Friday 4/4/2014
Merkur Progress Long Handle
Feather Blade
Vie-Long 23mm Horsehair Brush
WSO Mentholated Pre-Shave Oil (coming soon!)
So today was a day of new acquisitions for me when it came to my shave. I recently picked up this Merkur Progress Long Handle. I have the regular Merkur Progress and like it very much but have wanted the Long Handle Progress for quite some time. I picked this one up over at The Shave Nook Forum in the Selling and Trading subforum. I am glad I did.
I chose a feather blade for no particular reason. I like them very much. In fact they were the first blade I bought more than 10 of. I had tried many blades but after using a Feather blade for a few shaves I went out and bought 50 of them. I mostly use Personna Labs and Preps but I like feathers very much as well.
The brush was recently picked up in a trade. I am more and more intrigued by horsehair shaving brushes. My experience with them started with the Vie-long beehive horse/badger mix and I love it. It is likely my favorite brush. I started thinking I should really try a horse only brush so I went out and bought a cheap one from Turkey and actually it wasnt bad. The thing that sealed it for me however was that one of my knot vendors has some horsehair knots so I picked a few up. I had recently pulled the knot out of a Plisson Lóccitane Synthetic everyone was raving about that was just not for me. The handle was a beehive shape but without the grooves. I like that shape very much so I put a horsehair knot in that handle as well as coating the handle with 3 coats of spar urethane. I have to say that brush is beautiful, it is just a bit too floppy for me. I knew the vie-longs use a mixture of mane and tail hair to get both softness and backbone so I wanted one of them. I didnt , however feel like spending $45 on a brush I might not 100% like. I also didnt want to buy a $20 vie long with a small knot size, end up loving it and then having to go buy a 25mm brush which seems to be the knot size I like the most. This brush worked out perfectly.
I went back to my menthol ways now including a soon to be released mentholated pre-shave oil. I applied the Pre-Shave and put a bit of hot water on the White Lightning Soap. After about 4-5 minutes I commenced lathering. The horse hair brush really churns our some lather. Almost as much so as say a new very stiff boar brush would only this has soft tips unlike a not broken in boar.
The shave itself was my typical 3 pass, WG,XG,AG. I set the Progress on 3 and actually ended u leaving it there for all 3 passes. The razor is fantastic in a long handle I like this substantially more than the Merkur Futur I had and ended u selling. That razor was so bulky and cumbersome. People kept telling me I would get used to it but I finally thought why should I have to work so hard and adapt just to use a razor when there are so many existing options out there I can use just like they are second nature. It was a good call and lesson learned. You shouldnt have to overwork just to get acceptable results and enjoyment There are plenty of razor/ blade/ brush choices out there that settling for something is totally optional and your choice.
So back to the shave. it was a beauty. I love the Long Handle Progress. I love the Vie-Long horse hair brush. I really enjoy the Mentholated Pre-Shave Oil. The White Lightning soap, well lets just say if someone said you can only use that soap for the rest of your life, I would be ok with that. The White Lightning Aftershave Blash is just such a cooling, soothing, moisturizing aftershave product it is amazing. I was not a menthol guy, at least I didnt think so, but this has got to be experienced. When used in the proper amount the pleasure and benefits it bring to several of the steps in the shaving process are amazing.
I was fortunate enough to have a great shave today using new hardware that I really ended up loving. Actually when I think about it nothing I used is old, hardware or software, and I loved it all!
I hope you all were as lucky as I was today and got to enjoy every single aspect of your shave from pre-shave to aftershave, and from razor to brush! It was a fantastic Friday shave for me!
Enjoy Your Shaves!
Regards,
Jim@WetShaveObsession
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