This morning I decided to break out a straight razor for the shave. The shave was great and I will go into more detail below. However, as I was preparing this post I looked at my last shaving post. Everything was the same, except for the brush. There must be something I like about the products. Now for shave details:
It has been a 11 months from my last shave and I had some extra time to shave with the strait razor today. I reached in the cabinet, while my sweetheart was trying to sleep, and did a little banging around. I picked up a few different shaving soaps and chose the one that was making the most noise due to the ceramic container. Additionally, I like Mitchell’s Wool Fat Shaving Soap. As for the razor, it was the Timor. I knew that it needed a little work and I had time so I chose to take care of a small problem on the edge. As for the aftershave, I really enjoy Hoyt’s so I quickly grabbed it.
The brush was the puzzling part as I picked up a couple of different brushes and could not decide. The Simpson Super Badger Chubby 1 is my usual choice for puck style soaps. I popped open the Kent container, a regal red cylinder with a padded top, and stroked the badger bristles. They felt stouter than the super badger brush I felt and had more flex than the Chubby 1. I thought that it would work well with the Mitchell’s. It was to be the Kent BP-4 for today’s shave.
Today’s shave started with grabbing a couple of stones that were given to me by an old barber. The edge had a almost microscopic ding in it. I really could not see it, however I could feel it. I carefully ran the blade on the stone that was slightly coarser a couple of times. I then ran the blade across my thumbnail to check it I could feel the aberration in the blade. It was ever so slight now, so I gave the blade a couple of more runs across the coarser stone. Upon checking the blade, it was good for the finer stone. A few strokes on the finer stone and the work with the stones was one.
The next step was the green side of the Timor hand held adjustable two sided strop. The green color is due to a treatment of chromium oxide paste. Then it was off to the Dubl Duck No. 50 strop. Several passes and everything was set for a great shave. I just needed some softened whiskers.
With softened whiskers, I started the process of creating a good lather with the Mitchell’s and the Kent brush. The Kent brush worked well with the puck soap and felt great on my face. With a nice later I started the shaving process. I worked the razor down with the grain of my whiskers to begin clearing my face of the roughness.
Once that was complete I applied another lathering of the Mitchell’s Wool Fat Shaving Soap. This time I went up against the grain. Being several months I had a little trepidation with using my left hand on the right side of my face. However, it worked out well. For the chin I did a little cross grain cleanup. That went quick and easy. The Mitchell’s shaving soap has a nice light fragrance. I cooled my face off with some cold water and then applied a hearty helping of Hoyt’s.
