Those razors from the good old days: Not quite so good as all that

I do treasure my tub of J.M. Fraser shaving cream. I have enough to last, thankfully. (It’s no longer made.) It’s a very effective shaving cream, though its strength is in its performance, not its fragrance (which is pleasant but not remarkable). What a job it does! The lather using my Edwin Jagger synthetic was excellent.

The shave was another story. I had to recognize that, as much I like this Gillette 1940’s Aristocrat, and as comfortable as it is, it just is not so efficient as a good modern razor. I thought it might be the blade, so I switched from the Astra Keramik Platinum that was in it — carefully saving the blade to try in a modern razor — to a brand new Gillette 7 O’Clock SharpEdge, but it didn’t help all that much. I got a good-enough shave but good modern razors do better, and a surprisingly high proportion of modern razors are good. It may be that I am picky in what I buy, but almost always, a new razor is extremely comfortable and extremely efficient. There are exceptions (iKon OG-1, for example: long on efficiency, short on comfort), but I did not get such a high proportion of winners when I was using vintage razors.

A splash of Booster Aquarius, and here we already are, a week into September and halfway through the current week.