Best products from r/Wetshaving

Comparing badger, boar, and synthetic brushes is like comparing apples, oranges, and bananas. One isn't better than the other, they're just different.

Synthetic. This is the most practical option, but the one I like least. Synths make lather very efficiently, tend to release it well, and the good ones are extremely soft. But to me the face feel isn't as good as what you get from a high-quality badger or boar. Also, you've expressed a desire to avoid plastic products, and synthetic bristles are made from nylon.

Boar. Buying a boar brush is like adopting a puppy - you need to know what you're in for. They're the only brushes that need to be broken in. Basically, each bristle in a new boar brush comes to a coarse point at its tip. With time and use, the tip will split, just like a human hair. The fibers at the tip will get finer and softer, and the brush will become more effective at building and holding lather. You won't ruin a boar brush by failing to break it in, but it won't be very good until you do. As it breaks in it will become increasingly soft and the performance will improve dramatically. One thing to keep in mind is that many (most) guys prefer a boar brush that's been soaked for a few minutes so the fibers soften up; this is only an issue if you're the type who forgets to soak the brush. I am.

Badger. While I appreciate what a synth has to offer, and while I love my boars, if I had to choose a single desert-island brush it'd be made with badger hair. Which one I'd pick will change from time to time, but not what it's made of. There's no such thing as "silvertip badger." Badger hair terminology isn't standardized, and grading is not regulated. All the adjectives used to describe badger hair are basically marketing terms. Ignore the puffery and just get a great brush.

The best way to make sure you do this - regardless of whether it's badger, boar, or synthetic - is to buy one that's made by a reputable manufacturer. If you're going to buy a no-name or store-brand brush, get it from a vendor who's known to be reputable within the wet shaving community. Etsy vendors tend to just make handles; they buy (almost always mass-produced Chinese) knots and glue them in. So make sure you know where the knot comes from.

I totally disagree that a badger brush is a bad choice for a beginner; they perform well out of the box, and a good one is easy to use. Given your budget and the preferences you expressed, I'd recommend the Semogue Owners Club 2-band. The quality of construction is high; the knot is hand-made by artisans in Portugal, and the wooden handle is turned there as well. The hair used is very nice, with soft tips and tons of backbone. And IMO it's a steal at $57 (the price in the link I provided). MSRP is around $100 and the best price is usually $70 or so. The SOC is the least expensive of the badger brushes I have in my rotation, but I recommend it very highly.

A Semogue boar would be a great second brush, and it can't hurt to have a synthetic - some people actually prefer them to natural fiber. You can get a 1470 for $11 and a Fendrihan synth for $12, so the risk is minimal and the total cost is still within your budget.

Not sure what your budget is, but here are a few soap of the lower-cost, Amazon available soaps that I would recommend.

Pré de Provence

Pré de Provence is an excellent triple- or by some accounts quad-milled soap French soap, and strikes one of the best cost/performance/longevity ratios I've ever seen on a soap. It creates an excellent, slick, protective lather and provides an awesome post-shave feel even after you rinse it off. It comes in two scents:

Pré de Provence is a light, herbal scent that seems to have a strong sage note in it. I haven't used it, but I have used its brother. $11.99USD for 150g on Amazon.

Pré de Provence No. 63 is a warm, spicy cologne sort of scent that has notes of pepper, cedarwood, leather and tobacco leaves among others. $14.04USD for 150g on Amazon.

Cella Crema da Barba

Cella is a soft Italian soap that has a mild scent of cherry and almond. I don't know if it would be considered "manly," but this stuff has been around for nearly 120 years, and men have been shaving with it for all that time, so it has to be doing something right. It's also a great performer with good post-shave feel. $12.00 for 150g on Amazon.

La Toja

La Toja is a Spanish soap in stick form, containing mineral salts. Its scent reminds me a bit of briny sea air and talcum powder. La Toja's claim is that the addition of the mineral salts helps as a skin conditioner. $6.00USD for 50g on Amazon.

Speick

Speick is a German soap whose scent comes from the speick plant and lavender essential oil. It's one of my favorite soaps of all time in terms of both performance and scent. $8.08USD on Amazon.

Chiseled Face Groomatorium

Chiseled Face is one of our US artisans, and his products are among the best performing that I've ever used. He has a handful of different scents that you may find interesting, but my favorite of them is Ghost Town Barber.

Chiseled Face Ghost Town Barber has notes of bergamot, basil leaf, white patchouli, oakmoss, texas cedar, leather, smoke, and gunpowder (I copy/pasted that from his description). $14.99USD for 113g on Amazon.

 

These are all US links, so I hope they work for you. I'm sorry to say that I can't help with the dry skin thing; my skin is fairly oily and not overly sensitive.

8/4/2019 Austere August SOTD: Unscented Magic

Razor: Stirling DE3P7S

Blade: Polsilver Super Iridium--4 Uses

Brush: Stirling Synthetic

Lather: Van der Hagen Unscented

Post: Unscented Raw Shea Butter by /u/TheRealSheikYerbouti/

Music: Grateful Dead - 8/4/89- It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue

Day 4. My first Sunday shave in years.

Today's Day in Grateful Dead History is a great show from 1989. I loved when The Dead would play Dylan, an artist who they obviously loved. I also loved when they would play a nice gentle song to send us out into the night as the encore. Baby Blue is one of my faves and this version is just perfect.

Good Luck to all and have a great day!

Your lubrication is acceptable, though not great.

Your razor has too many blades, & you are clearly using too much pressure. Less blades is always better.

If you want to stay with Dorco Shai, then Dorco also has a 3-blade cartridge that should fit on your handle.

https://www.dorcousa.com/shai-3-cartridges-4-refills/

This is the smallest change you can make. With light pressure, it should reduce the razor burn you're experiencing.

Unfortunately, Dorco does not have cartridges with less than 3 blades in womens razors.

Venus does, though.

If you are willing to migrate to a different handle/system, Venus even has a single blade razor.

It's called the Waterless by Venus.

https://www.amazon.com/Waterless-Razor-Venus-Anytime-Without/dp/B01N63A38V

It's a single blade razor with gel contained in the handle. The razor is superb, but the gel is truly terrible. It's actually medical jelly, not shaving gel - so that it can be left on. Whatever you do, don't use the gel except in emergencies. Use the Satin Care you currently use. Completely ignore the gel.

Replacement cartridges are available, but only online. Waterless by Venus uses the same cartridge from the men's Guard razor, so search for Gillette Guard cartridges.

https://www.amazon.com/Gillette-Guard-Razor-Cartridge-Blade/dp/B01MU7J4DC/ref=sr_1_3?crid=3MNL4HOS1BBXA&keywords=gillette+guard+cartridge&qid=1558947379&s=gateway&sprefix=Gillette+Guard%2Caps%2C428&sr=8-3

https://www.amazon.com/Gillette-Guard-Shaving-Blades-Pack/dp/B078WWL54T/ref=sr_1_5?crid=3MNL4HOS1BBXA&keywords=gillette+guard+cartridge&qid=1558947379&s=gateway&sprefix=Gillette+Guard%2Caps%2C428&sr=8-5

This is a slightly bigger change for you to make. With very light pressure, it should reduce or completely eliminate the razor burn you're experiencing. Since these are single blade razors, pressure has to be kept light. These cartridges do not have any gel strip or lubricant in the cartridge, so your satin care must be spread properly.

If you are willing to migrate to a completely different platform, I'd advise you to consider using a safety razor. Maggards makes ladies starter kits with razor, blades ,soap & shaving brush all included in the kit.

This system has the potential of giving you very good shaves, but you will have to re-learn shaving technique, as these razors are used very differently from cartridge razors.

https://www.maggardrazors.com/product-category/ladies-corner/kit-and-t-shirt/

Using a brush & shaving soap is recommended. I do not advise using your satincare gel with a safety, though many do.

Sep 6, 2019

Pre: Shea Butter Beard Softener & Skin Protector
Lather: Wholly Kaw King of Bourbon
Brush: Finest Envy White 2 Band 25mm & Doug Korn Handle
Blade: Lord Super Stainless (3)
Razor: Merkur 38C
Post: Shea Moisture Honey and Black Seed After Shave Healing Elixir
Fragrance: Wholly Kaw King of Bourbon AS Splash

It's shaves like these you learn to live again. Not the most relaxing shave as the family was all about me in the normal chaos of the morning, but great product made it a lot of fun.

Wholly Kaw gives an amazing lather and the KoB scent is almost unmatched. It's so understated and let so delicious. It has been quietly reminding me it's there for at least a couple of hours now.

Lord blades are my absolute favorite. I need to branch out, but I have a feeling even when I do try more blades I'll still come back to these babies.

What you want is a good travel bottle or jar, plastic but not acrylic so it is unbreakable

I highly recommend these:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07HHQG3J8/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

It is inexpensive and high quality, and lots of bottles/jars for various products. The bottles are "squishy" so you can squeeze stuff out

I prefer using the little jars instead though. Much better for shaving creams, and easier to get stuff in and out of. That little jar is plenty of shave cream for a few weeks of shaving depending on how often you shave.

the ones you find in stores are usually overpriced or crap quality. Believe me I have tried 5-6 different brands, some from walmart, target, various from online stores, these are the best I have found, I travel a good bit.

I usually face lather cause I love the feel of the brush, but I use this bowl when I bowl lather and it's great.

Good weight, good grip and good texture on the inside lets me control how aggressive I want to be with the lathering.

Like Greggy said. Stirling and MLS are great. My wife hijacked my Drunken Goat soap. Wholly Kaw just sent me a bar of his bath soap that I used this morning and it's just as good. Not sure of he sells them on his site though. I assume if you ask he can hook you up. I have a lot of Indian grocery stores around me and they have an amazing amount of bar soaps. One was supposedly Mysore Sandalwood and it did smell nice. Tallow Soap that has lanolin in it and it's only a couple bucks a bar. This is the stuff (Mysore Sandal Soap 2.65 oz Box, (Pack of 12) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001G7PZB0/ref=cm_sw_r_apa_nUpFxbKWKZ5NA)

> I'm not sure if I should go with a balm or a tonic.

Both. Lucky Tiger Aftershave & Tonic (its alcohol free) is excellent and surprisingly inexpensive. For a balm that is really excellent and all you may ever want try Oil of Olay Complete which is both inexpensive and very kind to the skin, particularly in the winter.

Congratulations on your first wet shave!:-)

I'm almost 18 and have recently started shaving (in November itself) and I was lucky to get my hands on a safety razor. Please check if this actually any good (https://www.amazon.in/Romer-7-Safety-Razor-For-Men/dp/B077P5BRRZ/ref=mp_s_a_1_3?keywords=safety+razor&qid=1574951562&sr=8-3). My first two shaves were great and I usually do two passes- one with the grain and one against the grain. But I guess my skin has hardened alot (is this normal?) and the hair is pretty weird now. I tried going WTG and XTG instead of ATG but my moustache doesn't come off that way. Also, I'm using Gillette 7 O' Clock Razor blades and considering that I do 3 passes, do I have to replace my blade after every shave?

Anyone use Wholly Caw King of Oud? How much water do you usually use to get a good lather going?

Also, anyone use a Semogue Badger? How do they perform? I’ve used a badger a handful of times but the shedding was unbearable and it really scratched up my face quite a bit. This is the brush, a lot of the reviews mention the hairs don’t fall out nearly as much as other badgers, and I’ve heard good things about Semogue. Good purchase?

Would this be a good buy for using a shavette style straight? Is there a higher end model that would be worth the extra money or is this one perfectly fine?
https://www.amazon.com/Feather-Folding-Handle-Razor-Black/dp/B008CF6KMC

I dont have the equipment, space, or time to maintain a real straight so a shavette style straight is probably the only form of a straight i can use.

This is the best Feather AC club razor I ever used. Very smooth, easy to use, cheap, durable. AFAIK, this is also the razor those blades are designed for.

Instructions for the soap said to use a VERY WET brush... So yesterday, I used the spoon.

I used the brush dry this morning and splashed a little water in the mug that I'm using to build lather. That seemed to work better.

This particular soap is very creamy, almost like a lotion. It's instructions say to put 1/8 to 1/4 teaspoon into a mug. It also says that it will not build a lather, but is a lather free type soap.

This is my soap:
https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B01GDZC0ZS/

DeFitch's $5 Father's Day special continues this week! Enter promo code XFRQ5RMB at checkout to receive the DF91 double-edge safety razor for just $5. Check it out here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B017SMLG00

You can't shave with La Toya, well maybe you can :) You should try to find La Toja

highly recommend pre de provence soap (for example): https://www.amazon.com/Pre-de-Provence-Shave-Soap/dp/B0026DWB7Y?th=1

It's under $10, and you can use it for months before even making a dent in the puck...

I really like the bowls from this artisan:

https://www.amazon.com/Handmade-Pottery-Shaving-Natural-Color/dp/B0189S5CL6

EDIT: You can also order direct from Jay here:

https://www.jaysclay.com/

Yes here is the link

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B017SMLG00/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_api_myUAxbJ05JCH5

SOC badger is on sale again at Amazon for $57.

https://www.amazon.ca/Paragon-Shaving-Brush-Handcrafted-Synthetic/dp/B07D4QN9B2

https://www.amazon.ca/Semogue-Owners-Club-Handmade-Shaving/dp/B00FEND640/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1542302313&sr=8-4&keywords=semogue+owners+club

Many other options available outside the AMZ universe, but these are decent.