Okay, since it’s anniversary month, and I’m celebrating a year of returning to shaving with a safety razor, let’s talk about the best shaves I’ve had in the last year.
As of this writing (August 10, 2025), I’ve had 28 shaves that rank at a combined comfort and quality/closeness score of 4.875 out of 5.000. And within that list, there are shaves that appear there because they were really good, but not almost perfect. And there are shaves that were almost perfect.
Today’s shave, the Rockwell 6C plate 4, Gillette Perma-Sharp, Proraso Blue shave was so close to perfect, that it needs to appear at or toward the top of the list. There are a couple of spots of stubble I can feel on my neck, but only when running my fingers against the grain.
But there were others that were almost perfect–not 27 others, certainly, but here are most of them:
Going way back to early March 2025, I had an almost perfect shave with the King C Gillette, Nacet blade, and Proraso white setup. My notes say that it was really close and almost no irritation. And I remember that as one of the first almost perfect shaves I’d experienced.
The KCG later delivered a couple of other almost perfect shaves: one with the Perma-Sharp and one with the Feather blade. But the Perma-Sharp was with the Proraso setup, while the Feather came with the Nivea shave gel and aftershave balm. Both notes state that there was almost no irritation and a really close shave.
The Henson has delivered its share of almost perfect shaves as well. One with the Perma-Sharp, but paired with Razor Emporium’s Element 47 shaving soap and the Proraso white aftershave balm. Another, in an interesting setup, was with the Personna Red blade–the first blade I ordered extra tucks of–also featured Cooper & French soap, Stirling Soap’s unscented Witch Hazel & Aloe splash, and the Nivea sensitive aftershave balm. The notes on both of those praise the closeness and comfort. And both came before I got the Rockwell 6C. And the Personna shaves came to fill in the remainder of the week after a very uncomfortable and disappointing shave with my last Kai blade.
The Henson also gave almost perfect shaves with the Feather, Gillette Platinum, and all three shaves with the Dorco Platinum HQ Red blades.
The Rockwell delivered what I called “an amazing shave” with the Bic Chrome Platinum with the plate 3 and Proraso White setup. It also worked extremely well with the Nacet on plate 2, and the Feather on plate 2, and I recall that week being very scared because it was the first use of the Feather blade, so I didn’t progress past plate 2 in the setup. So after today’s experience with the Perma-Sharp and plate 4, I’ll have to come back to the Feather and try it with plates 3 and 4.
So there you go. Of the 28 shaves with the top ratings, half of them–14 precisely–have been noted as being almost perfect. Pretty good for a year that had 155 shaves and 159 to date.
