Grape Soda & The Steampunk Wedge:

Today's shave was great. You can't go wrong with Catie's Bubbles soaps in my opinion. The only one I have is their "Knee High to a Grape" which is a seasonal soap that has an incredible grape soda scent to it. And to finish off this shave, I paired it with my usual "go to" aftershave splash :

The Steampunk wedge was excellent. I got a squeaky clean post shave feel in just 3 passes. Tomorrow's shave will be with the Jr. Torrey to see how the last touch up session did. My friends Craig Minor & Jullian Muller were correct about using the 2 stone method which is all I will be using from this point on. It works and the edges are excellent. So you really can't argue with success.

The Shoubandini Type 100:

It has taken a while but I've finally got this stone figured out. I love this stone. The edges it has produced using a slurry built with a well worn 600 grit diamond plate has been amazing over the last 2 shaves counting this morning's shave. My only mistake was using clean water with this specific stone. Do NOT use clean water with this stone. It makes the edge go away:

This Shoubandini Type 100 was given to me by my friend, Kon Soldatos (thanks buddy) :

It's definitely a finishing stone in the hard category. I would put it around Level 4 which is hard but not quite like glass. Its also very fast and has a very smooth feedback to it. The slurry from this stone is like an extremely light yellow/off cream color and is pretty thin too. Almost like water, but just a shade thicker than water. Another thing I noticed was unlike my other stones that I have, the slurry doesn't stain anything. Normally with the other stones, my fingers are black and I have to wash them 2 or 3 times to get them clean. I don't have to do this with the Shoubandini type 100. Here lately this specific stone has been removed from Japanese Natural Stones website ( http://www.japanesenaturalstones.com/ ). The only place I know of that you might get one would be EBay. Other than that, I have no idea as to where you can get one at this price or size.

Jr. Torrey Touched Up:

After this morning's shave, I thought about it and decided to do a couple more sessions on my Jr. Torrey straight razor. It was like it was missing something this morning and it did perform better after I stropped it for 5 round trips on the rough leather. But I felt that it needed more so lets get started on this touch up session:

First I started with my usual 40/40, 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds on each side followed by 10 round trips to clean up the edge. After that I diluted the slurry and did 10 "X" strokes. I ended up performing this 3 times before rinsing the stone and starting with a fresh slurry. After that I went back and did 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds on each side followed by 10 round trips to finish it off:

After that I did my usual rub down on my strop and performed 5 round trips on the rough leather and finished off the razor with 10 round trips on the smooth leather:

Under my loupe, the edge looked phenomenal so the next shave with it will be very interesting. But tomorrow's shave will be with my Steampunk wedge which was excellent yesterday. This 2 stone method is awesome and it makes honing even more fun in my opinion.

Fortitude & The Jr. Torrey:

Today's shave was great. I was craving Soap Commander really bad today so I went with their Fortitude scent which is now a permanent edition to their core line up. The scent is aged hay, aged tobacco and dark rum. And since I don't have the matching aftershave balm, I paired it with their now discontinued Purpose scented balm which has a very nice bay rum scent:

The Jr Torrey did great after I hit the rough leather side of my strop for 5 round trips. So after I get done today, there's a really good chance that the Jr. Torrey will be getting another session on the stones using the 2 stone method. I'll also be doing a blog post about my Shoubandini later on as well. I didn't get this razor quite as good as I did with my Steampunk wedge but they're pretty close.

Volcano & The Steampunk Wedge:

Oh wow what a shave. Today, I needed a Tiki Bar fix so I went with their Volcano scented vegan soap which has an incredible semi sweet tropical fruit scent to it. And to finish off this blissful shave, I paired it with their "Walk The Plank" aftershave balm which has a coconut, rum and salt water scent to it. Amanda went light on the rum to allow more of the coconut to come through and to my nose, I get a semi sweet coconut rum and salt water scent which is amazing:

The Steampunk wedge was perfect. I nailed the edge on it with the Shoubandini and during today's shave, I watched my beard disappear in 2 passes and it felt like I was using my Edwin Jagger DE 89. Now I did have to do an extra pass on my neck area to get my trouble spots cleaned up but that's about normal even with a DE safety razor. I now know what I need to do on my Shoubandini to get an epic edge that's smooth as a butter knife, but the old barbed wire beard melts away.

Jnat Time!

After getting some really good results from the 2 stone method, I decided to change my Japanese natural stone method up a bit and go with my friend Anthony Esposito's jnat method to see what happens. Anthony uses a different jnat than I do, but he did tell me that he uses the same technique on all of his jnats and gets great results. So lets get started:

First I built a slurry up and slightly diluted it once before beginning. And during first session, I did 30/30, 15/15, 8/8 seconds on each side of both razors followed by 10 round trips to clean up the edge a bit. After that I rinsed the stone off and built a fresh slurry and did 20/20, 10/10, 5/5 seconds on each side of both razors followed by 10 round trips. I did this 2 times and I rinsed the stone and built a fresh slurry each time I did it. At the end of the 3rd session, I did 10 "X" strokes on both razors to give the edge a little more sharpness. How I did will be determined by the shave test:

After I got done, I rubbed my strop down for 25 seconds on each side before use:

I ended up doing 5 round trips on the rough leather and 10 round trips on the smooth leather to clean and polish the edge a little bit:

Under my loupe, the edges looked great. The shave test should be interesting this time around considering that I did NOT dilute the slurry between each session. In fact I started with a fresh slurry between each one. I also did NOT use clean water at the end like I had been which I personally think where I've been going wrong with this stone. So my next straight razor shave should be interesting. I'm also going to start saving up some money to buy a Suehiro 20K stone. To me that specific synthetic stone is unmatched by anyone else and it has the same micron rating that the Shapton 30K stone does but it's about $120 dollars cheaper. After getting the Shapton 12K and NOT liking the edges they produce, I'm more than confident that I made the right decision regarding Shapton's water stones. If this doesn't work, I may go back to my DE razors for a while until I have enough saved up to buy that 20K stone.

Armada & The doc:

This morning's shave was great. Through The Fire Fine Craft by Maria Arman is an excellent soap and today I went with her Armada scented soap which is a Vintage Old Spice scent. And to finish off this shave, I paired it with my 2003 Old Spice aftershave splash:

The Doc was excellent and then some this morning. I got a squeaky clean post shave feel that resembles an "ice rink" in just 2.5 passes and I know that was at least the 2nd shave on that Perma-Sharp blade in the razor. So I am very pleased with this shave this morning.