209 On the Stones Again:

Even though I stated in an earlier post somewhere, there's no sense in letting a razor go to waste and collect dust when it can be used. So earlier tonight, I went ahead and re honed my 209. I also ended up retaking some photos because I had forgotten to put my memory card back into the camera. So I started with my Naniwa Professional 600 and basically reset the bevel using my old technique of 40/40, 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds of Japanese style of honing on each side followed by my usual 15 round trips to clean up the edge:

Next I went with my Shapton 12K finisher and I did 2 sets of 40 seconds worth of circles followed by 10 "X" strokes and I diluted the slurry between each session. After I got done with that I went back for a 3rd time and did 52 "X" strokes using the weight of the blade only. After that I took my friend's advice on using the pasted strop and did 60 round trips on the .5 pasted strop. Normally I wouldn't do that many or need to do that many if I was using an old vintage or a brand new premium razor, but with these Gold Dollar and ZY razors, they often prefer the lower grit stones and pastes for a much better edge than you normally would get without them:

After I stropped on the pasted side, I wiped the razor down and did 60 round trips on the clean side of the strop and then after wiping the razor off and rubbing the leather down until it was warm to the touch, I did 60 round trips on the smooth leather of my strop:

I'll find out how well I did on the razor tomorrow and unfortunately I missed out on another razor. Someone had just gotten in and outbid me at the last possible second. So I switched from all listings on my EBay page and went with the "buy now only" listings. And I scored a razor. It will need some cleaning up and re honing for sure, but I've got some plans for it. And before I forget, I finally got the geometry right on the 209. I had 2 parallel lines of slurry on the stone on the last session. One where the spine was and one where the edge was.

Go West & The Hawk:

Today's shave was great. After a nice hot shower, I needed a Tiki Bar fix and now that the last of the trolls have been blocked, I can use what ever I like. Their "Go West" scent is excellent. If you like the smell of a Harley Davidson leather shop, you will definitely love this soap. And to finish off this shave, I paired it with an old classic, English Leather :

And here's a bit of lather porn for you guys:

Tiki Bar can be found at Italian Barber because right now they're in the process of revamping the website and they're switching to the little brown truck in terms of shipping due to some issues that they've had with USPS. The hawk done great, but it's time to find some other blades. These Feather Professionals are chewing me up so I'll be switching to a milder blade. And if all goes well, I'll have a major EBay score here in a little while.

2 Days Beard Growth:

Today before I start my shower and shave, I thought I would snap a quick photo of my 48 hour beard growth to illustrate how fast it grows. This is a full 2 day's worth of growth and it sounds like 80 grit sandpaper too. As I get older, it seems to be more like barbed wire and you see how fast it grows. It's kindly part of the reason on why I got into wet shaving:

Before I started using safety razors and straight razors, I used a Gillette Fusion. When I finally ran out of the blades for them and realized that 2 shaves was all I was going to be able to get out of them, I needed to start looking for an alternative and placed my very first order for shave gear at West Coast Shaving Supplies. I got a Weishi 9306G TTO (Twist to Open), Personna's Med Prep blades and a couple of synthetic brushes which didn't last and I ended up getting my Omega 10049 Professional boar brush soon after that. I did try using my Gillette Fusion with my shave soaps and it was much better, but by day 15 out of 30, I was looking really hard at my safety razors and straight razors. With the canned foam, the Gillette Fusion pulled the hair out while the shave soap allowed the razor to glide across extremely well with minimum pulling and tugging. If the blades were just a shade sharper and if you strop them, you can get a better shave out of them. Same deal with the other brands of cartridges specifically Schick.

Latha Limon & The Hawk:

Today's shave was great. I needed a Barrister & Mann fix and I went with their "Latha Limon" which has an incredible lemon, orange, and rose scent to it. You would think that these don't go together but the orange and rose really make the lemon pop out in the scent. And to finish off this shave, I paired it with Aqua Velva ice blue aftershave splash:

The hawk started off rough. Even though stropping the blade yesterday helped some, it wasn't enough. So I put in a new blade which was a night and day difference for the better even compared to the other blade on its first shave. I'm not going to be shaving for a few days so please don't worry, I'm not quitting the hobby anytime soon.

Stropping The Hawk:

After this morning's rough shave, I decided to try something out to fix it. With a straight razor, you can always strop it to keep the edge going. Stropping basically re aligns the edge back to some what where it was and it also cleans the edge as well. So I decided to try stropping the hawk. Normally I wouldn't do this with a disposable blade shaving system because I personally think it's kindly counter productive unless you are still using cartridges (turns and gags), which some people still do:

I only used the smooth leather side of my strop and like I do before stropping a straight razor, I rubbed the smooth leather down until it felt extremely warm to the touch:

Next going in the opposite direction that you shave, you push the razor with the blade in it away from you 5 times in that one direction. Then you turn the razor around and repeat in the opposite direction that you see below for 5 more times. You should be fine with just doing 10 stropping strokes total. I'm pretty sure this will work, but if it doesn't I can always put a new blade in the razor and yes this will work with cartridges as well:

As I stated a moment ago, this will work with cartridges as well and I've had some people swear that this keeps they Gillette Fusion Proglide carts going for long periods of time. They often recommend an old pair of blue jeans to strop their cartridges with which I can see those guys doing because the carts cost nearly as much as my strop does when you get them in bulk at places like Sam's Club and Costco which I personally think is ridiculous. I will let you guys know tomorrow how it turned out.

C.O. Bigelow & The Hawk:

Today's shave was rough. I don't know exactly what I mowed off but it bled something fierce and this blade tugged and pulled something fierce too. More on that in another blog post. But today I went with C.O. Bigelow and their Menthol & Eucalyptus cream which I need to stock up on because I'm nearly out of it. And I finished off the shave with Skin Bracer:

As I stated earlier, the hawk mowed something off and it bled something evil. It also tried to chew my neck area up. Good thing that the cream I used today is slick. I'm not too happy with the resulting post shave I got today either. So I did a little something that should help with the tugging and pulling. There's also the possibility that I got a bad blade too which is why I love straight razors. If the edge is bad, I can always touch it up on either a 12K stone or a .5 pasted strop. With these blades, they're either good or they're not. I'll see if my solution worked or not tomorrow.

Walloon Lake & The Hawk:

This morning's shave was great. After a nice hot shower, I went with Through The Fire Fine Craft by Maria Arman and their Walloon Lake/For Flint MI scented soap. To me it's got a fresh light cologne scent that pairs wonderfully with Clubman which is what I finished with:

The hawk did great. I changed one of the passes and didn't quite get a squeaky clean shave, but more than socially acceptable. This has become my favorite razor as of late and I wouldn't have it any other way. I also can compare it to a straight razor in terms of closeness.