Rosy outlook
Quite a nice shave as we approach the weekend. A wonderful lather from the combination of Geo. F. Trumper Rose shaving soap and the Simpson Emperor 3 Super brush. The British Gillette open-comb did an extremely nice job, and the splash of rose water to end the shave was cool, refreshing, and quite different from alcohol-based splashes.
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Your choice of soap fragrance tempted me to go back to my rose-scented TOBS cream, but not too much. I stuck with my Cyrus R. Salter vetiver cream instead for BBS treatment. BTW, you didn’t mention the blade you used today. If, by chance, it was a Swedish Gillette, would you mind indicating where you buy them from? I’ve looked high and low on the internet, and references to sellers are out-dated.
Arnold Zeman
1 April 2011 at 12:28 pm
I believe that it was indeed a Swedish Gillette blade. Some months back, a guy was selling from his stash on ShaveMyFace.com, and I bought 300. Once those are gone, I doubt that I’ll be able to get more. They are nice blades, no doubt about it. Thus the invisible hand of the market will ensure that we get more of them, right?
LeisureGuy
1 April 2011 at 12:52 pm
Apparently, not. Just found this post from Mantic59: http://mantic59.blogspot.com/2010/12/shaving-room.html indicating the Swedish Gillettes are no longer in production. Unless someone has hoarded or discovered a lot of new ones, we’ll all be out of luck. What’s your opinion re a comparable DE blade?
dialogicmediation
1 April 2011 at 4:39 pm
I found that with blades, one man’s meat can be another man’s poison. A blade I really liked, though I’ve not used one recently so who knows, is the Treet Black Beauty. Some others totally agreed: it was a great blade for them as well. But for most guys, it was (they report) awful.
So just because I like a blade does not mean it will work for you. But here are the blades I like: Feather (but only in the Feather Stainless razor), Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge (St. Petersburg, Yellow package, NOT “7 AM”), Astra Superior Platinum, Astra Keramik Platinum, Iridium (I think those are now hard to find as well), Wilkinson Sword, Bolzano Superinox, and probably a few others I can’t think of off the top of my head.
Also, note that I haven’t tried (or tried recently) quite a few brands that seem to be popular: Shark, Derby (those haven’t worked for me, but work well for others), Lord, etc. There are good blades out there. Your best bet is to try some samplers.
LeisureGuy
1 April 2011 at 5:14 pm
So true. I’m finding more and more the expression, YMMV, never lets me down, whether applied to razors, blades, soaps, creams, technique, etc. Advice from others needs one’s own reality testing. Nonetheless, thanks for listing blades you like. The only one I really know is the Feather, which I use daily in a Merkur HD. Like you, I’ve tried Derby and found them wanting. I haven’t tried any of the others, although of course I’ve heard of all of them. Time to try some samplers, I guess. Thanks for taking the time to reply so fully to my earlier comment.
dialogicmediation
2 April 2011 at 8:07 am
You’re welcome. And I think you’ll find some very nice blades as you explore.
LeisureGuy
2 April 2011 at 8:13 am