Vetiver FTW
I’m trying Aveeno as a pre-shave beard wash following a recommendation on Wicked_Edge. It’s a defoliating facial scrub, so sort of lumpy, but it did seem to leave a slickness. Not sure yet about the beard-softening action, but this is just the first day of the “week with” part of the test.
The flat-top Vie-Long, I’m sorry to say, turns out not to be so good for me as a brush. Not long enough is my guess. At any rate, after the first pass, I switched the a WSP Prince and had no more problems. It’s possible that the residual Aveeno on my face had a lather-killing effect, so I’ll be alert for that tomorrow.
Withal, a good lather ultimately, and the Vetiver is quite nice if a little subdued—I like a nose-grabbing level of vetiver. Three good passes with the Feather AS-D1 stainless holding a Kai blade, resulting in a perfectly smooth face. A splash of Saint Charles Shave Very V aftershave, and the weekend is underway.
A few shaving questions:
- I have built up a collection of a few shaving soaps, croaps and creams that will easily lat me the next 10 years. Since you have a collection yourself, have you had any of them go bad on you? Do you store them in a special manner?
- I see that you use the same blades with a lot of different razors. In my limited experience, what blade works well for me is very razor dependent. Not so for you?
- Are fan shaped brushes better in any way than the bulb ones?
Thanks.
Ayodh
23 February 2013 at 7:54 pm
Good questions. I had a tub of Cella go bad, to my eye. (It was pretty old, stored at room temperature.) And I think my Primalan (almond-oil-based aftershave balm) has gone off after some years. But in general: no problem. And in fact I have a couple of tubs of vintage soaps (Yardley and Paisley, neither made for decades) and they lather like a champ and are fragrant (specifically, lavender) despite their age.
With some combinations I’ve discovered that a given blade works well with a razor, works really exceptionally well with the razor, or doesn’t work with the razor. Most simply work well. It’s clearly the combination: the Kai blade gave me razorburn in the Weber razor, but Kai doesn’t do that in other razors and Weber doesn’t do it with other blades.
Fan-shaped or dome-shaped is a matter of individual preference. I have favorite brushes of both types: my Rooney Style 2 Finest is fan-shaped; my exquisite H.L. Thäters are dome-shaped, as is the excellent Wet Shaving Products Prince, the G.B.Kent BK4, and so on. British brushes run toward the fan shape, German toward the dome shape: it’s a cultural curlicue.
LeisureGuy
23 February 2013 at 11:34 pm
Thanks for the answers!
Ayodh
24 February 2013 at 7:11 am