Arcot Exchange

Morning Shave.
Taylors of Old Bond Street Lemon and Lime shaving cream.
Goodfella Safety Razor with Red Israeli blade.
Taylors of Old Bond Street Bay Rum aftershave.

<Will flesh out when I have a chance to edit the write up>

Evening Shave.
Truefitt & Hill Pre-shave oil.
Truefitt & Hill’s Trafalger Shaving Cream.
Feather Artist Club RG with Pro-Guard blade.
Taylors of Old Bond Street Bay Rum aftershave.

<Will flesh out when I have a chance to edit the write up>

A non skip day today. Tonights shave was a bit different from normal as I built up the lather in a new glass bowl I picked up at Ikea earlier that day (while purchasing some other items to help organize drawers better.) The one thing I dislike about bowl lathering is I always end up with too much lather. I don’t particularly like wasting the stuff to be honest. Though no complaints from quality of lather done by bowl, always nice to have the fluffy peaks of cream.

Equipment used was Taylors of Old Bond Street Rose shaving cream, coupled with the standard Omega brush I use (which considering I don’t have any other brushes at the moment is no surprise). I love the smell of the Taylors Rose cream, it’s probably my favorite shaving cream I use any any regular rotation, so much so that I am almost out. I decided to use the Feather Artist Club RG with Pro-Guard blades as I had not until this point tested it on more than one days worth of growth. It performed very admirably in this regard. I didn’t go quite to a BBS smooth ATG shave, but it was very acceptable WTG if you felt it. I didn’t feel like irritating my skin any more after the triple shave foolishness until I’m sure its fully healed.

Post-shave was the normal Alum block and witch-hazel treatment, nothing different there, but I will be looking for some variation here with other post-shave treatments at some point this month.

Another skip day, though this one had more to do with lack of time than anything else. Though I was told that I could get away with skipping 2 days from the visual aspect.

Skip day today, skins feeling a bit more tender than I’d like this morning, so no shave tonight. I think the fresh blade in the Artist Club a couple nights ago combined with the new Merkur blade last night have given my skin a bit of hell. So letting it relax until Saturday.

Tonight I decided to go a safety razor shave with the Goodfella. Since I needed a new blade I decided to test a different make. The luck of the drawer – Merkur razor blades. I hadn’t used these before, so it was anI unknown. I chose to use Taylors of Old Bond Street’s Mr Taylor as the cream with the Omega brush. Whipping up a thick lather in the shower I got to work with the razor.

And I’m not sure. The shave was fine I suppose. Nothing really to write home about at all. I’m not totally sure I like the Merkur blades but I don’t think I dislike them. They just shaved. Some irritation on the underside of my chin and some still rough patches were the marks of this shave. I’ll give the blades a few more shaves in the razor before I make up my mind about them, but at the moment they don’t do anything for me particularly.

A post-shave alum block wipe down to deal with any nicks (precious few) and then an application of Thayers Rose Petal Witch Hazel for the skin and I was done. As I said, nothing to write home about particularly, but a passable shave, we’ll see how shave number 2 goes with the blade slightly dulled now another day.

Today was an evening shave after a nice hot shower. Originally I planned a morning shave but the bed was so warm. It was to be the first test of the Dovo Shavette loaded with a Red Israeli blade but this didn’t go so well. Lathering up with Taylors of Old Bond Street Lemon & Lime shaving cream and my Omega #63188 badger brush I set to work with the Shavette. After one cheek and starting on top lip I decided I should have used a sharper blade with the Shavette for the first try. It was grabbing the hair, irritating the skin and not shaving very cleanly at all.

So I put it down, re-lathered and restarted with the Feather Artist Club RG with a Pro-Guard blade freshly loaded. This was a lot smoother shaving indeed than what the Shavette had started. There is still a couple places on my face (a couple moles and one part of my chin) that I still cannot get a BBS shave with a straight, so I picked up the Goodfella with a Feather loaded and gave a quick ATG over these areas, probably not the kindest thing for my face but I was already irritated from the Shavette.

A post shave wipe down of the face with an Alum Block to deal with a few small spots of blood in the usual places, and some Thayers Medicated Superhazel to really soothe the tender spots on the skin and leaving me smelling of camphor and feeling quite good.

Overall it was a worthwhile shave to BBS, despite it taking longer due to the false start and extra finish which left the skin a bit annoyed.