July 25, 2023
2 passes. Face lather. Good shave.
The Great Bear is intended to be a winter soap that marks the winter solstice. It is a collaboration between Murphy & McNeil and Black Mountain Shaving. Here's [ a little ] of what Black Mountain Shaving says about the scent:
For thousands of years, Winter has been a time for celebration and fellowship. [blah, blah] One such celebration occurs on the Winter Solstice known as The Long Night of Storytelling. People gather under the stars sharing ancient tales and wisdom, including the legend of The Great Bear (Nyah-gwaheh). [blah, blah]
I like this scent a lot but did not get much time with it today. I had to rush to get my shave done because my schedule was packed. I took less than 10 minutes from placing brush to soap until my final swipe with my cleanup towel. Each pass was started by creating what u/sgrdddy calls a slurry lather -- a very wet, very slick face lather created with a minimum of loading from the tub. My actual shave result is excellent but the overall shaving experience was marred by my need to rush. Closeness was BBS on the easy spots and near-BBS on the difficult ones. I mean, why do I even bother with straight razors?
As to the challenge. I have used both hands to shave for 10+ years. It started during my first serious bout with straight shaving. I have no issues using my non-dominant (left) hand because it feels totally natural. In fact, with a safety razor (DE and SE), my left hand does more shaving than my right because my right hand is more convenient to use for skin stretching those difficult areas on my face.
A real challenge for me would be to do a straight razor shave with one hand. I don't have any facial growth. It would be a challenge to use one hand for a straight shave and not lose a lip or an ear. Using either my right or left would be equally awkward, but for this challenge, the obvious choice would be my left hand. As you can tell from my setup, I wimped out and used a DE today.
The theme for my photo contest entry today is Space. The Great Bear is also called Ursa Major. That's right. The star constellation. Stars are in ... space. So, I do have space-adjacent items; a 3D-printed model of a spacecraft, and an engineering model (not space-qualified) of a spacecraft attitude determination and control system (also called a guidance, navigation and control system). I could not figure out how to make these work as a part of a SOTD photo composition, and I like to try to make photos that are shave-related and on theme for both Lather Games and the photo contest.
#photocontest