Less Stabby, More Burn-y

I had another perfectly fine shave with the old "starter kit" favorite, fake Merkur, with "no issues" aside from the sensation of being stabbed in the neck follicles. I'm not looking to get rid of the razor, since I recently went to the trouble of fitting it into a makeshift storage case, made from a Russell Stover Valentine's chocolate tin, and the 1/4" foam packed inside some ladies' rainboots from Wal-mart. It's the razor I look for when I'm dying with a flu, because it can handle some erratic pressure.

But a more recent idea has formed in parallel, that the Baili BD191, with it's Old-Type angle adjustment, non-contact when tightened, could replace everything Merkur ever came up with. So I moved my increasingly dull Astra SS over to "Chaoying," a razor securely residing in my medicine cabinet. With a non-stock, Schmidt R10 handle: I would recommend the new Victory Shaver, aka RazoRock DE1, over the weighty original. "DE1," meaning, "your first DE," get it?

I was super proud of having predicted a more comfortable shave, because it was, until I started running out of skin on my neck. Whereas the anchor-head had stabbed at my hair bulbs, this one was scraping the surface, and I still had a lot of dry shaving to do to keep up the my new standard BBS. I would have thought the lower angle bias to be less scrapey, but I was forced to go steep because of the dullness -- and this razor has much less exposure, so more stubble was left.

Different, but not necessarily better. I guess I can back off my challenge to the ceaseless promotion of Maggard Razors on Reddit with a clean conscience. I would still observe a certain symmetry, though, between the authentic Merkur under Dovo ownership (a straight razor manufacturer), and the fakes under the ownership of an originally straight razor shop. I get the impression that in both cases, as well as in the region of the Pakistani-Indian manufacturing base, the safety razor is generally considered to be a beginner's tool. Like, if you want to really get your neck clean, you better learn to straight shave. So who gives a shit if the blade is crooked, or wavy? You're not supposed to shave that closely with it.

Whereas, the classic Gillette attitude was always, that the honemeister should henceforth be considered obsolete.