This morning I had time to shave. I haven't shaved for a while so my beard hair was pretty long (still stubble though). I'm not sure if this had anything to do with the quality of the shave or the lack of irritation, but I've had my beard this long before with results not even close to today's.
I think the BIGGEST difference between past shaves and today's was that I used the Geo F. Trumper's Coral Skin Food as a pre-shave application instead of the Proraso cream. I'm talking about putting it under the lather before I shave... not even applying it and letting it sit for a long time before my shower, etc, as I've done before with the Proraso.
I took my shower, and I did apply conditioner to my beard area and let that sit for a while, but I've been following that procedure forever, so that's not new. After my shower, I actually dried off my face this time (which I haven't been doing to allow more water to soak into my beard before shaving). I then went to the sink and made the decision to try the Trumper's Skin Food instead of the Proraso cream. Then, almost immediately, applied a lather over top of it. Once again I used my Dovo Silvertip Travel Brush, and I noticed that, like my Edwin Jagger, after having used the Proraso shaving cream for the first time with this brush on my last shave, the bristles didn't seem to want to take on water... like it was almost repelling the water. I noticed this trend on my Edwin Jagger but only thought it might be the Proraso shaving cream causing this. Now that it is happening with the Dovo brush, I think that is truly the cause and I may start thinking about trying a different shaving cream. At any rate, the fact that it repels water made it slightly harder to build a proper lather, but I got it going.
On my first pass, with the grain, I noticed that MOST of my stubble was gone already. This was QUITE odd, as my first pass even with shorter stubble has left more hair than this time. Also, in the past when I have had longer stubble, my first pass then left longer stubble as well, so I was a bit shocked. I rinsed and lathered again and was able to go very easily across the grain. At this point, my stubble was almost indistinguishable. I rinsed again and felt I could actually go against the grain and did! No irritation or skipping from the razor, and only the slightest single weeper after my ATG pass. I used the alum block because I did have that one weeper and I like the feeling the alum block provides. I hardly had any stinging when I applied it. I finished up with an application of the Trumper's Skin Food and couldn't believe how smooth my face was!
I will definitely be ordering a bigger bottle of the Skin Food and use my current smaller one for travel purposes. This stuff is AWESOME! I am also thinking about buying some of the Geo F. Trumper shaving cream. I think I'm going to go for a tub of cream instead of the tube. It costs less per fluid ounce and I think it may travel better anyway. I still think I like the shaving creams much better than the soaps, but I haven't tried more than one soap so it's really not an honest comparison.
Oh, one other thing, the Personna blade performed very well again. I can't remember if this was its 3rd use or not, but it worked very well for me.
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2 comments:
The Trumper Coral Skin Food does indeed make a good pre-shave. Another thing you might try is 100% glycerine (you can get it at a healthfood store), applied as an every-pass pre-shave. Same use as the Skin Food: rub a little on your wet beard, then lather.
TOBS Avocado shaving cream is also very nice, and sometime you should try a D.R. Harris (or Honeybee Spa) shave stick.
Traditional shaving using the straight razors or double edge razors means giving myself time to unwind. I could say that, most of the time, I get my wonderful ideas while shaving.
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