shape:
But the actual glue came a few mm deeper.
I was worried at first that the tiny hand mill wouldn't be up to the task and that I'd need to find a 32 mm Forstner bit and figure out a way to grip the handle strong enough to withstand the torque of the Forstner bit on a drill press without ruining it, but as it turns out, it was quite easy and quick to get the hole deep enough:
I've set the handle with a 30 mm Maggard Silvertip knot, and I'm looking forward to trying the most exclusive of all subbrooshes, the Moar Badger soon.
Share your shave of the day!
Like @[email protected] the other day, I also have taken advantage of Yourshaving's anniversary sale and got myself three new brushies to break in:
I've been meaning to try a Semogue Owner's club for a while now, mainly because of @[email protected] singing its praises and this is going to be perfect for this year's AA Raw Hoggin'. The pretty Butterscotch brush is a Zenith 506B Manchurian. It's my first Zenith badger, and my first silver tip badger. I'm curious to break this one in, but will probably wait for after LG. Finally, the black one is a Zenith 506N XS (you can see, I like the 506 form factor), an extra soft horse hair brush, which was recommended by @[email protected] among others. This one will wait for LG.
A combined shipment from Stirling and Barrister and Mann arrived today. From Stirling, I finally got my replacement Varen tub (and added the frag) and got a tub of Mountain man to replace my soon-to-be-killed sample of it.
Braeburn was pointed out to me as a possible alternative to SBS Teacher's Pet (now sadly UnObTaInIuM) and it was a great tip. Dickens is a replacement from balm that has... not aged well, and Beaudelaire was on discount and I certainly can't resist trying a Fougère with Mousse de Saxe. Especially not if this is how Will describes it:
edit: I just only now realised that Beaudelaire the frag isn't spelled like the Baudelaire the author.
I cleaned, polished, and honed these three vintage razors a while ago, but didn't get to posting a mail call. The main act here is definitely the big Henckels 14:
It is in great condition, just a bit of surface corrosion at the toe where the hollow grind touches the scales. I'm always amazed by how quickly these extra hollow 14 razors hone up. It really barely takes any work to get a great edge. This is my third 14 razor, the other two being a Filarmónica 14 and a Henckels Friodur 14 (the stainless successor of this new acquisition). Two shaves with this were wonderful.
The little Puma 88 is a fairly standard ⅝" round tip German hollow ground, but it seems extremely well-made. The absolutely even stamp on the shank, the completely regular jimps, and the pretty scales with brass inlay and the stamp around the pivot pin all scream quality without opulence. I get the hard-to-describe feeling from this razor that I also get from a well made hammer or screw driver. Great shaver.
Finally, this poor Frio 72½ took some serious abuse from its previous owner. If you look closely, you can see that the bevel looks wavy around the middle of the blade.
Here's a close-up.
The reason is that the edge has been bent out of true in three places. When I bought the razor, the images for the offer were taken in a way that didn't show this issue. I almost tossed the razor after it arrived, but then I decided to give it a try and it turns out it has no impact on shave quality. I'm still not sure whether to keep this razor of PIF it maybe.
Share your shave of the day!
Fou Fri 15 Nov 2024
Delightful morning shave for three reasons: