Adventures In Shaving - Part II - Arrival & the First DE Shave

Packaging & Assembly

The package of shaving materials has now arrived, and as a refreshing change (when compared to a well known South Yorkshire based online computer retailer), the people at The Traditional Shaving Company used a box that was perfectly sized for the contents, with a little packing material and some boiled sweets to fill it up.  Nice touch.

So, extracting the important components, here's what we get:

Clockwise from top left: razor, brush and blade boxes

After extracting the items from their containers we can see how they look, along with the shaving cream and a mug I'm using for a shaving bowl.

The assembled kit including the cream and my mug

I was surprised by how small the razor itself actually is; I don't know why, but I was expecting it to be bigger. Perhaps this is down to the fact that until now, I have only used the mass market cartridge razors that tend to have longer handles.  It feels pretty sturdy and well constructed though.

The razor comes in two parts.  If you use the wheel at the bottom to unfasten the top bit, it comes out and you are now able to place the razor blade into it.

The blades are wafer thin, I'm talking paper thin, which gives them a very delicate appearance.  Of course, this is deceptive, as these things are mightily sharp.

To attach the blade, you just slot it over the guide rails and then screw the top of the razor back into the handle.

This causes the blade to curve, giving it a slight angle.  You might just be able to see in this in the close up pic.

The First Shave

First things first, you've got to find something to mix the shaving cream with.  For this purpose I decided to drag out an old mug I don't use anymore.  I didn't see the point in buying a dedicated bowl when this would suffice.

Then came mixing the cream and loading the brush.  I've looked at a few online videos about how you should mix up your lather, and it all seems straightforward, but it's not as easy as it first appears.  I wet the brush and added an almond sized chunk of cream into the bowl, and started mixing it up.  My first result was quite a "wet" mix, and as a result it tended to run on my face after a while rather than stay put, which isn't ideal.  So I tried adding a bit more cream into the mix to thicken it up a bit.  This seems to have done the trick, but I can tell this is going to take a bit of practice to get it right.

Rather than applying the razor to my face straight away, the online tutorials I've come across state that you should try and find the right angle to hold the razor at, so the blade touches the skin.  This is best practiced on the arm, where you can actually get a very good look at what's going on.  So, angle sorted and memorised, it is on to the main event.

Taking a light grip with my thumb and first 2 fingers I put the razor to my face and then proceeded to lightly pull the razor down along my face going with the grain (WTG) for the first "pass".  The tutorials all recommend to use short strokes and concentrate on small areas of relative flatness.  One thing that is emphasised above all, is not to mash the razor into your face, let the weight of the razor head do the work.
On the first few strokes you can definitely feel the razor blade cutting the hairs away, and it makes quite a distinctive sound, even when compared to cartridge razors.

So, first pass over, it was time to re-lather and go for it again, this time across the grain (XTG).  It was easier the second time around, but you could still hear the hairs being chopped off.  This is where it seems to differ from the cartridge shave, on the second pass the cartridge razors don't tend to do an awful lot, which means you sometimes try and press the razor more firmly into your skin.  Resisting this urge took a fair amount of concentration.

After the second pass, I decided to take the advice for the novice DE (double edge) shaver and stop there.  It's recommended that you try to get used to this for the first 2 weeks at least and then you can branch out into adding more passes, and specifically going against the grain (ATG).

Results

So what was the overall result? Well, considering it was my first attempt, not bad.  Some parts of my face are baby bottom smooth (BBS) , whilst the others (particularly under the jaw area) still have some roughness to it.

I think that it's a good idea to follow the advice to get hold of some non-alcoholic after shave balm, as you can tell you've been using a very sharp blade on your skin, since it feels a little warm.  Saying that, I got that anyway from the old cartridge razors, so no change there.

I'm going to try again tomorrow and see how things go.  I reckon that this is going to take some practice to get right.  I'll keep you posted.