July 28, 2023 – Month of Lather Day 28
- Brush: Yaqi 20mm Tuxedo Synthetic
- Razor: No-Name-Brand Tech Knock-off
- Blade: Feiyu New Carbon Steel (1)
- Blade: Rapira Swedish Supersteel (2)
- Preshave: Stirling Soap Co. – Unscented
- Lather: RazoRock – Classic
- Post Shave: Stirling Soap Co. – Stirling Blu Balm
- Fragrance: No-Name-Brand - Sport Club for Men EdP
- Music: Molly Hatchet - Flirtin' with Disaster
Daily Theme/Challenge: Here are the cheapest products in my staving stash:
- Brush: $7.00 USD. This is a second/reject with a cosmetic flaw that does not affect performance. I got this for the Games just in case I needed a "disposable" brush.
- Bowl: $1.50 USD. Purchased for $2 SGD at the local Singapore dollar store. My first "dedicated" lather bowl and still one of my better performers.
- Razor: $1.54 USD. This is Cheap China $#!+ (CCS) at its finest. The head is a stamped aluminum Tech head knock-off and the handle is a cast aluminum Merkur 23C long handle knock-off; both with sus quality control typical of CCS. I got this to make an AliExpress purchase quality for free shipping. In hindsight i should have paid the shipping charge.
- Blade: $0.024 USD. Yes, you read that right - 2.4 cents. It came with a cheap-@$$ razor hair cutter comb. The only place I can them are on Alibaba at 8 cents for a tuck of 10 (minimum purchase 400 tucks). Assuming 50% logistics cost and 100% retail markup, that works out to 24 cents for the tuck and 2.4 cents for the blade. This price should have scared me, but you only live once...
Total Hardware Cost: $10.064
- Preshave: $0.0321 per gram. Stirling is half the price of other preshaves I've used yet it's better than the rest. Well done Stirling!
- Lather: $0.0399 per gram. This is 40% cheaper than the retail tubs of Proraso and Cella that I have. Wow.
- Post Shave: $0.0701 per gram. Stirling Rocks!
- Fragrance: $0.0214 per gram. Purchased for $1 SGD at the local Singapore dollar store. The alcohol content is so high that it nearly evaporates on contact.
Total Software Cost: $0.1635 per gram
The Shave: Pass 1 with the Feiyu CCS blade was the worst shaving pass I've ever experienced. Imagine taking a blade, buffing it on broken chunks of concrete and then shaving with it. That was this pass. Stupidly, I forced myself to do Pass 1 with the blade and it was torturous. Call me a wimp but there was no way I was doing another pass with that blade, so I loaded the Rapira Sweed and did Pass 2 without donating any more blood. I'm not going to pull an u/OnionMiasma and be stuck having to use the CCS blade or razor ever again, so they immediately were tossed in the sharps/recycle bins. #ROTY