u/FMKJuli's SOTDs for challenge 'Headless Horsemen 2024'

01-09 - Back on razor's edge

• 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

Has it truly been a year already? I could swear it was just a few months ago that I last participated in Austere August, but my calendar (and thermometer) tells me this fateful time of year has come around once again, so here we go.

I completely missed this year's Lather Games, so I figured I'd make an effort to show up during AA instead, and while I was at it I should probably do some sort of wacky challenge as well to definitely make it worth my while.

As such, I've resolved (as of literally 30 minutes before my shave and after a late-night beer) to dust off my u/OnionMiasma -provided Weck (actually a Marianna), stock up on a fresh box of vasoconstrictors and bandages, and throw my lot in with u/whosgotthepudding's Headless Horsemen. I would have just kept going with my daily driver GEM 1912 or even finally tackled the MMOC, but none of you buggers deigned to host a GEM challenge this year…

But Juli, I hear the one person who actually remembers me say, you've shaved with the Weck all of two or three times - this month is going to be suicide!

Yeah, probably. But who dares, wins - and if they lose, at least they probably learned a lesson or two along the way. I fully expect those lessons to be written in blood, but from my very limited experience with this shave medium, I actually did fairly alright and came away from my virgin Weck shaves smooth and nearly bloodless (I think the one time I did cut myself was when I pressed the blade's corner into my cheek like a complete fool).

Anyway, to the setup.

The Weck (Marianna #310) hair shaper I've already covered. I'm using a Fromm blade because that's what I used last time I gave this razor a go, and it worked alright. We shall see if I live to regret that choice. Getting the blade out of the razor after the shave is still a massive PITA (and not the fun, flavourful kind at your favourite Indian joint), and I am waiting for the day my hand slips, slides along the blade and books me a nice trip to the ER.

I'm using Mammoth software again this year (u/mammothben, enjoy your well-deserved holiday!) because Mammoth rules and I want to use Mammoth. You're welcome, u/Mammoth_Don. After last year's AA nearly depleted my beloved puck of Mood Indigo, I went with Hygge this year, another great scent. My Hygge puck is also already pretty used-up, but if I kill this soap during August I won't be as mad as if it had been MIndigo.

One problem I am already seeing is that my Hygge balm has a bad case of the crystals. I genuinely don't know if anyone else's balm has this issue (I can't find anything online about it) but mine has a bunch of sharp, needle-thin little crystals all throughout it. They break easily when spreading the balm between my fingers and they're not able to break skin or get stuck in anything, but it's somewhat unpleasant and concerning. I suspect it may be the salicylic acid in the balm crystallising out over time? When I got the balm ages ago it didn't have this issue. Eh, we'll say it makes for an extra challenge during this Ultra Nightmare Mode. If anyone's heard of this and knows a fix, though, get in touch - thanks!

My Yaqi Silvertip brush is my current daily driver and I don't see the need to switch - plus it's got a silver handle so it matches nicely with the Weck.

Shave and lessons learned in a reply because Reddit doesn't like my blogposting and has told me this is already too long. Sorry.

$headless $MammothMafia24

02-08 - The first cut…

• Brush: Yaqi 'Heavy Metal' 24mm silvertip badger
• Razor: Marianna #310 
• Blade: Fromm Shaper (2)
• Lather: House of Mammoth - Hygge - Soap
• Post Shave: House of Mammoth - Hygge - Aftershave Balm

Day 2 of what is very quickly shaping up to be a horrible mistake. Yes, the regret for my overzealous and overconfident decision to Weck my face for a month straight has hit me like a two-mile long freight train in what some may well call record time. 

We were off to a truly terrible start today as, when I tried to insert the blade into the razor, upon bracing it against a towel so as not to slice my hand open the small plastic tab thingy on the end (who's the straight razor historian here who can name that part of the instrument for me?) snapped off.

At first I was pissed and disappointed that I broke my toy only a day into this ordeal and after only like three shaves total with it ever, but that feeling quickly changed to despair as I began to realise how damn important that little nubbin actually is to holding the razor properly. 

Oh, also, I trimmed my beard with a pair of scissors beforehand to prep it for its removal during today's shave - it just had to go as it was soaking up all the lather and was being a pain to maneuver around. 

So off it went. However, I messed the $MammothMafia24 lather up again and ended up with something very thin and unsuitable for scraping a massive blade across my face. One more day like this and I'm gonna have to break the bowl out to lather in there again - I can't do 31 days of shit lather while also trying not to cut my own throat.

And cut myself I did. A nice little wedge out of my jaw just a little to the right of my chin. I think it was at least partly due to me having to employ a really weird hold on the razor due to a) my glasses being in the way and b) that missing plastic bit causing problems, and it all happened on the second pass when I thought I was well in the clear. Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer, however, and I will now officially have to bring in a cut/blood counter. From then on, it all went downhill - I did a truly terrible number on my neck and from the second I put the razor down, the red splotches started to form all around. I had to break the alum out to stop the bleeding from the cut and soothe the razor burn, and I ended up wincing so hard from the stinging I made my gums bleed, too. Fuck it, we'll add that to the counter. The $headless challenge is getting its blood one way or another.

One thing I will say about this razor is that my cheeks and jawline (apart from the missing chunk) feel great - ultra smooth and clean. But my neck meat is screaming just below the jaw like a starving street urchin on the pavement outside of the ivory tower, so that definitely puts a damper on things.

After the shave, I tried to mend the broken plastic nub thingy with some bargain-bin super glue I found, and my misfortunes did not end there. As if to mock me, the second I pierced the tube with the detachable nozzle to allow the glue to come out it shot out of its holding cell like a volcano on Taco Bell, coating my hands in a nice helping of superglue. Fun. After dealing with that I tried to put the plastic back together, and after a while of fiddling around it did work - but it looks damn ugly and I'm half expecting it to break again tomorrow. All in all, this could have been a better day, but this is part of the journey, isn't it? 

Blood counter: 2 

• First blood: 02/08

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

04-08 - Recovery

• 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

Editor's Note: Do you guys reckon if I slice through my neck at just the right angle I can justify a trip to the ER and bow out of this gracefully? Uh, scratch that thought.

I feel like a man who has just awoken from a coma, having to learn to write again. After Day 1, which by all accounts went pretty well, this bladed instrument in my hands for some reason now appears entirely alien - it never feels quite right to hold, and every move is a labour of its own. Parts get in the way - my own damn hands get in the way, too - and the fear of another cut down the side of my face I'll have to explain away at the office the next day has paralysed me so thoroughly it takes all I have to make just a single stroke with the grain.

But I'm improving, ever so slightly. My lather was better today; I went to bowl lather again this time and really beat the soap like it owed me money (which, if the ~~wishful~~ scenario at the start of this screed comes true, it well might). That resulted in a more serviceable lather which helped me concentrate more on not slicing my face off. There was still some skipping and chattering of the blade here and there, particularly around the typical 'problem areas' (read: anywhere that isn't my cheeks). I hope to get better at stretching the skin around the area to-be-shaved and ameliorating that issue somewhat as the days go on. Lots to learn, still.

There was no blood today, but the alum still lit me up like a Christmas tree. To top things off, my razor (with blade still in it) took a tumble into the sink while I was washing up. No visible dent or nick in the blade from what I can see with the naked eye, but the prospect of even rougher shaves going forward thanks to a dinged blade just adds to the trouble I'm already having.

Blood counter: 3

$MammothMafia24 $headless

05-08 - Resting

• 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

There was nothing special about my shave today, which is probably why it took me so long to write about it. I didn't hack off an ear, I didn't feel like my hands were made of pudding, but I didn't have that epiphanic experience that would have me instant add-to-cart a $500 handcrafted straight razor, either.

I am also running on around 32 hours of no sleep. Honestly, it's a miracle I didn't hurt myself during this shave.

I will endeavour to have a more interesting shave next time - for better or for worse.

Blood counter: 3

$headless $MammothMafia24

06-08 - Repeat

• 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

I said yesterday that today's shave should be more eventful. I lied, it was not. Sorry. Think I'm still recovering from my 30+ hour no-sleep adventure over Monday and Tuesday. We'll try again tomorrow.

Blood counter: 3

$headless $MammothMafia24

07-08 - Revelation

• 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

Today, everything clicked. I know that sounds unbelievable after those first few shaves I documented even just earlier this week, but it's true. I thought to try a different way to grip the Weck today (think a 'reverse grip' with the tip of the blade pointing outwards, toward my ear) and it allowed me to see clearly, get the blade really close to the skin, and keep it there without chattering or skipping. Starting on the right side of my face, using that grip I was able to remove most of my stubble in just two or three strokes. It was like the scales fell from my eyes (hah, razor pun). Is this why people swear by straight razors? I wondered. It certainly felt like one of the reasons. Anyway, I absolutely blazed through my cheek and jaw area like this. Soon it came time for the neck again, which has been a consistent problem area for me, being a flabby sack of shit and all. I'd be lying if I said it went completely without issue, but it sure was a hell of a lot less problematic than it has been for the past few shaves before this one. My second pass also went well, and my cheeks feel smooth like glass. The alum definitely gave me some feedback on the neck again so I'll have to keep workshopping that area. However, there's little to no lingering irritation after the balm has seeped in and done its thing, so I'm definitely feeling better today than after my first few shaves during AA (after which my neck looked like a turkey's wattle). No blood either, which is a great win. Looking to keep the counter in the single digits this month; with any luck I'll get there.

u/merikus and u/Zimora, I tried the vinegar/dish soap wash on my brush and am happy to report it definitely did something. The tips feel a bit less rigid now and some of the funk is for sure gone, so that's great. Remains to be seen if it lathers any better now, but even if the difference isn't that noticeable I'm still happy I got to give it a good clean.

Blood counter: 3

$headless $MammothMafia24

08-08 - Respect

• 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

Another damn serviceable shave from the $headless and $MammothMafia24 setup. If I can get the neck area sorted out, I could easily see myself using something like this as a one-pass option any day of the week to spice things up. This challenge, however, requires two passes, and while an ATG pass leaves my cheeks smooth as butter, it's a bit too much hassle to keep switching up my grip while also stretching the skin taut, and the possibility of ending up like the (Heath Ledger) Joker should I slip up is enough to keep me second-guessing my every move.

I'll be honest, there was a tiny spot of blood on my neck today, right near the Adam's apple. I didn't even notice it at first until I touched it; it was so little blood it hardly warrants including, but the counter is there for a reason. Goes to show the neck is still a dicey area for me. Alum told me as much today, too.

Blood counter: 4

09-08 - Cruising

• 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

(yes, I ran out of r-words for the title) Another very comfy shave today. No major issues, no massive cuts, just a cruise-y two-pass shave. I mustn't get complacent but I'm happy to keep shaving like this for the month, honestly. Nothing much else to report - sorry! Looking forward to a long weekend now.

Blood counter: 4

$headless $MammothMafia24

10-08 - Sunday shavin'

• 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

Another decent shave. Getting more and more used to the angles but I still struggle on the neck. Narrowing it down to just the Adam's apple area, which just has too much going on to allow the blade to glide smoothly in any direction. Will need more workshopping. Putting on the alum afterwards still feels like I'm taking poison damage in an RPG, but I've resigned myself to that by now. Keeps me awake and on my toes, I guess. At least there was no blood today.

After I was done and washing up, a minor earthquake (read: my fat ass taking a heavy step) caused my razor to tumble into the wash basin. Luckily I'd already taken out the blade, but the razor body's damn plastic tail broke off again. Super glue didn't hold it together too well, and I don't want to get the shit all over my hands again so soon after the last debacle, so I'm holding off on fixing it for now. Might see if I can do tomorrow's shave tail-less and see how badly that impacts my ability to not slice myself open.

Blood counter: 4

$headless $MammothMafia24

11-08 - A moment of peace

• 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

Staring down the barrel of another hectic week ahead. This shave was serviceable. Not noticing the lack of the razor's tail yet (broken off again yesterday, see my last post) but have a feeling it's gonna become an issue soon enough.

Don't have much else to say about this one - sorry!

Blood counter: 4

$headless $MammothMafia24

12-08 - Sleep is for the weak

• 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

Nearing 36 hours of no sleep. God I hate these fucking Monday-Tuesday crunch time blocks at the moment. We're down a member of my team meaning others (read: me) have to pick up the slack.

Predictably my shave was nothing outstanding today. It's a miracle I still have all of my skin, to be honest. I'm dozing off writing this…

Blood counter: 4

$headless $MammothMafia24