The planning for this week was remarkably simple to start: I wanted to try the Personna Gem blade with my 3rd mild razor: the Mühle R89. So far, it’s performed wonderfully well with the Henson mild and Feather AS-D2, but you know me, I can’t call it a success unless I really get it tried out and compared properly.
As the Mühle sits between the Henson and Feather in terms of mildness, I’m expecting a more comfortable set of shaves than last week. But that obviously will challenge the closeness a bit.
I’m taking this week as an opportunity to try out something I thought about last week: the Omega S10049 synthetic is practically a clone of the Proraso boar brush, except, obviously, for the bristles. I wondered if it would lather as well as the Proraso does with the Proraso soap or cream. So I’m trying it out. I know, shocking, but it should be fun.
As you might have noticed, I also picked up a new brush this past week, and am pressing it into action almost right away, and setting it in direct comparison with it’s Yaqi sibling. Yes, it’s the R2002-S Lucky Dice synthetic–something I’ve wanted for a while, but the stars have never quite aligned. And it will be compared to the Yaqi Rainbow. The bristles aren’t quite as soft, but they feel mid-soft with some stiffness to them.
Filling in the rest of the participants this week are a new lather: the Ariana & Evans Asian Pear soap, and the second use of another relative newcomer to the collection, Catie’s Bubbles A Midnight Dreary soap. I’m excited for both.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve used the Zingari Man aftershave serum, not since early October of last year. It, along with its lather and sego balm brethren, aren’t favorites, but I’m working to clear up some sample tubs so I can convert them over to travel tubs. The last one I finished still hasn’t been finished yet, but I’ll figure out what to use it for in due time.
I’m looking forward to this week of shaves, because I think the Gem will again shine brightly in the Mühle R89. But also, for some reason, I’ve got a soft spot for Catie’s Bubbles. I don’t know why, but I’ve been trying to work it in for weeks and just haven’t found the right spot for it.
This wraps up using the Personna Gem for a while. It’s been fun and very nice, but there are others blades to get to in addition to a fun anniversary month of shaves that frankly are going to be all over the place. And I’m looking forward to that chaos.
But that’s still a couple of weeks off. Let me get to this week of shaves and see how they go.
The Ratings
Sunday’s Shave, #310. The Proraso Sunday Green Shave.
The setup:
- Razor: Mühle R89
- Blade: Personna Gem Platinum Diamond Glide
- Pre-Shave: Proraso Refreshing pre-shave cream (green)
- Brush: Omega S10049 synthetic brush
- Soap/Cream/Gel: Proraso Refreshing shaving soap (green)
- Alum Block: Stirling Soap Co. Alum
- After Shave: Proraso Refreshing after shave balm (green)
- Stats:
- 7th shave with the Personna Gem blade
- 4th shave with the Proraso Refreshing soap
- 15th shave with the Proraso green set
- 11th shave with the Mühle R89 razor
- 5th blade used with the Mühle
- 1st use of a non-Proraso brush with the Proraso set
- 124th almost perfect shave
- 4th consecutive almost perfect shave
- 46th shave with an overall rating of 24 (18.8% of all logged shaves)
An interesting thing about the Mühle R89 razor is that one design choice that contributes to its mildness–the negative blade exposure. This means that the razor is designed to not let the blade edge extend past a line drawn between the comb or guard and the cap. And yet, there was some significant blade feel with the Gem in this morning’s shave. This was not expected at all.
But it didn’t seem to contribute to much irritation. There were a couple of very brief spots of stinging with the alum, but it didn’t last much longer than just an instant. And the blade feel may just have helped to provide a very close shave. So overall, a very comfortable, satisfying, close shave that just brought me joy.
And now, to address the other experiment in this shave: the Omega S10049 synthetic brush performed extremely well in lathering and applying the lather to my face, and compared very favorably to the Proraso boar brush. The bristles of the Omega are not quite as stiff as the boar brush, but they’re stiff enough to lather as efficiently as the Proraso brush. I did finally notice the difference in how they handle water: synthetic bristles don’t absorb water, rather they trap water between the bristles using capillary action, while boar bristles absorb water. How this manifested was that the Omega brush did not retain a lot of water when lathering, so I needed to add water more often. But since I have started blooming my soap by adding a little water on top of the soap and letting it sit for several minutes before I lather, I really don’t need to use a lot of water to lather. So while there’s a clear difference in how the synthetic and boar bristles work to create lather, it’s easy to adapt to.
A great shave today, and I’m looking forward to the others of this week!
Comfort: 24 of 25
Quality/Closeness: 24 of 25
Overall: 24 of 25
Tuesday’s Shave, #311. The Ariana & Evans Lucky Dice Shave.
The setup:
- Razor: Mühle R89
- Blade: Personna Gem Platinum Diamond Glide
- Pre-Shave: Razor Emporium Unscented pre-shave
- Brush: Yaqi R2002-S Lucky Dice synthetic brush
- Soap/Cream/Gel: Ariana & Evans Asian Pear Ultima 2 soap
- Alum Block: Stirling Soap Co. Alum
- After Shave: Nivea Sensitive Soothing Post Shave Balm
- Stats:
- 1st shave with the Ariana & Evans Asian Pear soap
- 62nd lather used in my shaves
- 1st shave with the Yaqi R2002-S Lucky Dice synthetic brush
- 83rd shave with the Razor Emporium unscented pre-shave
- 49th shave with the Nivea Sensitive Soothing balm
- 125th almost perfect shave
- 5th consecutive almost perfect shave
- 79th shave with an overall rating of 23 (32.1% of all logged shaves)
Yes, this shave rates just slightly below Sunday’s shave, almost entirely because there was some very light stubble left behind. But outside of that, this was another outstanding shave that I’d be happy to return to.
The Ariana & Evans Asian Pear soap was very nice. It whipped up to a very nice, thick lather, has a pleasant, light, mild fragrance, and was nicely slick and protective. Obviously, I need another go with it to rate it properly, but it was a very good inaugural shave.
The Yaqi Lucky Dice brush was fun and effective. I love how it looks, so let’s start there, but the bristles are firm yet soft, lathering fairly efficiently, and then applied a nice amount of lather to the skin with each sweep. I really like it, and it’s only been used once. I think I’ve become a synthetic brush convert.
I know I’m not quite done with the Personna Gem blade yet for this round, but I’ve got to say that it’s really shown up as an outstanding blade in a mild razor. Obviously, I’ll have to try it out in the slightly more aggressive razors to see how it performs there.
Comfort: 24 out of 25
Quality/Closeness: 23 out of 25
Overall: 23 out of 25
Thursday’s Shave, #312. The Midnight Dreary Rainbow Shave.
The setup:
- Razor: Mühle R89
- Blade: Personna Gem Platinum Diamond Glide
- Pre-Shave: Stirling Soap Co. Unscented pre-shave soap
- Brush: Yaqi Rainbow synthetic
- Soap/Cream/Gel: Catie’s Bubbles A Midnight Dreary shaving soap
- Alum Block: Stirling Soap Co. Alum
- After Shave: Zingari Man aftershave serum
- Stats:
- 2nd shave with the Catie’s Bubbles soap
- 12th shave with the Stirling unscented pre-shave soap
- 3rd shave with the Zingari aftershave serum
- 18th shave with the Yaqi Rainbow brush
- 126th almost perfect shave
- 6th consecutive almost perfect shave
- 47th shave with an overall rating of 24 (19.0% of all logged shaves)
- 7th shave with the Personna Gem with an overall rating of 24
As I mentioned above, I have a soft spot for Catie’s Bubbles, and I really don’t know why. But that soft spot made me excited to hit this shave. Today was only the second shave with this lather, but the first go with it was way back in February. So I’ve been looking forward to this for a while.
But let’s talk about how Catie’s Bubbles lather works. For a vegan base, it’s nicely slick, rapidly lathers into a thick lather (though I wouldn’t call it rich, probably due to the lack of tallow), has a pleasant but complex scent, and just seems to work well. Now that there are two shaves in, I can publish my rating, and it will show up toward the top of the list.
The rest of the shave was basically as expected. The Yaqi Rainbow synthetic brush seemed to work well with the Catie’s Bubbles soap, the Mühle R89 seems perfectly matched to the Personna Gem blade, the pre-shave provides a slick base (not great, but not inconsequential), and the Zingari Man aftershave serum is the better of the two aftershave products I have from them. It moisturizes nicely, is thin but applies well and stays nicely, and doesn’t have any funky unscented scent.
Overall, another outstanding shave, and I’ll be coming back to this mild razor paired with the Personna Gem blade combo a lot in the future, I think.
Comfort: 25 out of 25
Quality/Closeness: 23 out of 25
Overall: 24 out of 25