Martin de Candre is, as you see, not a soap for those who still require “training wheels” on their shaving soap: high sidewalls that help the novice not make such a mess in loading the brush. Once brush-loading skills are mastered, though, Martin de Candre is definitely a soap worth having: loads o’ luxurious lather at the touch of a brush. I got a very fine lather using the Maggard synthetic shown, and enjoyed it greatly.

It occurs to me that Martin de Candre might be a good soap for those just venturing beyond soap containers with “training wheel” sides since it offers an excellent lather with even a short loading time. It would help novices still learning to load a brush: if they can keep the brush on target even briefly, they are likely to load enough soap for a good lather, particularly if their water is soft.

The shave was with the RazoRock Mentor razor with the RazoRock SE handle. You’ll note that the RazoRock SE handle (on the razor atop the soap) is shorter and more manageable than the iKon SE handle, on the DLC slant in the foreground. I had assumed that the two were the same size, but the RazoRock SE handle is the same length as a regular razor handle.

The Mentor is very efficient—along the lines of the Maggard V3A—but it is somewhat more comfortable than the V3A, which is by no means uncomfortable. Either would work well for those who like razors of the “aggressive” sort: good comfort, excellent efficiency.

Three passes and a splash of Red Cedar aftershave from The Copper Hat. This is the sample bottle that hooked me on that aftershave.

A fine start for a Friday.

I have to say that I do not understand the popularity of Semogue brushes. The 830 boar brush shown in the photo seems still unable to sustain a lather after many, many latherings to break it in. Whereas an Omega boar is typically performing quite well with a week’s use and well on the way to being broken in after 2-3 weeks, my Semogue brushes—those that have not failed utterly because of a badly splayed knot—are still not performing up to snuff.

I’m going to give this brush another few weeks of use (I make a lather with it each day following my regular shave), and if it still performs as badly as it does now, it goes into the wastebin: lesson learned once more. Semogue brushes are, in my experience, wildly overrated.

By loading the brush before the shave and again during the shave, I got enough lather to do a shave. I picked Mystic Water Sensitive Skin shaving soap because of a discussion on Wicked Edge, and brought out my iKon DLC slant for the same reason. The cutting sound from the slant was especially noticeable this morning, and by the end of the second pass I figured that it may be in part because the blade was getting dull: my face was already mostly BBS, which it generally is following the second pass with a slant. So I replaced the blade—a Personna Lab Blue—before the third pass and finished with a BBS result with no problems.

A small splash of Annick Goutal’s Eau de Sud, and I am opening the door to a pleasant weekend.

Lenthéric is a vintage shaving soap from some decades ago, but its fragrance still is strong (and superb) and the lather is really first-rate, easily developed with the Wolf Whiskers brush shown. Truly, this is one of my favorite shaving soaps.

Above the Tie’s S1 slant is extremely good for me, every bit as good as the iKon 102, and the UFO handle shown works quite well with it. Three passes easily produced a trouble-free BBS result.

Several sprays of Creed Aventus into the palm of my hand resulted in an amount equal to one splash, and that was the aftershave.

I feel poised for the day.

The tub of Otoko Organics is a gift from a kind reader (thanks, Todd!), who reported that this is one of the reluctant-lathering tubs of Otoko. I decided to give it a try this morning, and I found that with the HJM synthetic, I had no trouble in getting loads of lather. The lather, however, turned out to be not so thick as I wanted, perhaps because I stopped loading the brush too soon. However, there was plenty of lather even for the third pass, just less thick than I wanted for this particular razor.

The Blackbird for me is not a comfortable razor, but it is efficient. I think what I need for this razor is ane exceptionally dense lather, like that I made the other day using Tcheon Fung Sing shaving soap. I am going to return to the razor using TFS and see how it goes.

That said, I did not get any nicks, and the final result was quite smooth—and the acoustics of the cutting sound were great. But I need more practice with this razor. The sharp corners this time were not a problem, so I am gradually learning the razor. Stay tuned for the TFS encounter.

A good splash of D.R. Harris Arlington, and I await the La-Z-Boy guy for yet another repair. La-Z-Boy furniture quality seems to have taken a nosedive.

A really fine shave this morning. The soap is Summer Storm, by Chiseled Face, a petrichor-fragranced soap that gave a fine and wonderfully fragrant lather with the Omega 20102 shown. For water, I used purfied water, shown at the right. Purified water, like distilled water, has had the mineral content removed, so it is the softest of soft water. The minerals are removed either by reverse osmosis (purified water) or by distillation (boiling the water and condensing the steam: distilled water), but in either case, the result is mineral-free water.

I wanted to experiment after reading this Sharpologist article by Chuck Falzone, in which he describes his experience with distilled water: easily getting lots of lather, but lather that’s somewhat foamy and insubstantial. Because my own tap water is fairly soft, I’ve not had occasion to resort to demineralized water. So I heated up a small amount (a shave requires very little water), and soaked the Omega 20102 in it while I showered.

I found that I got a good lather and had no trouble shaving, but I think I see what Chuck means: the lather seemed somewhat lighter and not so dense as my regular, tap-water lather. It’s the sort of thing that becomes more evident over a sequence of shaves, so I’ll need more experimentation to satisfy me. I did get a fine shave, but if it turns out that the lather is chronically light, the fix is easy: I’ll just mix a dollop of tap water into the cup of demineralized water, and that should fix it.

So if you do have hard water and want to use deminearlized water, give it a try, both straight and with a little tap water added. Shave a week with pure demineralized water and then a week with somewhat diluted demineralized water and see which you prefer.

The iKon Shavecraft X3 head on a UFO handle did another excellent job. For me, this razor has almost no blade feel, but the stubble vanishes easily and quickly. Is it because the razor is a slant? I have no idea, but I do know that (for me) it performs flawlessly and feels great. Indeed, for me all the modern slants are exceptionally comfortable and efficient razors, though I’ve encountered some vintage slants that were harsh and unpleasant.

Of course, I can find extremely comfortable and efficient performance in conventional razors as well, but I do like the feel and ease I get with a slant. Still, one must recognize YMMV in razors as well as in blades, soaps, brushes, and aftershaves: slants do not seem to work for a few, but that is not restricted to slants. The Feather AS-D2 and the Dorco PL-602 are both exceptionally comfortable and very efficient for me, but I do know that some have found them inefficient. Why? No idea. It could be due to differences in beard, skin, prep, blade choice, and/or technique. I don’t think the cause is actually all that relevant: the key is whether a razor works well for you or not, and the reasons are secondary for most.

A good splash of Hâttric, and another day begins.

The Brushguy brush shown has a very nice handle, but the knot is too short-lofted for my taste, though I know that many like a brush with a short loft and little “give” (i.e., has a lot of “backbone,” which some like). I am going to remove this one from the collection, mainly because today it was harder to work up a good lather on my face with the short loft and little “give.”

Tcheon Fung Sing makes a very fine shaving soap—for some reason it doesn’t get the attention it deserves—that creates a very thick and creamy lather, but to get there, you have to work in a fair amount of water after the brush is well loaded. It’s a thirsty soap, in other words. Normally I can work up the lather well on my face, but the short loft works against that. I did add water a few times, working it in, and nothing wrong with the lather than resulted. In this case, with this brush and this soap, I think palm lathering would be better: easier and faster to work in the additional water needed.

Three passes with the Dorco PL-602 left a BBS result. For me, this razor is extremely efficient as well as extremely comfortable, and I know it works well for others, too, but I’ve seen one or two comment that for them it was not so efficient. I don’t get why, but it may be any number of things: their beard and skin different from mine, their blade choice different, their technique different—or a combination. But this is a great razor for me, and at $3.48 it’s worth a try as a travel razor: great feel and performance and also no biggie if lost or left behind.

A splash of Geo. F. Trumper Spanish Leather, and I’m good to go. I got this aftershave in the plastic bottle because the glass bottle was substantially more. I’ve had it for several years, and the plastic container has not been a problem.

I’ve been spelling the name of this soap as “Paisley,” but on looking more closely at the raised lettering on the lid, I see that it is in fact “Paislay.” Here’s a brief review from about the time I bought my bowl (2006), and even then it was a vintage soap, not made for decades.

But, as that review says, it’s a very nice soap indeed: rich lather, great traditional lavender fragrance. My Rooney Victorian worked up the lather well on my face—a fully enjoyable process—and then the Rockwell R3 with the same Feather blade I’ve been using (and thus this is the 6th shave with this blade, one shave each on R1 through R6) did a superb job: cutting the stubble easily and efficiently and leaving a BBS result with no problems.

A splash of Bulgari, and we can see the weekend already, coming around the point.

I’ve long been puzzled by the admiration many express for Semogue boar brushes, since my experience with Semogues has been at best so-so and generally worse, whereas I have had uniformly good luck with Omega boar brushes: they break in quickly and easily, feel good, and perform well.

But hope springs eternal in the human breast, and I just received the new Semogue 1305 brush shown in the photo. It costs about 25% more than the Omega 20102, so in terms of value it’s not so good. But in terms of feel, it’s very nice indeed. I made a few practice lathers before using it today. Unsurprisingly, the lather was gone after the first pass, and I ended up having to reload before each pass, but that’s not all that unusual for a new boar brush. I would expect in a few more uses the lather will last the whole shave through.

The handle feels good in the hand (though I know the paint tends to chip if it gets a knock), and the knot feels quite nice on the face. This one might well turn out to be good, though priced high compared to the 20102, which has proved to be an excellent brush.

Yardley is a wonderful soap, not made for decades, with a traditional lavender fragrance and a rich creamy lather. Three passes with the RazoRock stainless Stealth easily produced a trouble-free BBS result.

A splash of Chatillon Lux’s Champs de Lavande and the weekend begins.

I’m getting excited about the Fine Accoutrements plastic slant, modeled (it’s said) on the Merkur white bakelite slant shown in the photo, one of my favorite slants.

But first, the prep. I am using the Semogue 1430 with every shave now: I load it, work up a good lather on my palm, then set it aside and use whatever brush I’ve picked. After the first pass, I try the Semogue on my palm again. So far, the lather’s all gone at that point, so I rinse it out and set it aside for the next day. My hope is that before the end of the summer it will be broken in.

The Prince shown, from Wet Shaving Products, is the brush I actually used for the shave, and it had no problem holding plenty of lather for the entire shave, a very nice lather from the LA Shaving Soap Company Vanilla, Eucalyptus, and Mint shaving soap: nice fragrance, good lather.

Three passes with the bakelite slant, and a perfect finish. A guy on Wicked Edge yesterday asked whether the light weight tended to result in people using too much pressure. My answer:

Since slants actually require very light pressure (in my experience), a heavy slant is counter-productive: the iKon B1 or the Stealth stainless is as heavy as one would want and with those one must support much of the razor’s weight in your hand to keep the pressure sufficiently light on the face. The Merkur white bakelite slant on which the Fine is modeled is 18g, and it works fine.

Extra pressure tends to be a problem in two situations: cartridge shavers who are accustomed to bearing down to try to extend the life of the (expensive) cartridge; and those using razors that are inefficient not because the blade(s) are dull (the situation with cartridges) but because the razor’s head is designed in such a way that it is inefficient (the Weishi/VDH/Micro One Touch) and the user is trying to get it to cut. Obviously slants do not have this problem.

I do recommend a slant as a second razor so that the user will have had a chance to learn to use light pressure, but once the lesson is learned, there’s no reason for the slant to be anything other than light: it cuts quite efficiently (for most), and the light weight gives you the same sort of easy direct control of pressure that the DE razor allows of blade angle (unlike the cartridge razor).

A good splash of l’Occitane Cade to finish the shave, and Monday morning promises always a new beginning.

Take a look. There’s lots to see at the link. It looks interesting, and I have to admit that I’ve pledged. The Rockwell 6S is so good I want to give this one a try.

He’s already upgraded the specs for the internals, which will now be plated brass rather than zinc.

I was discussing the Pro 48 last night and decided to use mine today. This brush was the first boar brush I got, and it is now well broken in and feels great on my face. The lather from Meißner Tremonia’s Strong ‘n Scottish starts of with a brownish tinge, but smells great and becomes white as it is worked up.

I continue to be astonished at the excellent of the $3.50 Dorco PL-602 and encourage you to invest in one as a travel razor or just a change of pace: totally smooth result after three comfortable passes.

A splash of Ginger’s Garden Suede aftershave, and I’m on the move.

The Omega badger brush shown has an extremely fluffy knot that feels wonderful on my face: the same pressure as a warm cloud of fragrant lather, in this case the fragrance being Guiness Stout from Mickey Lee Soapworks The Drunken Goat. This tub, of an earlier design than the current tub, has “training wheel” sidewalls that seem enormously high, but the soap (and lather) are wonderful.

The iKon Shavecraft X3 will be out Real Soon Now—when I queried iKon as to the exact date, I detect some frustration at the repeated experience of suffering unexpected (and sometimes inexplicable) delays in shipping, unloading, customs clearance, etc., and I got the reply that they will be here when they appear on the site. (The same sort of experience resulted in the new Fine slant being projected for mid-March, then for 15 April, and now for 8 April: importing involves unexpected delays, obviously.)

I’m hoping the X3 will be available soon because I’m very interested to see what others experience with the razor. For me, the razor has just about zero blade feel: on the face, it feels as though I forgot to load a blade (and I know what they feels like because I’ve done it: very smooth action, but as inefficient as can be), and yet the X3 mysteriously simply wipes off the stubble, leaving a BBS result without effort. How can it be? One might think that lasers are involved, or elves or other magic. At any rate, that’s my experience, and I want to read about the experience of others.

The X3 is riding on a UFO handle, and the end result was a BBS face. A good splash of Anthony Gold’s Red Cedar aftershave (from The Copper Hat in Victoria BC) and I’m set for the day.

I have an article in Sharpologist now, discussing three different entry razors suitable for novices.

A milestone was reached in today’s shave, not shown in the photo. Each day I’ve been loading my Semogue 1430 and palm lathering and then setting the brush aside, checking its lather content after each pass. Until today, the lather always had died completely by the time I finished the first pass. Today, surprisingly, the lather persisted quite well through all three passes. I don’t know whether it was the Seifenglatt Soap (now called Soap Smooth) or in fact the brush simply broke in abruptly. I’m going to try it for a shave tomorrow, but I’m going to try a different (but still good) soap.

For my shaving lather, I used the Vie-Long horsehair brush shown, a very nice brush that makes a good lather, has excellent capacity, and is generous with the lather.

I got into discussion of the adjustment technique used in the Eclipse Red Ring (shown in photo above) because the Dorco PL-602 uses the same approach: a series of markings that let you measure how far you’re backing off from perfectly tight. And, of course, this is exactly how the Merkur Progress and the Apollo Mikron work: tighten all the way, then loosen to the adjustment you want, with a mark near the adjustment knob allowing you to measure the amount of loosening according to the numbers on the adjustment (loosening) knob.

The Eclipse Red Ring is interesting in several ways. It has a comb guard, as shown in this photo (in which you can also see the rays issuing from the sun emblem on the cap):

I took the photo with the cap upside down, so I had to invert the photo to get the rays rising. You can see the comb, and here’s a (slightly out-of-focus) view of the razor from the bottom:

In this photo, you can see the reinforcement bar attached to the back of the ends of the comb’s teeth, leaving a space for the lather pass-through. Also note the magnet embedded in the base of the handle, which is to assist in picking up a razor blade lying flat on a counter top: actually quite handy. The Merkur 34C and 37C have a hole in the base of the handle just the right size for a small magnet, so you could enhance those with this feature.

And here’s the point: the Eclipse is a two-piece razor that, like the 34C and 37C, has a tightening shaft inside the hollow handle: you twist the knob at the base the tighten the cap. In this closeup you can see an arrow just above the tightening knob and, if you look close, grooves cut into the knob itself to allow you to tighten the cap fully, then back off by 1, 2, or 3 marks, so you can repeat the setting. This is exactly what the PL-602 does, only in their case the tightening knob (and thus the marks) are at the top of the handle.

And the shave? Really excellent. The Eclipse Red Ring is an excellent razor. Too bad there are not more of them about.

A good splash of Fine’s American Blend on my BBS face, and I’m ready for another day.

Maggard offers a kind of “Maggard Prime,” a la Amazon Prime: $20 for 6 months membership. Details at the link.

This. If you can’t smell it, you can’t enjoy it, and that’s at least part of the point: wearing a fragrance you yourself enjoy. No smell, no enjoyment.

UPDATE: It’s actually the Semogue 1305.

As I noted in yesterday’s SOTD post, I’ve been making lather with my new Semogue 1305 with every shave, along with whatever brush I’m using for the shave, and after each pass I test the 1430 to see how the lather’s doing, and until yesterday the lather was gone by the time I ended the first pass: really nothing left in the brush, which would have required reloading if I were shaving with it.

But yesterday, suddenly, the lather was fully present after not only the first pass but even after the second and the third, with plenty of lather left at the end for more passes. It was a very abrupt transition, and today I decided to give it a go. I chose a good-lathering soap, Martin de Candre, and loaded the brush well.

The same thing happened today: loads of lather present for all three passes. If the brush were a cat, it would be looking at me and saying, “What?”

The Above the Tie R1, here with the Atlas handle, is a very good razor for me: totally comfortable and easily delivers a BBS result, which it did again today. The Atlas handle has struck me as somewhat shorter than I prefer, but today I got with the program, accepted it for what it is, and realized that it does a fine job. The spiraled handle is both grippy and pleasant, and I enjoyed the entire shave.

A good splash of Fine’s l’Orange Noir to finish the shave, and I’m a happy guy.

I weigh for the record on the first of each month, and my weight is now down 15 lbs from the first of the year—so that’s a loss of 5 lbs/month, which is not bad. In looking at daily averages by month, I’m getting a grip on the meal planning. My daily average net carbs for the three months (Jan, Feb, Mar) has steadily dropped: 58g, 45g, 44g. My goal is less than 50g net carbs per day, so I’m on track there. Average daily calories are also trending down: 1459, 1325, 1294. My goal for April is 1199 average per day. We’ll see.

I use FatSecret.com to track meals, and I’m finding that checking the month view to look at the running average is helpful.

My 1305 did so well yesterday, it heartened me to use the Semogue Owners Club boar today. The brush did make a good lather from Tim’s Soap Hybrid, and the lather lasted through the shave though was a bit sparse in the third pass—but I assume the brush still has some breaking in to do.

My Wolfman Razor did its usual very nice job: BBS in three passes. A good splash of Saint Charles Shave’s Very V aftershave, and the weekend is here.

A very Fine lather, with the strange and alluring fragrance of Elemi, made with my Fine Classic brush, which for me is a wonderful brush. I gave the sopping-wet brush two shakes and really should have given it one more: synthetic knots hold water like nobody’s business. Still, it loaded well and the resulting lather was effective and fragrant.

The Merkur white bakelite slant served as the model for the upcoming (this Friday!) Fine slant. In fact, I heard directly from Mr. Fine: ” I can say with certainty that the cutting geometry is 100% the same.” So a shave with the white bakelite slant replicates a shave with the Fine slant and vice versa, and the shave this morning was truly excellent. The plastic slants are lightweight—the white bakelite slant shown is 18g—so “the weight of the razor” doesn’t work in this case (nor does it work for very heavy razors, like the iKon B1 stainless slant: the “weight of the razor” for that produces too much pressure, which leads to nicks). “The weight of the razor” is just shorthand for “very light razor,” and you take what steps are needed to ensure the pressure is present but light: just enough to keep the razor touching the skin. With a very light razor, you get the feeling that you can control the pressure directly, much the way you control the angle directly with a DE razor (unlike a cartridge razor, where the pivoting head controls the angle).

I used light pressure and at the end of the first pass, with the grain, I felt on rinsing that my face was already BBS in some spots on my cheeks. Two more passes, and it was BBS over all. One tiny nick on one side of my chin, but pressing the alum block against that for 20 seconds sealed it completely.

A good splash of Speick and I greet a sunny spring day. As Louis Armstrong used to sing, “What a wonderful world…”

All Fine except the razor, and that will soon appear.

As always, the Fine Classic brush did a wonderful job. Fine soap makes a very nice lather, and the fragrance is light but pleasant. I do wish it came in a container, since now I have to dig up something in which to keep the puck, which is right standing on its side on the counter. Maybe I’ll just return it to the box.

The Stealth is a version of the Merkur white bakelite slant, though not a clone: it includes some tweaks that RazoRock made, which (among other things) changes the angle so that the handle is held closer to the face than with the bakelite slant. The razor produced some BBS spots in the first pass and extended those in second pass and at the end of the third pass my entire face was BBS.

A good splash of American Blend, and we move into the heart of the week.