Category Archives: Review

Quick review – Aubrey Organics North Wood shaving cream

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This has been sitting in my den for a while, not getting much use because I just couldn’t get it to lather properly – which I though was a shame since I really like the scent it has.

As they say, well, duh! A bit of digging recently showed me that this is a cream meant to be used with no brush… so no wonder I couldn’t whip it into a lather – it’s simply not meant to do that, so adding water to it and whipping it just made it runny.

Using it the way it was intended to was a significant improvement, but it can’t compare to proper lather in my opinion. Plenty of glide, fairly moisturizing and a pleasant scent… but no cushion at all. Nada. Zip. In that regard it was little different than shaving with just water.

For a brushless cream it’s decent enough – so if you’re in the market for that you could do worse than picking it up. For a proper ‘at home’ shave with a brush and enough time to use it…. no.

Very quick review of travel sized alum stick

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I bought this from Shave A Buck a little while back:

It’s alum, it’s in a sturdy container, it’s the size of my thumb… what’s not to like? If you use alum and you like to keep some in your GoBag, you can probably do a lot worse than spending three dollars (US) on this.

The cutting edge – one line reviews of blades

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I’ve been trying out various blades in my various razors, and so far this is the ones I remembered to make notes about, ordered alphabetically:

  • Astra Superior Platinum: A blade with a well deserved reputation, smooth and sharp and suited for every razor I’ve tried it in.
  • BiC Chrome Platinum: Okayish for the first shave, horrible on the second go. Firmly off my list.
  • Feather Hi Stainless: A wicked sharp blade that performs well in any razor, but is best tamed by my Feather Popular.
  • Gillette Goal Stainless: Works rather well in my 22R and 39C – four shaves and still smooth.
  • Laser Super Platinum: Middle to bad blade – sharp enough, but not very smooth. A decent choice if no better blade is available.
  • Lord Platinum: Works very well in my 39C, my 985CL and my 22R.
  • Racer Super Stainless: A middle to good blade, depending on the razor. Worked better in my Parker 22R TTO and in my Racer razor than in my Merkur 39C Slant, no tugging but not the smoothest blades out there.
  • Shark Super Chrome: A middle of the road blade in my 22R and 39C – but gives a very good shave in my Merkur 985CL open comb travel razor. Also works well in the cheap YUMA razor.
  • Treet Platinum Super Stainless: A Pakistani made blade that works well in my 25C open comb and my 958CL. Well worth looking into.
  • Willikins Sword: Shaves well in any razor, especially so in my 39C slant.
  • Zorrik Super Stainless: A pretty decent blade, works fine in my Yuma and 985CL.

Review of the Cadet TP-01 Open Comb

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A little while ago I picked up a Cadet TP-01 from Shave A Buck along with some other things, and I’m happy I did – it’s a good razor for a good price.

The box it came in is serviceable, but nothing fancy – then again, we don’t buy razors based on the box they come in, but based on how they shave. Well… at least I don’t buy razors based on the box – YMMV as with anything relating to this hobby.
The TP-01 is a straight forward three piece open comb razor – pretty much a case of what you see is what you get. It is heavier than I expected, since the handle is solid, not hollow like it is on many other inexpensive razors. This gives it a pleasant balance in my opinion, with the centre of gravity about 3cm below the head. The end result is a remarkable manoeuvrable razor, which should suit most shavers.
A curious side note: the handle of the TP-01 fits the heads of my Merkur 25C, my Merkur 985CL and Yuma – but the head of the TP-01 won’t screw all the way onto the handles of said razors. Best guess has to do with the length of the shank – the head of the TP-01 has a longer shank than any of my other razors – and/or the pitch of the screw thread. It is not of any great importance to me – the handle of the TP-01 suits me fine.
The shave I get from the TP-01 is a bit more aggressive and less mild than I get from my other open combs – since the blade angle of the Cadet and my Merkur OCs is virtually the same as far as I can tell, it must be down to blade exposure and blade gap. The sheer depth of the comb might also account for parts of it – all in all a well designed head for a efficient, manly shave.
The craftsmanship of the razor is first class – no visible toolmarks, even plating, highly polished… I can’t even tell where the casting sprue have been removed, something I can do on my Merkurs – even if I really had to look.
If you are in the marked for an Open Comb razor, look no further than the Cadet – it’s an efficient, comfortable, inexpensive and well made razor.

Review of Lea shave stick

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Caveat lector: The Lea shave stick have – as far as I can tell from searching – gone through a couple of reformulations over the last couple of years. Mine is the “middle” formulation, without tallow. Older and newer stick should – again as far as I know – contain tallow.

I picked up the Lea shave stick on a whim, and for being cheap – a touch under 3USD from Shave A Buck – it’s a reasonable decent stick. Not quite as good as the Arko – which can be had for less if you know where to look – but the Lea have the benefit of coming in it’s own plastic carrier; very handy for the Gobag.

As far as the scent goes, it smells of soap and nothing more. That’s not a bad thing, even less so when you plan on sticking it in your toiletry bag and leave it there – it wont stink up your other gear. It smells a little bit stronger when wet, but again only of soap as far as I can tell. Compared to a fresh Arko, it’s very mild – compared to a slightly aged and aired out Arko it’s much the same.

My Better Half claims it smells as if Irish Spring and Dove had a baby – it does remind me of Dove as well, but I’ve yet to smell the former.She haven’t been exposed to Irish Spring in a decade though, so take that for what it’s worth.

The lather is quick to whip up and plentiful, and it provides okay glide and cushion. Not the best I’ve experienced – that honour goes to Mike’s Natural Soaps – but far from bad. In my experience it does collapse fairly quickly, which may or may not be an issue of you do three passes – I find it’s sufficient for two.

The lack of tallow may give some issues if you got dry skin, but since I always uses a moisturiser after shaving it’s a non-issue for me. The newest reformulation – which do have tallow in it – is bound to be better in that regard, even if it seems to be somewhat more expensive online. I have no idea what the latest refomulation is like in regards to scent or lather though, but reviews seems to be positive.

Overall it’s a great little package; a sturdy container, a good soap and a low price. Definitely recommended if you want a shaving stick for travel or for use at home – you may want to look for the latest reformulation if you want a tallow based stick though. For me it has displaced the tube of shave cream in my GoBag, taking up less space with less chance of making a mess.

Review of Omega 10048 boar brush

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The Omega 10048 – aka the Omega 48, Omega Pro, and/or Pro 48 – was the first “real” shaving brush I was exposed to after using an old Body Shop brush for a decade. The one I got was part of a Starter Kit I bought from Barbershop.no, and the box it came it was branded Proraso. The brush itself bears no re-branding, but proudly proclaimed itself to be an Omega boar brush.

The brush is of good quality manufacture, and should last a lifetime if properly looked after. I have no idea what grade of boar it is – I’m really not all that knowledgeable when it comes to boar brushes. What I can tell is that it looks like the hairs have been bleached, the knot has plenty of backbone and is not all that scratchy. It is also a big knot – the biggest in my small rotation – and a big handle… almost too big for my hand.

The knot is, as mentioned, bleached boar bristles. It’s a 28mm knot with a 70mm loft, but thanks to the solid backbone it’s not in the least bit floppy. The handle is chromed plastic and fairly light – meaning the balance of the brush is firmly towards the knot end of things. And speaking of the handle, I was expecting the chromed plastic to be pretty slippery, but to my pleasant surprise I have found that I can get a great grip on the brush even with wet fingers.

Various places online touts the Omega 48 as the preferred brush of professional barbers in Italy; and as much lather it’ll hold I can easily see why. At the same time the things that makes this an excellent brush for lathering someone else makes it – for me at least – a less perfect brush for shaving one self. The sheer size makes it somewhat awkward to use – I feel like I am applying lather with a straight elbow – and the balance makes it less optimal for applying lather. The size also means I can’t use it for making lather in my favorite Turkish copper bowl, but luckily I have a back up in the cereal bowl from IKEA The size of it also means I simply can’t face lather with it; my goatee gets in the way.

The Omega 48 isn’t a bad brush, far from it. It’ll whip anything you’ll throw at it into lather, be it a soft cream or a rock hard soap. But it is a BIG brush; from base to tip it clocks in at 133mm. If you’re in the marked for a boar brush and you like ’em big, the Omega 48 will get you lots of brush at a reasonable price.

As an aside, I see that Omega also sells the 10049 – an ever so slightly smaller brush than the 10048 but with a handle that’s coloured either red, black or white. It might be an option for those who find the chrome to be a little too much.

Review of the Merkur 25C

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I might as well admit to it; I like the Merkur Open Comb head. Which is why I got two of them; the 985CL travel razor and the long handled 25C.

Go ahead – guess which is which…

Having two razors – or three, when I assemble the Franken-nought-four – with the same head gives me an opportunity to compare how the other part of the razor affects the shave. And once I know how the handle affects the shave, it gives me the insight I need to know how the head affects the shave… so it’s a win-win, really.

Speaking of the head; Back when I first created the Franken-nought-four I was researching the Merkur 41C, aka 1904, and found something interesting and/or scary… the Merkur Open Com heads were actually intended to be adjustable… by loosening the handle 1/8 to 1/4 turn you can adjust the blade angle and gap, while the springiness of the blade should keep the mechanism tight. While it might work it sounds kinda dicey – and since you’re adjusting both the gap and the angle at the same time it’ll be hard to predict just how much more aggressive it’ll be.

If used tightened all the way – as I do – the Merkur 25C is a mild and efficient open comb razor. It’s milder and more manoeuvrable than the 985CL, but at the same time it has a harder time getting a BBS on my neck. Odd how things works out…

It is overall a solid razor, with a handle that’s somewhat thicker than your average pencil but not by much. The balance is good in my opinion, but YMMV depending on your taste.

If you’re in the market for a relatively mild long handled open comb, you can do a lot worse than picking up a Merkur 25C.

Review of Turkish copper bowl

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One thing I can hardly do without when I wetshave is a good bowl to build the lather in… some people face lather (which I do as well when using the Arko stick), some swear at scuttles – I prefer a decent bowl that fits my hand.

I started out with a simple plastic snack bowl “borrowed” from the kitchen cabinet, then switched to a larger cereal bowl from Ikea (which I still use at times) before one of the old-timers at my favorite shaving forum showed off something he had dubbed “the fairy tale bowl”.

It is funny how fast ones Acquisition Disorders can go from dormant to “shut up and take my money” mode…

Short story even shorter; once I learned that the bowl had come from bestshave.net and was pretty damn cheap, I placed an order for it as well as a few other odds and ends – funny how you tend to spot something you suddenly need. Shipping was prompt – as usual – and as soon as I unpacked the bowl I knew I was going to like it:

The bowl is beaten out of pretty thin copper sheet, which makes it lightweight and easy to hold in my paws – the downside is that my lather gets cold pretty fast. The dimpled inner surface helps in building the lather, much like the spiral grove you often see in the bottom of scuttles. The reasonable small size of the bowl – 11.7 cm (~4.5″) wide and 4.9 cm (~2″) deep – means it’s best suited for smallish brushes; since most of my brushes have a loft around 5.0 cm (~2″) it suits me fine. My Omega 48, with it’s significantly higher loft, do not like my copper bowl much…

Overall I can recommend the Turkish copper bowl if you like bowl lathering, like short lofted brushes and are in the marked for a shiny, lightweight bowl.

Quick review of Col Conk’s Bay Rum

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Col Conk’s Bay Rum was my first exposure to bay rum – and it’s very, very different than the scent of Krampert’s Bay Rum… not to put too fine a point to it, the scent is markedly inferior to Brian’s wonderful aftershave. It is not that Col Conk smells bad – far from it – it’s just that Krampert’s smells better…

That aside, the soap is pretty good for being a glycerin based soap – it lathers easily and abundantly, the lather has decent slip and cushion, and the lather don’t collapse before I’m done shaving. The soap seems reasonable indifferent as to the brush I’m using, even if I find I have to load a soft brush for longer than a stiff brush – that probably holds true for all hard soaps though.

I have come to expect that glycerin soaps don’t give as much moisture to the skin as tallow based soaps do, and Col Conk is no exception to that rule – use of a moisturizing aftershave afterwards is a must for me, even if your mileage may vary on that. As several of you already knows, my aftershave of preference is Krampert’s finest – and after using Col Conk’s Bay Run what better way to round off the shave than some of Krampert’s bay rum?

Overall I can recommend Col Cok if you’re in the marked for a glycerin based soap that gives a smooth shave – but look to the tallow based soaps if you’re after something that don’t leave your skin feeling dry afterwards.

1958 Gillette TV Special

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My latest acquisition on the razor front is my second oldest… a 1958 Gillette TTO known as the “TV Special”. A fellow shaver over at The Shave Nook decided it was better to sell it than having it sit unused in his rack, so I got the opportunity to snap it up for a little less than twenty dollars – which was a steal, really. Apparently the razor was advertised during the 1958 broadcasts of “Gillette Cavalcade of Sports” and it’s notorious online for being a great shaver.

The new beuty – a short handled TTO vintage razor
Head on with the head open – note slight loss of plating on three spots along the right bar
As for the shave, I can best describe it as mild and effective. This isn’t a harsh razor by a long stretch – in fact, some might find it to be too mild. So far I’ve only taken it for a spin with an Astra Superior Platinum blade, but I can’t imagine it’ll behave significantly worse with another blade… unless it’s a bad blade off course.

Despite being a short handled razor, it’s remarkable comfortable to hold. The slight flare near the base helps, as do the knurling. The balance is pretty good too, even if I find it slightly top heavy – either the head could have been slightly lighter, or the handle slightly heavier. It’s no worse than most of my other razors – I’ve yet to find a razor with absolutely perfect balance.

I’ve only had it for about a week so far, and used it a couple of times, but the 1958 Gillette TV Special has gained a slot in my rotation. If you’re in the marked for a vintage Twist To Open razor, and like ’em mild… well, you could do a lot worse than picking up one of these babies – even if they can be hard to find at a reasonable price.