The Standard-Shave Report #1

The Shave

I took the promised standard shave this morning. To recapitulate, it involved the following aspects:

To make an oblique stroke,
simply angle the razor head
off perpendicular to stroke
direction.

• Most importantly, it was a single pass only.
• It was with the grain of my beard, although a standard shave, in my opinion, doesn't have to be limited to with grain; it can be in whatever direction works best in a single pass.
• I used my Gillette Slim Adjustable razor set to five of nine, which is a fairly aggressive setting for my skin.
• I used oblique strokes in an anti-raking pattern.
• I used a Personna red-label (Israeli-made) blade, with 21 previous shaves on it. (Today was the 22nd shave!!!!!!)

Closeness

The outcome was fairly predictable as outlined in the following bullets:

• When rubbed with the grain, the shave feels smooth to the hand.
• When rubbed in other directions, the shave feels increasingly coarse as the direction gets closer to fully against grain.
• The shave looks completely fine, but I predict that by mid to late afternoon, shadow or stubble will be visible.

Safety & Comfort

In terms of skin friendliness, the shave was irritation free except for two wounds:

• I got a single, tiniest weeper on my neck.
• A careless stroke on the most pointed aspect of my chin created a significant weeper/nick that got a touch of styptic pencil, and this wound was the only real disappointment in an otherwise adequate but less-than-stellar shaving experience.
• Both wounds are invisible as I write this, but tomorrow I'll have to be careful as I shave that injured point on my chin so that I don't re-open the wound.

Initial Conclusions

In terms of both closeness and comfort, I don't think today's shave is much different than the shaves I got for years using a double-bladed, pivoting-head disposable razor.

Given the care that I should take when using a more aggressive razor (or razor setting, when using an adjustable razor), and when any wound treatment is necessary, I don't think a standard shave is significantly faster than a two-pass shave done with less aggressive instruments. In terms of closeness and shave satisfaction, a two-pass shave is definitely preferable.

I will continue the experiment tomorrow and increase the stakes by kicking up a notch the aggressiveness of the razor to a setting of six. This will be uncharted territory for me using this razor; but, of course, in the past I've always done multi-pass shaves. Just planning to shave with the grain with this setting causes me no pre-shave concern.

About the Blade Longevity

It's impressive to get 22 shaves on a DE blade with more waiting in the wings. However, it is the sustained smoothness of the shaves that is even more remarkable.  This is attributable to the lightly-oiled-palm stropping that I've been doing as part of my post-shave routine.

I've been so impressed by this blade-care process that I'm going to return to my previously-rejected remaining Derby Extra blades and strop even prior to the first shave. I'm betting that this will render the blades more enjoyable to use.

That's a wrap for today. Check back tomorrow for the shave-on-six report.

Happy shaving!