Learning to shave with the Feather Artist Club

[Zwilling]

Still really enjoying everyone's journey towards straight shaving! You will find a proper straight really comfortable after the super-sharp AC blades.

However...

I had 7 shaves out if the Schick then banged it on my mirror as I used the AC to clean up my neck on my lockdown haircut last night so I binned it for a new one.

This would have been really painful with a real straight - likely hours of honing out the flat spot and bringing it back to shaving sharpness

 

[NeilJ]

This would have been really painful with a real straight - likely hours of honing out the flat spot and bringing it back to shaving sharpness

I would have to be much more careful if I ever went down the proper straight route. To be honest banging it was probably overplaying it really as I only really tapped it on the plastic handheld mirror surround and didn't want to risk using that blade again as they are cheap enough but your quote has certainly made me appreciate how carefully I would have to handle a straight in future.

 

[Zwilling]

I would have to be much more careful if I ever went down the proper straight route. To be honest banging it was probably overplaying it really as I only really tapped it on the plastic handheld mirror surround and didn't want to risk using that blade again as they are cheap enough but your quote has certainly made me appreciate how carefully I would have to handle a straight in future.

That sounds very sensible! I would have done the same. To be honest, the ease of disposable blade straights does look very appealing. Perhaps I will take the plunge too, though I might try a DE blade shavette first.

 

[wintoid]

Day 67 - Feather Artist Club SS with Feather Super (1)

Well well well. What a great shave that was. Maybe the Super is my blade. The unguarded blades seem to glide more than the guarded ones, to me. That doesn't necessarily translate into a more comfortable shave, but the Super today was gliding and was comfortable. No irritation. One weeper, which I'm fine with, because it was my fault.

Three passes WTG/XTG/ATG. The weeper happened on the WTG pass, on the area under my lower lip. For that reason (perverse I know), I stuck to WTG on that area for all three passes. My confidence level was somewhere between how I would have felt with a Professional and with a Proguard. I totally accept that it could all be about confidence, but for whatever reason, the Super did a great job. The good bits are as good as I've ever shaved with anything. There are still a few patches, but even those are probably DFS. I'm going to keep on with this combination for a few days.

 

[Merkurologist]

Day 67 - Feather Artist Club SS with Feather Super (1)

Well well well. What a great shave that was. Maybe the Super is my blade. The unguarded blades seem to glide more than the guarded ones, to me. That doesn't necessarily translate into a more comfortable shave, but the Super today was gliding and was comfortable. No irritation. One weeper, which I'm fine with, because it was my fault.

Three passes WTG/XTG/ATG. The weeper happened on the WTG pass, on the area under my lower lip. For that reason (perverse I know), I stuck to WTG on that area for all three passes. My confidence level was somewhere between how I would have felt with a Professional and with a Proguard. I totally accept that it could all be about confidence, but for whatever reason, the Super did a great job. The good bits are as good as I've ever shaved with anything. There are still a few patches, but even those are probably DFS. I'm going to keep on with this combination for a few days.

Excellent!!!! Things are coming together for you I think and in a few months when you come back to the Feather Pro you will think "these are nice blades"

Did you cork the Feather Pro Super?

I corked the Pro and found it very nice on the first shave and it got better with shaves. I got some Super ready to test once I'm done with the Pro's

Today I'm going to shave with a traditional SR newly refreshed so I expect it to be a little rough on first use. I'm looking forward to it, I've missed the longer blade and feedback.

 

[wintoid]

Excellent!!!! Things are coming together for you I think and in a few months when you come back to the Feather Pro you will think "these are nice blades"

Did you cork the Feather Pro Super?

I corked the Pro and found it very nice on the first shave and it got better with shaves. I got some Super ready to test once I'm done with the Pro's

Today I'm going to shave with a traditional SR newly refreshed so I expect it to be a little rough on first use. I'm looking forward to it, I've missed the longer blade and feedback.

No I've never corked a blade in my life. Not because I disagree with it or anything, I just don't know how I would know whether I'd corked it enough/too much. I find Pros are OK in an SE razor, so I'd probably use Pros in an SE before using them in an Artist Club.

But Supers are available more cheaply than most other blades, so it might be a good result for me if Supers turn out to be my blade.

Good luck with the SR shave! Did you refresh it yourself?

 

[Merkurologist]

No I've never corked a blade in my life. Not because I disagree with it or anything, I just don't know how I would know whether I'd corked it enough/too much. I find Pros are OK in an SE razor, so I'd probably use Pros in an SE before using them in an Artist Club.

But Supers are available more cheaply than most other blades, so it might be a good result for me if Supers turn out to be my blade.

Good luck with the SR shave! Did you refresh it yourself?

I've never corked a blade before, it was UKROB who suggested on this thread to run the blade on a cork a couple of times and that's exactly what I did.

I had my SR shave and it was very enjoyable, I'm still much more comfortable shaving with a traditional SR, I guess I'm more used to the longer blade and I hadn't noticed that every stroke is very much committed to memory so when I shave with a Feather Artist Club I feel like something is not quite right and I need to go back to shave areas I didn't cover with the shorter blade but I'll get used to it.

The feedback is much more evident and I like that.

Yes, I do my own refreshing now, I really like very sharp blades so I refresh the razor every dozen shaves or so.

I bought on the advise of Billy an Echter Thuringian Celebrated stone, they are hard to find sometimes but they are easy to work with them.... or just a finishing stone.

 

[UKRob]

I think it was me who suggested running Feather blades through a cork. Just two or three passes works fine - and I only do it with Feather and Kamisori blades as they seem to be a bit harsh otherwise. Before I came across the cork suggestion I found that Feathers were comfortable at about shave three and afterwards. As I said earlier Schick Proline are my favourites because they are good straight from the off.

 

[Merkurologist]

I think it was me who suggested running Feather blades through a cork. Just two or three passes works fine - and I only do it with Feather and Kamisori blades as they seem to be a bit harsh otherwise. Before I came across the cork suggestion I found that Feathers were comfortable at about shave three and afterwards. As I said earlier Schick Proline are my favourites because they are good straight from the off.

My apologies, it was definitely you who suggested corking the Feather Pro. I'm not sure what it does but I found the blade sharp and smooth.... I'm now curious to try one without corking.

Would you recommend corking the Super too?


,

 

[UKRob]

My apologies, it was definitely you who suggested corking the Feather Pro. I'm not sure what it does but I found the blade sharp and smooth.... I'm now curious to try one without corking.

Would you recommend corking the Super too?


,

If the Super is the wider blade I only ever used it once in a Cobra - it was not meant for this razor because the blade is intended to sit behind the stops and the bigger blade cannot do this. The result was an ill-fitting blade that I stupidly persevered with when I should have realised something was wrong. I’ve never used them since but I don’t see any harm in corking them.

 

[JamieM]

Whenever I shaved with the Feather DX or SS the Feather Pro was always my go-to blade.

 

[Merkurologist]

Whenever I shaved with the Feather DX or SS the Feather Pro was always my go-to blade.

I find it very good but I'm still a novice when it comes to AC blades.

I've heard very good things about the Feather Pro Super so I'm looking forward to trying one soon.

 

[wintoid]

Day 68 - Feather Artist Club SS with Feather Super (2)

Yesterday's shave was so good that today's was bound to be a little of a let down. I cut my top lip somehow on the second pass, which is statistically very unusual, as the top lip has usually been fine. Anyway, once it started bleeding, I didn't fancy continuing, so reverted to the SE.

Therefore only 2 passes today, WTG and XTG. The final ATG pass was done with the SE, but I did a bit of face feeling before, and the Super was getting me in the right direction for sure.

If I had to blame anything, I think perhaps my lather was a bit drier than usual.

 

[Cheesepiece]

The lather is key, I find. While I'm not prone to cutting myself, the end result can pretty much be determined by the lather. If I'm not happy with the lather and set about shaving anyway, I'll not be happy with the end product. If I'm happy with the lather, I'm way more often than not happy with the finish.

 

[NeilJ]

The lather is key, I find. While I'm not prone to cutting myself, the end result can pretty much be determined by the lather. If I'm not happy with the lather and set about shaving anyway, I'll not be happy with the end product. If I'm happy with the lather, I'm way more often than not happy with the finish.

I totally agree, I like it so that the lather rinses off easily under running water, if it doesn't I'll paint a bit more water into in until it does.