This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
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Aug 11, 2025 - Mammoth Monday: Shire Trifecta
August 11th, 2025: MMOCMQ Day 11
Easy two pass shave. This blade is holding up well despite being carried on a bike every day. The backward blade trick really does seem to work well.
BIG $monthofmikes
August 11, 2025
3 passes. Face lather. Excellent shave.
Another great shave. Certainly better than on day one. This brush is really starting to come into its own. It already feels broken in. Just the right backbone. Tips splitting well already feeling very soft.
Edge Microscope Images
$RawHoggin
$ShepherdsofStirling
$headless
$discord
Still trucking along with August. No new developments today. $Rawhoggin $monthofmikes $headless $discord
$FriodomRiders
$HoneMeisterschaft
$Equestrian
How is the horse brush working out?
11.08.2025
Today I finally found the motivation to shave again - been going with electric trimmers lately but it just isn't the same. I tried two things inspired by @walden@sub.wetshaving.social 's latest SOTD posts: first this shaving cream/paste made under license by Meißner Tremonia, and then a small "battle of the blades" from blades I found in my drawer.
While MTs pastes used to be harder creams that were even a bit harder than some artisan croaps (kinda like resin), this one got a little softer over time and was more like a shaving mousse. The scent is nothing to write home about: menthol, eucalyptus and that's it. Kinda like an ointment for sore joints and muscles. While MT isn't mentioned on the packaging anywhere, there are clear signs that it was made by them: the consistency of the product, the violet glass jar and last but not least the ingredient list matching perfectly to their paste. Unfortunately, MT has stopped making any soaps or pastes and only has some beard care products in their portfolio. I even suspect they went bankrupt, since there's almost nothing available anymore. It's sad.
For today's small blade battle, I took one blade from an unmarked ziplock bag I found and a single Derby Premium. The blade in the plain white wrapper turned out to be a AccuTec Personna "Super" made in the USA. I guess it has some kind of coating, judging by the feeling of the shave. The Derby is kinda like a turkish basar of coatings: it seemingly has them all. Both are on the milder side, at least by my judgement. I did the first mostly WTG pass with the Personna, then the Derby, and some final cleanups with the Personna yet again. While this setup was perhaps not the best for a fair comparison, the Personna felt sharper while not sacrificing any mild feeling for it. So yeah, this is a narrow US win. Sadly I won't get any more of these blades thanks to the tariffs enforced by President Cheeto. 😑 I also got rid of all russian blades I still had left. Don't want to support a warmonger with future purchases, even though the russian population can't do anything about their shitty leader and have to suffer for it.
Still, glad to be able to shave again - I love the smooth feeling of my dome!
glad to be able to shave again
Invariably, on days when I shave just because it is habit, I feel exactly like you did afterwards. Today was, in fact, one of those days. I was thinking of the shave as a chore to fit in between other tasks. Afterwards, I was just glad to have had such a great experience.
tbh I often still see it as a chore that I need to fit between other tasks. This time was different though, I actively chose to do it at a set time and listened to ambient music while shaving. It was noticeably more relaxing that way.
For me, it is time that I have already set aside. Normally, I treat it as a practice of mindfulness, like meditation. There are days, of course, when I’m just not in the mood and just go through the motions, but I normally look forward to each shave.
August 11th, 2025: Fresh blade
It was a good run with the marathon blade, but just because it was still usable and decent doesn't mean I should deny myself objectively better shaves. I really love these V12 blades. I also have a bunch of Zorrik which I find similarly smooth and efficient.
I heard that my favorite blade website https://razorbladesclub.com/ is going to stop selling to the USA because of tariffs. It's a shame. Maggard and other retailers certainly have some blades to choose from, but I've had fun over the past 4 years trying some weird ones, and have found some that I really like which I won't have easy access to anymore. On the other hand, I don't need any more blades!
What do you think varies in blade manufacture? Do you think there are only a few places that make them, and specifications vary? Does someone (perhaps Feather) control their whole process, including band-steel?
I don't have any insider insight to the blade industry other than what I've read in passing over the past few years. The most interesting one to me was when Personna (or rather, whoever owns the Personna brand, which is now something else) moved the manufacturing of their only DE shaving blade (Platinum Chrome) from Israel to Germany. The nomenclature changed from Isreali Red to German Blue (why people don't just call them Platinum Chrome is beyond me). It was interesting because the rep who came on the sub said 1) Platinum Chrome is Personna's only shaving blade, and 2) they physically moved the machine(s) from Israel to Germany.
#1 is interesting because of course there's also "Lab Blue" and "Med Prep" (note: I'm woefully out of date with the current branding/naming), but apparently they don't consider those to be general shaving blades and the marketing department ignores them. #2 was interesting because that seems like a lot of work, so obviously there must be relatively few of these specialized machines.
I do think there are only 1 or 2 manufacturers in each known country -- so Egypt might have 1 or 2, Germany might have 1 or 2, India, China, etc. The difference between each brand of blade has to be slight changes in the bevel grind, changes to the steel that's used, and probably some relatively major changes in coatings. The style of printing/packaging might change but I'm not sure if they even get printed/packaged in the same building or if they get sent off for that process. I'm sure it depends.
I'd like to know why certain blades like these V12's are so incredibly smooth feeling to me. They don't bother my skin at all, are very sharp, and whatever grind they have works great for my whiskers.
Yeah, I would think that there aren’t many actual producers of blades and that many blade companies are just having blades made and selling them. Perhaps grinding angle, coating type, and type of band-steel, can be specified to make a blade perform differently from others.
Trying out a variety of different razor blades from all over the world is indeed fun - thanks to RBC, I tried a lot of the known ones but also the more exotic ones like Gillette Minora, Winner, and almost the entire range of Lord (Egypt) and Treet (Pakistan). The latter were my first contact with a fully black DE blade called "Black Beauty". It was uncoated carbon steel, so it caught rust fairly quick but the shaves weren't bad while it lasted. Now I am inspired to dig into my blade drawer and find some exotic ones to try out for my shave later - I'm all set with blades, but sometimes a little bit of experimenting can spark tons of fun!
