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November 19, 2024 -- Bleu Teusday
Brush: AP Shave Co Summer 28mm G5C
Blade Holder: Gillette Fatboy E4 (setting: 4)
Blade: Astra Superior Platinum (3)
Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Deep Blue Sea - Soap
Aftershave: Stirling Soap Co. - Deep Blue Sea - Aftershave
Fragrance: Chanel - Bleu de Chanel
2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.
A very enjoyable FLS this morning. Forgot to post until now.
November 19, 2024
Really nice shave. I was inspired by @snooting@sub.wetshaving.social who just got one of these razors. It pairs quite nicely with Lab Blue blades, but honestly it works with just about anything.
Vespers is amazing.
It's a great razor!
I'm tentatively in on Vespers, it sounds like an interesting scent. Do you only have the shave soap? I'm wondering whether it's worth picking up the trifecta.
I might start with just a sample though, given that I've never put nose to scent.
If Will does samples again this year (I haven't looked at the release schedule so don't know if this is a "skip" year) that might be a good idea, but it's an incredible scent and you'll want more. I don't have enough left for BVWSC, otherwise I'd nominate it.
Want a smush?
Oh, I'd love one if you could spare some!
You have my address already, yeah?
Yes, good timing actually because I'm assembling smushes for next month's BVWSC shave. I'll send both in the same envelope.
Most excellent, thank you!
Tuesday, November 19, 2024: FLS
Not my best lather this morning as I was rushing through to finish before a morning meeting. Still great results though, the CF base always performs well for me.
Have a good day y'all!
19.11.2024 - Travel Speick shave
2 passes on the head (one WTG with a safety razor, ATG with a Headblade) and 1 pass for the neckline WTG. A very smooth and comfortable shaving experience.
So I am actually travelling - just a short trip until Thursday, but still nice. A mix of wellness, sightseeing and shopping is planned. So I will do my BVWSC shave tomorrow in an unfamiliar bathroom, but today's shave was already really gooooood.
Speick shaving cream can get really slick for me: my modus operandi is applying the cream on my wet scalp, spreading it evenly with wet hands and then use a soaked shaving brush to really lather it up good. Some in the hobby tend to frown upon creams, but it all depends on the right technique.
Unfortunately my Feather Popular is seemingly broken - the safety bar is so far misaligned that it didn't have any problems with the long stubble on my dome. The blade gap was like a tiny abyss I was gazing into on one side, so I only did a WTG pass with it. Luckily, I brought another cartridge razor as a backup besides the HB.
Have a nice day or evening, folks! Looking forward to tomorrow's BVWSC event βπ»
November 19, 2024
Brush: Wald Stratos Goldvein 29mm A1 Fan
Blade Holder: Smart Helix Apollo (setting: 0.5mm gap)
Blade: Astra Superior Platinum (4)
Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Island Man - Soap
Aftershave: Stirling Soap Co. - Island Man - Aftershave
2 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.
Β
Tuesday, November 19, 2024: SLS
First shave with the new boar brush and with Paganini's Violin.
The brush, being brand new, is very much eating lather which made it a bit difficult to get the hydration right. We got there in the end though.
Both of these are great additions, I'm glad to have them around.
Second luxury shave with the sub (and personal) favourite, the MM24. The 1924 Shovelhead mod by u/EldrormrR. The legend has it that he didn't like the golf-pencil handle, but loved the head. So he got to tinkering and chopped off the head of an MMOC to harvest its great handle. The resulting Frankenrazor is a great shaver and a joy to use.
Frankly my Pear is a happy gourmand, great for a tipsy evening shave after I stuffed myself in a local fondue place π«
This was shave six of my run through all 14 generations of GEM-style razors:
Nov 19, 2024 - Talent Tuesday: Wolf Mother
Edit: title correction
This is shave five of my run through all 14 generations of GEM-style razors, and I have reached the 1924 Shovelhead, the ugly duckling of the GEM family.
The 1924 Shovelhead
This is a simplified version of yesterday's 1914. It finally breaks with the visual similarity thatthe 1912 and 1914 shared and marks the first appearance of cast parts (the neck between the handle and the base plate) in GEM-style razors razors. This picture (the 1924 Shovelhead is on the bottom left, the 1914 on the top right) shows well that like the 1914, it has what looks like a deep-drawn top cap, but it is hinged at the front on either side of the safety bar, and like the 1914 is has separate springs for pushing the spine to align the edge with the blade stops (blue 1) and for clamping down the top cap (red 2). So both razors are attempts at two improvements over the 1912: 1) the top cap opens fully for convenient blade loading, 2) the actions of clamping and aligning the blade are decoupled. So what's the improvement of the 1924 Shovelhead over the 1914 when they seek the same goal? It certainly can't be the looks.
It seems to me that the reason is manufacturing cost. This profile picture shows well just how much simpler the base plate of the Shovelhead really is. Again, the 1924 is on the left and the 1914 on the right. The base plate of the 1914 is a sheet of brass, bent almost to close on itself again, and has a tapped thread for the handle, three rivets, and two hinges and requires quite involved tooling to be assembled efficiently. The Shovelhead on the other hand, has all the complicated geometry concentrated in the cast neck (where the complicated geometry doesn't matter as much at scale), and the base plate is a roughly flat sheet of brass riveted on the neck. Simple, but it left no space for the clamping spring under the base plate, so it needed to go on the top cap, and the hinge needed to move to the front. Cleverly, the clamping spring and the alignment springs are cut from the same sheet and are attached with just 2 rivets, unlike the to separate parts forming the springs in the 1914 needing 4 rivets.
The shave
I like to hike in the mountains, and Eigengrau immediately takes me to evening winter hikes in the Valaisan alps in the conifer forests just under the tree line. It's a very dry area, so the snow cover is often incomplete until well into January, and the thick layer of conifer needle humus lies there mostly exposed and fragrant. You can see the tracks of snow rabbits and chamois in the snow patches, and when the sun starts to set everything quiets down. Peaceful. Bangarang is not at all a winter fragrance, and also more lively than serene Eigengrau.
The 1924 feels similar to the 1914, with maybe a little less toast buttering. It's not surprising that they feel similar, given how they have a similar geometry and the same handle.
The handle
If I remember correctly, it was this pencil handle that felt too small for u/EldrormR, so he chopped off the head of an MMOC (Tomorrow's razor), drilled it, cemented a thread post into it, and slapped it onto a 1924 head to create what we now know and love as the MM24. I'll be using that variant for the Second Luxury Shave.
The timeline
Also the 14 and 24 are my favourite gems
I'm always surprised when someone's favourite GEM isn't one of the Micromatics. I find them to be in a league of their own.
I mean isn't the point of the MM24 that the 24 head is eld's favourite. So that's two of us.
Maybe it's Swiss efficiency vs Indo-anglo romanticism
So that's two of us.
Oh there are many of you. Old_hiker also for instance. I wasnt singling you out, you're in good company
Surely you should be finishing the run with 15 MM24 and 16 scrubty-four. If you do I'll send the scrubty-four to use
Lol, unfortunately I used the MM24 already got the SLS, but I can still end with 15 scrubtu-four
Ok. I think I've got your address. And also a random old Sheffield steel straight you can have that I got in a mixed lot in ebay
Oh, that's very kind!