Holy Grail Come Back

If Monday's nine-inning debut (actually three-pass debut, but this is a baseball metaphor) of the holy-grail razor was a bust, then yesterday's shave with the razor as a closer (final pass) was a come-back success.

The cheapo holy-grail razor as it first arrived, prior to my essential adjustments to tune its shaving character

Still wary from the awful shave that I had using the much-tuned cheapo Chinese knock-off razor on Tuesday, I did a two-pass shave yesterday using the Lord L.6 for the first with-grain pass, and the holy-grail razor for the second against-grain pass.

The outcome was one of the closest overall shaves that I've had. There was also just a little lingering irritation and four pin-point weepers that disappeared very quickly with no attention needed.

This indicates that it is clearly possible to get the cheapest of all-metal razors and with some patience, adjust them to be shave worthy.

I have done this twice now. First with the Ri,Mei (sic) brand razor, which is also a cheapo knock off on the apparently much-higher-quality Rimei razor, and which I've adjusted to be a low-angle, low-irritation, low-edge-exposure instrument. Then, most recently, the unbranded holy-grail razor has been adjusted to be about a 30-degree-angle, slightly-positive-edge exposure razor that is capable of delivering a close, reasonably-comfortable shave.

These razors need to be handled with kid gloves. They are likely to rust if you put them away wet. They will surely get out of whack if you drop them or even accidentally knock them around.

Yet for three dollars and change (U.S.), they are inexpensive, and can be adjusted to be effective.

Happy shaving!