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Another great face shave from the Double Duck Goldedge. I do understand the appeal of this anachronistic approach to shaving. And it’s delivered real benefits to my safety razor shaving vis a vis skin stretching. I just really detest the whole stropping/honing thing, and knowing myself as well as I do after 7 decades of strutting the planet, it’s just not going to work for me. I’ll definitely do it intermittently, but I admit, I appreciate shave technology, and find safety razor shaving and replaceable blades much more to my liking. It really hit me yesterday, when I purchased the new Fine Accoutrements SS safety razor. I do enjoy open edge shaving, but the majority of it will be done with my Feather SS razors and my new Monsieur Henry. If I invest in a new open edge razor it will probably be a Feather DX razor. I achieved a true BBS this morning with the Goldedge which was my goal! It’s still sharp, but I hate having to strop it and want absolutely nothing to do with sharpening/honing. I’m putting it up on the shelf. It’s time to return to what I love, shaving with my wonderful collection of safety razors and my replaceable blade Barber’s razors. So am I leaving open edge shaving? Not on your life! Will I spend money on one, yes, but it will be either a Feather DX or a Kai Captain Excelia. I’m grateful for the new skill acquisition which I’ll continue working on with my Barber’s razors.
Now I’d like to sing the praises of the Seki Feather AS-D2, and it’s predecessor the AS-D1, razors that used to represent the ultimate SS razor, prior to much of the modern artisan SS safety razor renaissance. That is until a crowd of newbs to DE shaving purchased it, did not discover its very narrow sweet spot, and pronounced it “mild”! The razor, understandably, was designed to accommodate the company’s very sharp Feather DE blade. According to “Refined Shave”, a Health/Beauty blade testing organization, the Feather DE Blade is the sharpest blade on the planet by a wide margin, followed not so closely by the Nacet. Seki’s challenge was to design a blade holder that tamed their incredibly sharp DE blade. Their first effort, the AS-D1, which had true negative blade exposure, erred too far on the side of mildness. Their second effort, however, the AS-D2 has neutral blade exposure, and is an incredibly efficient shaver for those who take the time to master it.
My health is no longer as robust as it once was, and over the past year I’ve been hospitalized twice, once for almost a week and a half. Being of Mediterranean extraction (Italian/Hungarian), I’ve always had a dense, heavy beard. My razor of choice to shear away 10 days of growth on both dome and face is the AS-D2, equipped with its signature blade. I find myself smiling when I read commentaries exhorting the heavy denseness of the writer’s beard and the AS-D2’s failure while loaded with a suboptimal DE blade (virtually any other non-Feather DE blade except maybe the Nacet) to shave effectively. This razor, when mastered, is capable of consistent irritation-free VBBS shaves, as it again delivered for me this morning. I feel refreshed, cool, clean and extremely velveteen!
RAZOR: Double Duck Goldedge (Mug), AS-D2 (Dome)
BLADE: Feather DE (2)
PREP: Cold water rinse followed by a scrub with Rabid Banana Preshave Cube
BRUSH: Viking Silvertip Badger
SOAP: Mitchell’s Wool Fat w/ 6 drops of M-Bomb
POSTSHAVE: Cold water wash with brush squeezings followed by Humphreys Lilac WH and Osage Rub. Finished with Mentholated Mysterium Serum.
