August is self-designated as my wetshaving anniversary month–that is, the month that I have generally identified as the month that I started this shaving journey in 2024.
You can go back and review the story here, but the short-form version is that it was August 2024 when I bought my first double-edge safety razor, blades, and shaving gear to replace the cartridges that I had been using.
So this is the second anniversary that I’m celebrating here. And if you’ve been here for a while, you saw last year’s anniversary month and know that I try to do something special during the anniversary month shaves. I’ve got four weeks of shaves–currently 12 planned shaves–that can be filled with whatever I want to fill them with, and there are basically no rules.
I really tried to embrace that last point in planning these shaves, that there are no rules. And this one will feel weird, but it’s the hardest and most immovable of the rules that I’ve lived by in my shaving journey: Proraso Sunday is at least on hold, possibly cancelled forever.
Out of the four Sundays in August, only two will have Proraso products used. This frees me up to be able to get some other products into the mix during the week. That was important, just to be able to play with some of the new favorites.
I also threw out the one razor, one blade per week of shaves plan. And yes, while I did use three razors during the Shave 300 week, I only used one blade between them, so this should feel different. Each of the 12 shaves in August should use a different razor, primarily because I have 12 razors, so this seems to match pretty nicely.
I will not, however, be using a different blade for different shaves. But I won’t be using the same blade for all three shaves in a week. The blades I’ll use this month include the Wizamet Super Iridium, Astra Blue, PAA Platinum Strangelet, and Parker Premium. Yes, one new blade will get a go as does one I haven’t used since last November.
So what does this mean from the hardware perspective? The King C Gillette, Parker 55SL Semi-Slant, and Van Der Hagen will come back out to play this month. I’m excited for that…mostly. The VDH and Parker both seem to not like my face, but I need to use them and I’ll make it work for both.
I started talking about the software side, with the halving of Proraso Sunday shaves, but this really gave me two extra days that I could plug in additional software. And this plan let me slip in a couple of older items that haven’t been used in a while but really like (like Hoffman’s Autism Strong and Edwin Jagger lathers). I’ll get at least one second try of some lathers, and will add an aftershave balm to the collection during this month.
In a month intended to celebrate my shaves and how far I’ve come in this journey, I’m really looking forward to the month, and I’ve been tweaking the plan even up until the Friday before it begins, so I’ve really been giving this a lot of thought and consideration.
I’m looking forward to sharing the shaves with you over the next four weeks.