A very pleasant shave, sans oil
Very pleasant shave this morning, and I’m glad to be shut of pre-shave oil. Does that ever NOT work for me, though some shavers swear by it. For me, it kills the lather and doesn’t help with lubrication at all (perhaps because in working up the lather on my beard, the soap scrubs the oil away, though I would think oil absorbed by whiskers would make them waterproof). OTOH, the oil pass at the end, after the brush is put away (a few drops of oil rubbed onto the wet beard area of the final lathered pass) works well: it does lubricate the skin for polishing, and the whiskers are long since fully wetted.
Today’s shave uses the Pogonotomy horsehair brush, made by Vie-Long, and it created a very nice lather—Creamy Lather, but in smaller volume than the boar brushes generate—from the Truefitt & Hill, a truly fine shaving soap. Three smooth passes with the Eclipse Red Ring holding a Swedish Gillette blade, a splash of the Alpa (a traditional aftershave fragrance, reminiscent of a barber shop—at least to me), and I’m enjoying a day at home.
Regarding the book trip: too much work and time for too small a return. I’ll try a secondhand bookstore here in Monterey, but it may be that all outgoing books are library donations.
Instead of oil I use Trumper Skin Food and I find that it softens the beard and have no averse effect on the lather. Have you ever used Trumper as a preshave?
reynald perron
6 July 2011 at 4:17 pm
Yes, I have, and also straight glycerin. I discuss those in the book. It was Dr. Moss who first mentioned Coral Skin Food as a pre-shave, and I believe he used it as an every-pass pre-shave. On looking at the contents, he wondered whether straight glycerin might not work equally well, so tried it and it did.
And, of course, no adverse lather effects—in effect, I suppose it’s just boosting the glycerin content of the soap—in effect promoting Vitos Green to Vitos Red. (I have no idea whether that would work, but it is an intriguing idea worth of experiment, I should say.)
LeisureGuy
6 July 2011 at 6:19 pm