Austere August 31, 2024

• Prep: Warm Water Splash
• Razor: Ikon Shavecraft Tek
• Blade: BIC Chrome Platinum
• Brush: Omega Boar 10098 🐗
• Soap: Stirling Soap Co. Sheep 🐑
• Post: Shannon's Haymarket Vetiver and Nivea Sensitive Cool Balm

$ShepherdsofStirling

Down On The Farm For AA - Day 31

• Brush: Omega 81151
• Razor: Merkur 37C
• Blade: Astra SP (18)
• Lather: Stirling - Scots Pine Sheep
• Post Shave: Stirling - Baker Street splash
• Post Shave: Stirling - Glacial unscented AS balm
• Tags: $RawHoggin $ShepherdsofStirling

31 Days of Austerity have come to an end. Some lessons:

• 16 1/2 years of owning this Merkur 37C and there's no way it's ever leaving the den. Still just a fantastic razor for me.

• For as soft as this boar brush is, it's awesome. This Omega is far better than my Semogue 1800, as far as soft boars go. This is a great face-lathering brush and I got another amazing lather this morning. Brush day 1 pic and then today's before and after here.

• Sheep is easily a top 3 base for me. If the scent options were wider, more people would realize how good it is.

• It's been a real challenge finding songs that I like to meet my own personal $BarnyardChallenge musical quest to celebrate a month of sheep and hogs, but I've had fun running down some musical rabbit holes in the process. So to close out AA24, I leave you with a sheep (well, lamb) song from Genesis and something more current from Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs Pigs.

I raise my coffee cup to my fellow AAers! Try to enjoy your day and remember to be kind to one another.

August 31, 2024

• Brush: Chisel & Hound "Rob's Finest" w/25mm Paragon Synthetic
• Razor: Gillette Red Tip Super Speed
• Blade: Gillette 7 O'Clock Super Stainless (2)
• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Port-Au-Prince - Soap
• Post Shave: Spearhead - Seaforth! Heather - Toner
• Post Shave: allMan - Refined - Balm

N/A

N/A

$Discord
$ShepherdsofStirling
Progress Album

A nice end to Austere August. I never got tired of Port-Au-Prince, which says a lot. I used to not really like the scent because of the lemongrass, but I quickly learned to really enjoy it.

Final Stats:

• Total Soap Used - 98 grams
• Average grams per day - 3.16
• Lightest soap usage day - 1.6 grams (loaded light on purpose, otherwise there are a few 2.1 gram days)
• Heaviest soap usage day - 5.5 grams

I found the weight of a Stirling tub online, and if it's to be believed I have about 26 grams of soap left in this tub. At my rate of 3 grams per day, I should have another 8 shaves in this tub. If it was 4 or something, I'd keep using it and kill it, but I'll save this kill for some other time.

August 31, 2024

• Prep: Hot Shower
• Brush: Grizzly Bay - Dark Magic - 26mm TNS Shoat Boar
• Razor: Blackland - Sabre
• Blade: GEM PTFE
• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Varen Soap
• Post Shave: Summer Break Soaps - Picture Day Splash
• Tags: $ShepherdsofStirling $RawHoggin $Discord

Final day! We did it, reddit!

Here's how the daily set-up looked on Day 1 vs Day 31. The brush has broken in very, very nicely, while the splash has had a very rough month. Gonna give Picture Day a little while to rest up after this marathon. Poor little guy wasn't used to daily use!

August 31 2024

• Brush: Omega 13732 24mm
• Razor: Solingen Best Silver Steel 6/8 (Straight shave #128)
• Lather: Stirling - Varen
• Post Shave: Stirling - Varen
• Fragrance: Ineke Perfumes - Idyllwild

Brush progress album

Woohoo! I made it. 31 shaves with the big Solingen, I had a bunch of little nicks but only cut myself somewhat badly once on my face and once on my thumb. I also now have a comfortably broken in souvenir from Vancouver, these cheap Omegas punch above their weight class and are pretty nice brushes. This tub weighed in at 137 grams when I started and is down to 97 now, so I used a little over a gram per shave. No idea how people are using more than that, I was definitely not loading gently and had lather to spare most days. Put a good dent in the splash at least.

Thanks to u/gcgallant for honing my razor for me, and the other organizers of the various challenges. Using the same gear for a month sucks but it’s events like these that make participating in this sub fun. That being said I’m looking forward to grabbing whatever I want from my den again.

$headless

$RawHoggin

$ShepherdsofStirling

SOTD
Prep: Hot water
Razor: Leaf
Blade: Treet Platinum (1 1/2 blade)
Brush: Omega Art. 10098
Lather: Stirling Sheep
Post Shave: ForeverPure Witch-Hazel, Barrister and Mann Braeburn Aftershave balm

$ShepherdsofStirling

2024-08-31 🐑

• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Port au Prince
• Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. - Alighieri
• Razor: Wolfman Razors - Guerrilla
• Brush: Yaqi Metal Timberwolf

🐑

$ShepherdsofStirling

August 31, 2024 – The End of Austerity. May Gluttony Prevail.

• Brush: Semogue Torga C5
• Razor: Christopher Bradley B SB AL plate – Maggard Handle
• Blade: Wizamet (1)
• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. – Varen
• Post Shave: Noble Otter – Orbit

What a wonderful month to partake in the barnyard challenges of $RawHoggin and $ShepherdsofStirling. Seems like amazing successes for the challenges all around. I’m still impressed that from an off handed remark from u/SaintBandicoot, the $WolfInSheepsClothing, a last minute easy mode challenge popped up and gained a few player/shavers. It was a pleasure to be a little more involved in the community and maybe add a bit of revelry to the sub.

For the 31st shave, I was rewarded for this months effort with a surprisingly soft boar.. I am so impressed it’s taking quite a bit of restraint not to purchase more Semogues ASAP. It was also a good time tracking usage. The mutton tallow base was excellent throughout and I learned how to best dial it in for myself, dense and slick. Tonight may have been the best of the month. Not really much to report about the CB, it was mild and worked, next year I’ll take a greater risk and test my daily mettle.

Even though I’m excited to take some days off between shaves and switch up my hardware/software its been a hell of a month. Cheers, homies!

AA24 - Day 31 - Final Day

• Brush: Zenith Multi-Color (2006 XSE) 21mm Unbleached Boar Knot
• Razor: Aylsworth Razors Drakkant Plus
• Blade: Gillette Platinum [31]
• Lather: Stirling Soap Co. - Varen - Soap (Mutton Tallow)
• Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. - Varen - Splash

• Fragrance: Gentleman’s Nod - Jackie - Eau de Parfum

• Tags: $ShepherdsofStirling $RawHoggin $Discord

Hopefully, I managed to earn the 🍀🐑Shepherd of Stirling🐑🍀 badge using Varen for the entire month. Same razor, same soap, and same brush in Extreme Mode, plus the same blade challenge from Ultra Nightmare mode.

Varen was not a difficult scent to use for the month. In fact, I appreciate it's complexity more now than when I started. Mutton is a fantastic, premium base as well.

This brush has progressed nicely, but I still don't think it's fully broken in. After a month of use, the boar stench is barely noticeable. I believe I'll stick to bleached boar knots in the future.

This is the longest I've pushed a DE blade, and I'm not inclined to do it again anytime soon. I'm glad that I managed to finish out the month with it. I had to adapt my technique for the last week in order to still get close and comfortable shaves.

With the familiarity of this setup, I also managed to reduce the time of my routine by an average of five minutes. This was a personal challenge for the month that I was trying to achieve.

Brush Break-In Progress Album

Final Tub Check: 163g
Overall Usage: 38g
Average Per Day: 1.2g