Gillette Platinums & The DE 89:

Well it's official. These blades are a "hair's breath" below the Polsilver DE blades. Gillette Platinum blades are excellent and really smooth in the DE 89. No tugging or pulling and no irritation after a 3 pass shave either which is a good thing because they pulled the plug on the Polsilvers:

The only test that's left now is the longevity test. If I can get around 4 or 5 shaves out of these blades, I will be happy. That's kindly why I got into wet shaving. Money aside, I wanted something that would remove my beard and last longer than 2 shaves without having regrets about shaving like I did with the Gillette Fusion Proglide cartridges. They have a new one out that has a lubrication strip before and after the blades called Prosheild which I have zero interest in unless I have to use them for medical reasons which would take too long to list.

24 Hours Later:

Well as most of you know, I applied .5 chromium oxide paste to the nylon webbing of my strop. Here's how it looks after it has dried. Yesterday roughly about 12 hours after applying it, I took a clean section of the cotton terry cloth that I used yesterday to smooth out the paste and wiped the excess off. I should have turned the flash off because it made the strop look like I have more paste on it than it actually does. Only a thin coat is needed:

Since my razor wasn't in really bad shape, I only did 5 round trips on the pasted strop. If it's a premium or vintage carbon steel razor 5 round trips is all that's needed and if it's stainless steel, 8 round trips is all that's needed. You don't want it too sharp to the point where you can't use it, you want it to where it takes off the hair comfortably with the least amount of irritation possible:

Under the loupe I could see a little bit of improvement but not a lot. The edge has a bit more polish to it than it did and like I stated earlier, my razor wasn't in bad shape at all and was still pretty keen. If anything, the pasted strop woke it up even more. I'll no more when I shave with it tomorrow.

Pipe Smoke & The DE 89:

Today's shave was really sweet. Uncle Jon's soaps are amazing and his Pipe Smoke scent is nothing short of phenomenal. You have a cherry pipe tobacco, vanilla and spice type of scent combined with an unreal post shave feel. And to finish off this shave I paired it with my "go to" aftershave Aqua Velva classic ice blue:

The DE 89 was excellent. I got a squeaky clean post shave feel with just 3 passes and no touch ups. These Gillette Platinum blades are excellent. Another thing I noticed in the Face Book groups today was that Shaver Heaven has announced that they will be ceasing operations which is sad because from I hear they were fantastic soaps and had excellent customer service. I never got around to try their soaps and I have to wait until I get paid before I can order anything which is not for another 16 days. So they'll be long gone before I can order their soaps.

Gillette Platinum Blades:

Friday I bought these Gillette Platinum blades and so far I'm loving them. Polsilvers are still my number one choice for DE blades but if you haven't heard, P&G Europe decided to discontinue the Polsilver DE blades effective 8/1/2016. So they will slowly be phased out over the next 2 years which is a mistake in my opinion and from what I was told, this isn't the first time they've done this either. So I have to find another blade that's either equal or comes close to them. So enter the Gillette Platinum DE blades. The 1st impression is apart from the name on the pack itself, they have the same packaging as the silver blues do:

Nearly similar as the silver blues in terms of packaging and the numbers on the blade:

Unlike the Kmart version I bought earlier this year, these are made in St. Petersburg, Russia. The Kmart version I bought earlier this year was made in Brazil and had totally different packaging:

In the doc these blades were very good. 3 super comfortable passes that were smooth and effortless and there was no tugging or pulling at all. I've got to try them in the DE 89 next:

In terms of both comfort and beard removal they are extremely close :

^ I would put the Polsilvers an eyelash above the Gillette Platinum blades. They're that close. Next up will be the longevity test to see how long they last. Plus there's also more Gillette blades I want to try along with some more Russian blades that I've not tried yet.

Latha Limon & The Doc:

Today's shave was great and very refreshing. Barrister & Mann is an excellent soap and their "Latha Limon" is a very nice refreshing and bright scent of lemon, organge and rose which really makes the lemon pop. And to put the icing on the cake, I finished off the shave with Aqua Velva classic ice blue aftershave which gives it a really nice and refreshing chill:

The doc was extremely good today and these blades are excellent. I will do another blog post with more info on these blades. I should have held off before buying a bulk pack of Astra greens because there's been a couple that have out done them.

Pasting a Strop:

There's 2 ways to get a 30K edge. You can either spend $300+ dollars each on a few synthetic stones, or you can do what I did and spend $5.95+ shipping and get this .5 chromium oxide paste and apply it to a strop. There's also various forms of this media in sprays, sticks and crayons. For years I heard that this was harsh and after shaving off a friend's Arkansas oil stone edge followed by a .5 chrox pasted strop, I realized that was a false statement and ordered some:

These little sample scoops that came with my WTF sample kit came in handy. You apply a nice even thin coat. Remember that a little bit goes a long way and that you don't need much:

This is how it should look after you have spread it evenly along the strop and here's a little tip. Take a spray bottle and lightly spray a little bit of water while spreading the paste along the fabric side of your strop. It will keep the paste from drying out and make it easier to spread. Don't use water if you are applying it to leather. That specific tip is for fabric strops only :

Next I took a cotton terry cloth and wiped the strop down to spread it a little bit more and to even out the coating of the paste. As you can see it's a messy deal but it cleans up easy with soap and water:

Here's how it looks after wiping it down and making sure that it's even along the strop:

^ Now I have to let this dry for a minimum of 24 hours before using it. And since I just got some new DE blades in, it will get 48 hours of total drying time and I will wipe it down again in 24 hours to remove the excess that might be left behind. I personally don't think it will take that long considering that it's still pretty warm here and as you can see in the photo, it's already drying pretty quickly. I'm also looking at the diamond sprays and another strop over at Straight Razor Designs. I seen a really nice fabric strop over there that I want to use other pastes and sprays on.

Mail Call:

Today's mail call is from Maggard Razors and I'm really stoked about it as well:

As usual it came really fast. I ordered it on Friday and here it is in my hands on Monday:

This was only $5.95 and it's equal to 30K grit :

I've heard a lot about these specific blades and have heard that they're similar to the Polsilvers which we'll see here in a few minutes after I get done writing this post:

All in all I'm very pleased with this mail call and couldn't be happier.