Razor: Phillips Philite
Blade: Lord Classic
Brush: Wilkinson Sword Badger
Pre-Shave: Proraso Pre Shave Cream
Lather: Asylum Shave Works Flying Mango
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block
A wee Wednesday shave on a wet and windy morning.
There are some advertisements that would simply not fly today. Like this GEM advertisement from the war years.
Continue readingRazor: Phillips Philite
Blade: Lord Classic
Brush: Omega #10048
Pre-Shave: Proraso Pre Shave Cream
Lather: Proraso Menthol & Eucalyptus
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block
Going to be an early morning tomorrow, so enjoyed a shave tonight instead. The Phillips Philite is a nice and smooth little shaver.
Razor: Merkur (?) NOS Bakelite Slant
Blade: Shark Super Chrome
Brush: Semogue TSN LE 2012
Pre-Shave: Proraso Pre Shave Cream
Lather: Mike’s Natural Soaps Hungarian Lavender
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block
A fine Friday shave wraps up the work week.
Thanksgiving is soon upon us – well, upon the people living in the US at least. And for no good reason at all I figured that a Thanksgiving giveaway was just the thing.
Continue readingRazor: Merkur (?) NOS Bakelite Slant
Blade: Shark Super Chrome
Brush: Artesania Romera Manchurian Badger, imitation horn
Pre-Shave: Proraso Pre Shave Cream
Lather: Asylum Shave Works Flying Mango
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block
A wee Wednesday shave. Even when done fast, a traditional shave don’t feels rushed.
The traditional barber’s pole is white and red. White for lather, and red for blood – the blue you see on American barber’s poles is a fairly new aberration. These colours, along with a washbasin on top of the pole and one on the bottom, advertised the barber’s trade. Or, perhaps more correctly, the barber-surgeon’s trade.
A university educated doctor wouldn’t sully his hands with blood, gore, and poor people. So a barber, who already had sharp blades and a hopefully steady hand, would double as a surgeon for those little things that needed doing to a body.
Continue readingRazor: Merkur (?) NOS Bakelite Slant
Blade: Shark Super Chrome
Brush: Vie-Long #12705B
Pre-Shave: Proraso Pre Shave Cream
Lather: Mike’s Natural Soaps Lemongrass & Eucalyptus
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block
A new week is a fresh start – and what can be fresher than lemongrass and eucalyptus?
Razor: Ever Ready 1914
Blade: GEM Single Edge Stainless
Brush: Vie-Long #14033
Pre-Shave: Prep Original
Lather: Taylor of Old Bond Street Peppermint
Aftershave: Barber No3 Marmara
Additional Care: Alum Block
A fine Friday shave to wrap up the work week, as well as the Single Edge part of my razor rotation.
Next week I’ll use DEs again, starting with my Bakelite Slant.
Shaving isn’t hard. In fact, shaving is easy enough for a child to do with a “New Gem”. You can get it for a mere 2 US dollars. Provided you can go back, oh, a hundred and twenty years to order one. The razor wielding child was, I suspect, sold separately.
The razor the child wields in the ad looks very much like a 1901 “New Gem”, as described by Waits on page 429 of his compendium. The little tin box that held the razor looks similar to the 1901 too.
The New Gem was a wedge razor. Instead of the thin, replicable blades used by later GEMs, it used a blade that was – in effect – a short stub section of straight razor. On the upside, you would never have to buy another blade. On the downside, you would have to sharpen and hone it regularly.
And it was this requirement that lead to GEM also selling stropping machines, and kits that included stropping machines and extra blades. You would have to come up with more than two bucks though.
GEM used the imagery of a father and child in their advertisements for quite a few years. t They seem to have realized that a razor wielding child was not the best idea though.