Monday 13th June
Ganders Goat Soap w/Hop, Sage & Birch
Wickham 1912 South Sea Spray Shaving Soap
Vie-Long Amphora w/Cashmere Synthetic 24mm
Wilkinson Sword Hydro 5 Skin Protection Advanced Combo
Brut Splash-On
Kicking off my setup for the week ...
Lather will be Wickham 1912 with different scents throughout the coming days whipped up with my recently re-knotted Vie-Long Amphora with a floppy length Cashmere synthetic, which I'm very pleased to report pulls up a super lather and doesn't fling it all over the place.
First go with the Wilkinson Sword Hydro 5 format, having chosen the Skin Protection Advanced combo. The razor itself not only pivots, but has a kind of handbrake in the middle to further relieve pressure in the event of what really much be horrific technique, unless the intention is that the razor is pressured up and held on that pivot; something I highly doubt.
Anyway, damn good shave and I would say from first impression it's better than the Gillette Fusion ProGlide cartridge for cutting, evident in the results from a single pass, but the mechanism of the razor is not as slick as the Gillette Fusion Flexball and certainly not as swish as the Gillette Labs razor. I know there's some derision aimed at Gillette for the Flexball, likening it to a Dyson vac, but to be frank it's this razor that put me more in mind of some household appliance.
The only letdown (for a traditional shaver, using a good soap and brush) was the gloop strip, which is infinitely more giving than Gillette. Rather than a strip, Wilkinson Sword give us a line of "pods" which emit do damn much it cushions the blades quite actually, as in like an airbag! With the Hydro 5 cartridge, you can flick the gloop strip back to reveal the very top of the cartridge for the purposes of neatly trimming sideburns or under the nose, but alas once flicked back it negates the piviot. I suppose I could cut it off the cartridge or figure out just exactly how it is fitted as it just looks like a press-fit with some kind of spring loading. Running it under scalding water for a couple of minutes did very little to wear out the pods, but guess they'll be good and gone over the next few shaves and meanwhile I just have to rinse it a lot more.
Impressed ... but perhaps not (yet) enough to set my Gillette Fusion razors aside.