Very late, but: Happy birthday! 🥳🎉

Thanks walden! I hope that everything goes smoothly and that I can be a bit more active here.

Hi! 👋🏻 Thanks, things are finally moving in the right direction. Hope to be a bit more active here even in my exam period.

27.04.2025

• Brush: RazoRock F-400 34 mm
• Razor: RazoRock Cyber Medium w/ Superknurl handle
• Blade: BIC Chrome Platinum
• Lather: Wholly Kaw - Transition
• Post-Shave: Lavera Men sensitive ASB

-> single pass WTG head shave and a bit of buffing. Comfortable shave.

This seemed like a cool combo for this Sunday night shave. Transition is warm yet inoffensive and WK soap always treats my skin good - it also helped that I used my mildest razor. Had some trouble to get a good lather with the behemoth of a brush, but it worked on my second attempt.

Stayed with a single WTG pass though, after weeks with just a trimmer I simply lack the muscle memory for more.

My Sunday was not only spent studying, so that’s a big plus. Have a nice evening/day/night ✌🏻

Very late to the thread, but I don’t mind…

Lots of positive changes happened lately. I was able to score an A in my last “preparation exam” - to explain, a teacher from nursing school visits us in our workplace and we’re graded on our performance in just the ‘nursing’ part of our job, not the documentation. We give a good overview of our patients/residents’ diagnoses and medication, but we don’t write an extensive daily care plan like we do in the real final exams. My score was barely an A (1), but I’m still very confident in my skills now.

Second I was finally able to order a used car for me, even though my mother had to get involved to validate my credit rating. The bank didn’t care that as a future nurse I could find work easily. Well, now I wait for the delivery… Thankfully it has all the features I was looking for and my favourite design of the line (all black with a red stripe around the roof).

Currently most of my time apart from working and household chores is spent on preparing for the written exams, as they’ll be in the first week of June. Not much time for hobbies… But I hope to get a nice and relaxing shave done today.

Happy belated birthday! 🎉

30.03.2025

• Brush: TGS Galaxy 26 mm
• Razor: Leaf Thorn
• Blade: Perma-Sharp half DE
• Lather: Declaration Grooming - Unscented
• Post-Shave: Lavera - men sensitive ASB

-> single pass shave, head and face area.

Had nothing else to do so I figured I might as well take a nice slow relaxed shave.

Did better than expected, just one weeper on the head and a bit of redness around the goatee. I went back to partial beards since minoxidil wasn’t working after 2 months, if anything it made things worse.
Hope everyone has/had a nice Sunday.

Thanks a lot DJ 🙏🏻 Unfortunately currently nothing is anywhere close to fun for me, everything feels like a chore and there’s quite a lot to get done. At least I don’t have any suicidal thoughts anymore so that’s a little better. Small steps.

Thank you very much. Fortunately I didn’t send the razor head you were asking for with the sample, as I really don’t want it to get lost in an uninsured and untracked letter. I hope everything will get easier soon, currently it’s just loads of stress in every aspect of my life. Nothing’s fun anymore and shaving has also turned into a chore again.

I’ll do my best

Thanks. I hope it’ll become less stressful soon.

It’s just a very unfortunate situation though - I guess if there’s one thing that’s certain, it’s the unreliability of our postal services…

Thank you I didn’t want to spoil the fun, but currently it seems like everything I undertake turns into shit.

I am deeply sorry to everyone involved. I don’t know what kind of dumbfuckery is going on with DHL/Deutsche Post, I put the letters into one of their old yellow mailboxes near the end of February and it seems like no one received theirs yet, not even sahenders who’s residing in Germany. Even though it’s not my fault directly, I wish to apologize to you all for ruining BVWSC. 😥

As for my personal situation; I want to inform you that I had a massive load of shit happen to me recently and so, my depression is back at full force. Therefore I won’t be able to participate in any shave events in the foreseeable future - atm, it’s very hard to just get everything in my daily life under control and my final exams for the RN are coming up in early June. My appearances here will be sporadically at best during the whole spring and summer months, I hope everything will look better & brighter once September rolls around and I hopefully passed everything. Shit’s though.

Due to some technical problems with my smartphone and certain apps, I also lost my Lemmy login info around my birthday and was just recently able to retrieve it via Windows password manager. Thanks for those who inquired about me - I’m not dead (yet), but I’m seriously struggling mentally. (Proof being that writing this took me way longer than usual and tons of edits).
Again, sorry everyone for all this mess. I seriously hate how this turned out

Not in this contest, but this sounds very weird: so if the chosen soap would be something of the now-defunct Oleo Soapworks, you can’t use anything under Chicago Grooming Co. despite Vida being the artisan behind both names, just re-branded? Same with Scott and L&L/Declaration Grooming? IMHO, that sounds like BS to me. The rules don’t seem to mention the same brand name.

tbh, this can happen to anyone of us. I immediately recognised the handle and just zoomed in to see the little holes indicating what base plate it is that GreenCult uses. I always found this little detail very neat!

Not OP, but if I am not mistaken it’s a GreenCult 2.0 with adjustable base plates (similar to Karve/Rockwell), stainless steel safety razor made in Austria.

19.02.2025

• Brush: TGS Galaxy 26 mm
• Razor: Leaf Thorn
• Blade: Perma-Sharp half DE
• Lather: Ethos - Dragonsbeard
• Post-Shave: OAM oli del benessere toner; Alterra men natural ASB

-> 2-pass head shave, very smooth sailing all around.

Dragonsbeard is rather interesting. Warm oud meets florals is what my nose thought of it at first. However, this didn’t change much once it was lathered. I was really grateful that it’s not one of the very animalistic/barnyard ouds and the overall scent strength wasn’t very high - I suppose this is good for some use cases. Judging by the high price point of Ethos though (over here at least), this wouldn’t be a soap high on my buy list. However, I am really grateful for the opportunity to try it! Thanks gcgallant for the sample.

Btw, I kinda had trouble to get the lather right. First pass was very sloppy and wet, the second - after some new loading and starting from scratch - much better. The base has good glide and doesn’t irritate my skin, so bonus point for that. Not as great as a mutton tallow base or something by WK, B+M or ZM, but perfectly serviceable.

Now it’s time for bed for me since I have another early shift tomorrow. Last one this week though, on the weekend it’s late shifts!

17.02.2025

• Brush: TGS Galaxy 26 mm
• Razor: Leaf Thorn
• Blade: Perma-Sharp half DE
• Lather: HAGS - Creatures of the Night
• Post-Shave: OAM oli del benessere toner

-> 1-pass WTG head shave to get back into the swing of things. I know I say this a lot, so you better take it with a grain of salt…

Anyways, this was a very relaxed shave with a very smooth and slick lather - mutton tallow bases seem to be universally loved and thanks to this soap, I understand why. The scent is a bit too sweet and powdery, so I use it rarely. But the lather is always cream of the crop. Of course it wasn’t close at all, but good enough for WTG.

I’m currently a very stressful time for my mental health. I notice I fall back into depressive thought patterns and all the stress also takes a toll on my body (reflux and other gastrointestinal disorders). My only day off after 5 early shifts was spent running errands and catching appointments, so not much rest. Problem is, now it’s another 3 early shifts starting tomorrow and they want us to get in even earlier… sometimes I hate my job, but then again I need to focus on the positive aspects harder. It’s just very hard atm.

I feel like the people around me at work would be even shorter-lived if I quit again 😂

No, in all seriousness: I have no desire to quit/stop vaping. Switching to that from cigs was a huge jump in life quality without sacrificing the tastes I enjoy (tobacco, menthol) so I see no reason. However, your recommendation is very good for anyone really set on quitting. 👍🏻

14.02.2025 • Brush: TGS Galaxy 26 mm • Razor: RazoRock Cyber Medium w/ RR Superknurl handle • Blade: Rapira Platinum Lux • Lather: HAGS - Aftermath (old vegan base) • Post-Shave: Moon Soaps - Old School “balm”
-> 1 pass head shave. The blade is slightly tugging, I suppose it’s at the end of its cycle.

This was just a quick shave after beard trimming. I’m tired AF from the early shifts, but still wanted a nice clean shave. Well, this isn’t a very close shave but it’ll do… Still have two early shifts on the weekend. Unfortunately I also deal with lots of reflux and nausea atm, but my decision to go cold turkey on nicotine during work wasn’t that good: it added the most awful headache and the shittiest mood swings ever on top. Gotta love withdrawal symptoms 🥴

At least the soap and brush worked together nicely and despite some slight tugging of the blade, everything went alright. This old vegan HAGS isn’t the slickest soap, but I really like this dupe of Interlude Man too much.