Some of you may have seen my earlier post about trying to find a good DE razor in China. I did eventually find a Weishi 9306-C, and had an acquaintance order it for me, as most of the payment options on that site are not really useful to anyone lacking a Chinese ID card or some special information that I must not be privy to. Anyway, it arrived last night, with a pack of Dorco blades and some Gillette Super Thin Platinums (with Vietnamese [I think] text on the package). I resolved to test my new pride and joy the next morning, using the Dorcos because I had heard they were fairly forgiving, and I was, to be completely honest, a little intimidated.
I should probably inform you all at this point that I had been participating in No-Shave November, and no I did not have electric clippers and no I wasn’t about to give Park’n'Shop any business today, they gave me change in counterfeit bills last time. I trimmed it down as best I could with some scissors instead. So I took a quick shower and washed my face with some glycerine soap and tried to get as much hot water on my beard as I could before it ran out (the plumbing in this building is atrocious), and continued my prep. I had been using a brush and shave soap for some time with my cartridge razor (a store brand which was, surprisingly, much better than the Gillette Fusion I had butchered my face with long before), so I lathered up as usual, although with more attention to detail. I found an effective angle for the blade and went to town. It took two terribly long passes just to whittle the beard down to what could be called stubble, but to my delight, when, after mere millimeters had covered the blade with hair, all I needed to do was pass the head through water and it was clear! The multi-blade behemoths would always clog up so badly that it would sometimes take a few cartridges to do away with long stubble, but this could handle a full beard with hardly any difficulty.
Finally, I made a third pass, XTG mostly. It wasn’t completely smooth, as that would have required another pass and I could feel some irritation by the third, but all things considered, my shave was successful, and I managed to not slice myself up. I’m going to try and get closer (probably with a fresh blade, since this one probably had a few shaves’ worth of wear today) in another day or so.
tl;dr: First shave with DE went well.
My goofy face before and after: before before after after
*note: DE = double edge, XTG = Across the Grain*
*Other note, I love my ums even if she prefers me looking like an old man.*
