Another reason I do this at night, is to examine the glint of the edge in overhead light. What I saw was striking, possibly unique. The entire face of the edge bevel was nearly polished smooth, yet without having eroded to a narrow band. One edge had no other angle than that; the other had the slightest glint remaining at the very edge, which is what I usually see when the time comes. That's the remnant of original edge geometry; where it was absent, is where I got burnt.
The shave was certainly shit, and it wasn't the first poor performance, but there must be something special I can do with this coincidence of my shaving angle and the blade geometry, or the composition of the metal. It might be helpful, like honing or stropping, if I just stick with it and see. Maybe there's a lower angle to be reached in the Slim. Or, maybe I should just stick to what I know, and conclude, once again, that super-stainless class blades are just awful for me.
Wait a minute: we've done this before. The Slim may be good at dealing with blades that are shit for my face, but if the theory was that the blade is actually good for my particular skin and hair, only worn, and I haven't learned the technique to match, then Parker 87R "Ruby" is the right razor for the job. A steeper angle bias than the Slim is called for, when a blade is on its last.
No Respect
It's a busy weekend for my family. My son, out of his own enthusiasm, decided to enter the state scholastic chess tournament, and yesterday took a trophy for 5th place, from a field of 20 or so first graders! Guess I'm gonna have to learn the game, now. We got a notation lesson, and incidentally learned about the en passsant rule -- such noobs -- a half hour before play began. I was like, "you're probably not going to win any games, this year," because I can barely demonstrate how to end the game. I could download an app to his tablet, however. We discussed at length whether losing four rounds straight would be fun, before I even shelled out for registrations. I concluded that he was in it for the right reasons: just looking for a good game. But seeing the trophy table, and surveying the gymnasium, he still felt worthy of a fourth-place finish. I guess he showed me!
Today was the "golden birthday" for my 9-yr-old twins, but with all our other problems, we left it to the professionals at the gym this year, and let them arrange a swimming + pizza party. (I had a few gifts tucked away, at least.) Clearly, it was a Palmolive Classic kinda day, and that's all I used for skin preparation. I put more focus on taking down the stubble WTG, repeating as necessary, because I felt that was a weakness of yesterday's early morning shave -- not enough stubble, too much skin contact.
Ruby and the Shark performed fantastically, giving no sign of "foiling out," which is to say a flopping-over sensation. Yes, it took more repeats, but rubbing in the lather covered me, and if I shorten up my strokes, I think there is room for improvement. I'm still getting a little late irritation, indicating intra-follicular abrasion, but the skin was without any inflammation this morning, and I got more BBS than yesterday. I won't ever again make the mistake of disputing my champion razor.
More importantly, I see a new possibility, that I could be on course to shatter the 1-month blade use ceiling. If super-stainless class blades are softer and thinner, and there truly is one with an ideal angle, the way Personna was ideal in the platinum class, then I might use the self-stropping effect and keener edge to my advantage.
No comments:
Post a Comment