03-08 - Regret
- Brush: Yaqi 'Heavy Metal' 24mm silvertip badger
- Razor: Marianna #310
- Blade: Fromm Shaper
- Lather: House of Mammoth - Hygge - Soap
- Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Hygge - Aftershave Balm
The reality of my decision has sunk in - a truly vicious bummer of a choice the cross of which I will now have to bear for the next 28 days of daily shaves, lest I be regarded by one and all as a wuss.
I'll disclose right away that the blood counter has gone up by one today - the result of a careless kiss of the blade edge with the skin beside my right ear. Silly me.
My face has taken a right beating today courtesy of another day of shit lathers. I genuinely have no idea why my Mammoth lathers are so bad right now - normally I have absolutely zero issues getting a great, slick and protective coating of soap out of any Tusk-based soap. But for the past three days my lathers have been airy, wispy and fleeting, providing next to no help for this razor sharp blade applied in a way I've got no real experience in. I broke out the bowl today to lather in instead in the hopes it could help me dial in the suds a bit better, but what I was left with was only marginally better than the last two attempts, and again my blade was skipping and skittering across my face. I won't lie, there wasn't much actual hair-removing going on today, occupied as I was with making the most out of my horrid lather and trying to keep the blade steady. As a result my neck is now even splotchier than before and I'm starting to show some stubble just a scant few hours after my supposed 'shave'. But I'll chalk this one up as a learning experience - a chance to reflect on exactly what went wrong here, and to use this knowledge to prevent similar $headless challenge misfortune down the track.
So what went wrong? The short answer: everything. I was already tired and put off by the prospect of taking another beating courtesy of a Fromm Shaper blade. Then, as mentioned before, my lather sucked. So my lack of good technique combined with the other factors resulted in a truly horrible experience.
When I came to bed afterwards, my wife asked me how my shave went. I could only muster a one-word reply: terrible. She dropped the topic after that.
Oh, I also tried the advice of one other $MammothMafia24 member to use the balm on a damp face, but given it's freezing cold here at the moment and this leading to my face taking around twice as long to dry off, I won't be doing it again. It wasn't bad by any stretch but it didn't unlock a magical hidden aspect of the balm, so it's just not worth risking the frostbite. Would be good in summer though, I bet.
Anyway, I'm off to lick my wounds and mentally prepare for the next shave. I have a feeling this is going to be as much of a battle of sanity as it is pain tolerance.
Blood counter: 3