Chinese Razor Month

Used the Welshi

Used the Weishi Butterfly this morning. Two passes using my Mamicium Hybrid. Very smooth shave indeed. For £9.99 it's excellent value for money. Good grip, nice handle length and decent weight. There is a fair amount of blade exposure at the ends but the actual blade visible at the edges is fine and it is far from aggressive. The only minor criticism would be an occasional rattle noise from the butterfly, but, in fairness it didn't become loose. Will be interesting to see if it does over time. Finished shave off with my aftershave splash which I am getting Cosmetic Safety Assessment for and will have full range in matching essential oils to compliment my Hybrid Shaving Soaps.
Overall a decent razor and excellent value for money.
Happy Easter everyone,
Looking forward to trying those Brian. They'll definitely be an addition to the den.
 
Used the Welshi

Used the Weishi Butterfly this morning. Two passes using my Mamicium Hybrid. Very smooth shave indeed. For £9.99 it's excellent value for money. Good grip, nice handle length and decent weight. There is a fair amount of blade exposure at the ends but the actual blade visible at the edges is fine and it is far from aggressive. The only minor criticism would be an occasional rattle noise from the butterfly, but, in fairness it didn't become loose. Will be interesting to see if it does over time. Finished shave off with my aftershave splash which I am getting Cosmetic Safety Assessment for and will have full range in matching essential oils to compliment my Hybrid Shaving Soaps.
Overall a decent razor and excellent value for money.
Happy Easter everyone,

What's this? A Signature Soaps Splash in the works? Speak more of this Brian!

A Happy Easter to you as well. Have a good weekend.
 
What's this? A Signature Soaps Splash in the works? Speak more of this Brian!

A Happy Easter to you as well. Have a good weekend.
I bought a well know splash in USA at Christmas and looked at ingredients (only alcohol and witch hazel with a fragrance oil) and thought (that's) just astringent and no conditioning benefits. To be fair it was quite a nice fragrance but for $13 dollars it's not good value for users. So I though I can do better than that and played around with blends and am pleased with outcome. Blend of Perfumers Alcohol, Witch Hazel, Glycerin, Aloe Vera, Allanatonin and Vitamin E. I fragranced them with the same essential oils as the Hybrid Shaving Soaps. When I get my assessment approved I'll send out some samples to my Shaving Room friends.
 
I bought a well know splash in USA at Christmas and looked at ingredients (only alcohol and witch hazel with a fragrance oil) and thought (that's) just astringent and no conditioning benefits. To be fair it was quite a nice fragrance but for $13 dollars it's not good value for users. So I though I can do better than that and played around with blends and am pleased with outcome. Blend of Perfumers Alcohol, Witch Hazel, Glycerin, Aloe Vera, Allanatonin and Vitamin E. I fragranced them with the same essential oils as the Hybrid Shaving Soaps. When I get my assessment approved I'll send out some samples to my Shaving Room friends.

Thanks for the info Brian, your shaving soap has some of the best post shave feel I've come across (for my skin, a YMMV issue if ever)so I'm sure the splash will address the post shave feel equally well.
 
Today's SOTD: 12/04/20

IMG_20200412_102137.jpg

Razor: Yaqi DOC
Blade: Gillette Winner (2)
Brush: Yaqi Sagrada Familia
Soap: Extro Felce Biancospino
Pre: Proraso Red
ASL: Superdrug Forrest Fresh
ASB: RSC

A lovely Easter shave with the awesome smelling Extro Felce Biancospino. It provides an excellent and light green coloured lather. It paired well with the Yaqi Sagrada Familia brush and there's some commonality in their style. The soap looks awesome in the glass jar.

IMG_20200412_100033.jpg

The Superdrug Forrest Fresh ASL is also a very good scent match with this (after the initial alcohol wave).

Another pleasant shave from the Yaqi DOC. I enjoy how this razor feels in my hand. It's probably too small for the gorilla handed of you but for a well proportioned male model-esque such as myself, it fits.
 
Today's SOTD: 12/04/20

View attachment 53447

Razor: Yaqi DOC
Blade: Gillette Winner (2)
Brush: Yaqi Sagrada Familia
Soap: Extro Felce Biancospino
Pre: Proraso Red
ASL: Superdrug Forrest Fresh
ASB: RSC

A lovely Easter shave with the awesome smelling Extro Felce Biancospino. It provides an excellent and light green coloured lather. It paired well with the Yaqi Sagrada Familia brush and there's some commonality in their style. The soap looks awesome in the glass jar.

View attachment 53448

The Superdrug Forrest Fresh ASL is also a very good scent match with this (after the initial alcohol wave).

Another pleasant shave from the Yaqi DOC. I enjoy how this razor feels in my hand. It's probably too small for the gorilla handed of you but for a well proportioned male model-esque such as myself, it fits.
It looks very effective in glass pot
 
Today's SOTD: 12/04/20

View attachment 53447

Razor: Yaqi DOC
Blade: Gillette Winner (2)
Brush: Yaqi Sagrada Familia
Soap: Extro Felce Biancospino
Pre: Proraso Red
ASL: Superdrug Forrest Fresh
ASB: RSC

A lovely Easter shave with the awesome smelling Extro Felce Biancospino. It provides an excellent and light green coloured lather. It paired well with the Yaqi Sagrada Familia brush and there's some commonality in their style. The soap looks awesome in the glass jar.

View attachment 53448

The Superdrug Forrest Fresh ASL is also a very good scent match with this (after the initial alcohol wave).

Another pleasant shave from the Yaqi DOC. I enjoy how this razor feels in my hand. It's probably too small for the gorilla handed of you but for a well proportioned male model-esque such as myself, it fits.
I've just noticed my phone autocorrecting forest to Forrest. If anyone does end up searching for the ASL it's Forest Fresh, not Forrest Fresh
MV5BYzQyMWQ1ODMtZGE2OS00YzQyLWE2OWYtZmU5OGFiMWMwYmIyXkEyXkFqcGdeQXVyNzU1NzE3NTg@._V1_CR0,45,48...jpg

Off topic but what an awesome film!
 
Today's SOTD: 13/04/20

IMG_20200412_160431.jpg

Razor: Yaqi DOC
Blade: Gillette Winner (3)
Brush: Semogue 1800
Soap: P&B Trafalgar
Pre: Proraso Blue
ASL: Nivea Deep
ASB: Creightons

Final shave with the Yaqi DOC. I know what you're all thinking - 'I can't believe we've reached the end of Chinese Razor Month! What are we going to do in lockdown now?'. I can't answer that but hopefully we've started a useful thread for regulars and lurkers to use if they're considering a purchase. I still can't believe I actually saw this through!

It's also successfully enabled @BrianH to buy some razors and make some Signature ASL (admittedly only part of that statement might be true).

On to the shave. A wonderful two pass with an excellent lather from the P&B Trafalgar. The Smog whipped this up with no effort and feels great on the face. The Yaqi DOC continued its nimble effectiveness and has gotten better with the GW blade. This is a good razor.
 
I suppose I should close this experiment with some wisdom. Let's see.....

Cooling Soaps/Creams: Of the cooling soaps I used, the P&B Denali was incredibly cold. All of them produced a great lather. The Signature Soaps Eboracum is the oddity in this list as it's not a cooling soap in the pure sense. With this in mind, it was the best smelling of them all. The Fuar Ach Snog closely followed by the Maelstrom were the best smelling of the cooling soaps. All of the soaps and creams used were good products and I wouldn't hesitate recommending any of them.

Chinese Razors: I debated trying to put these in to a first to last order in terms of my favourites but it's too difficult. With the exception of the Ming Shi 3000S, I liked them all. The two I'm most likely to return to in the near future are the Weishi Adjustable and the Yaqi Chrome Scalloped. The 2000S, DOC and Tony Monster are keepers that will get another look in at some point, but probably not in 2020.

There's a moral point to make here though. The Chinese are notorious for copying products and don't bring much innovation to the party. The DOC is (I seem to recall) a copy of the PAA razor of the same name. The Chrome Scalloped is a copy of the EJ/R89 and the 2000S is a copy of the Merkur Futur. There's also some talk online about the Weishi Adjustable being a rip-off of a Vikings Blade design but I can't confirm this. By owning these Chinese variants, we're endorsing this cloning.

Some good can come from this though. I intend to replace the 2000S with either a gold or chrome Futur in the future (like what I did there?). This desire would not have come about if I hadn't tried the 2000S. I already own both an EJ and R89 so don't feel guilty owning the Yaqi variant.

PAA razors are prohibitively expensive* in the UK. PAA have not lost a customer in this instance as I would not have bought the PAA razor from a US supplier.

*I know the prohibitive point is debatable but I'm sure we can all agree that the shipping and customs charges can double the cost of some products.
 
Great thread. I've really enjoyed reading it, it's been great to have some focus on some less glamourous razors.

There's a moral point to make here though. The Chinese are notorious for copying products and don't bring much innovation to the party. The DOC is (I seem to recall) a copy of the PAA razor of the same name. The Chrome Scalloped is a copy of the EJ/R89 and the 2000S is a copy of the Merkur Futur. There's also some talk online about the Weishi Adjustable being a rip-off of a Vikings Blade design but I can't confirm this. By owning these Chinese variants, we're endorsing this cloning.

PAA razors are prohibitively expensive* in the UK. PAA have not lost a customer in this instance as I would not have bought the PAA razor from a US supplier.

The DOC is a clone is a 40's razor designed by Mellon, PAA brought it back first and was made in India (the first zamak one, the aluminium or SS ones might USA made) but was supposed to be very mild. Yaqi then came with a zamak one a little more efficient than the PAA counterpart.

As for the Scalloped head, IMO it's much more aggressive than the DE89 - it's supposed to be closer to the Parker closed comb head, which might be a more efficient take on the DE89?
There's the Yaqi Cobbed head as well, which I've seen a number of MIC variants (eg Yintal), but I have no idea who made it first .

The Vikings Blade adjustable is MIC as well, and there's talk they are made by Weishi in their factory. Having a look at some other Viking Blade products and they are rebranded Baili/Weishi products. Some of the higher end VB razors look to have a higher QC than other MIC razors and look pretty decent though.

IMO, not all MIC clones are worthwhile. My Futur Clone is pretty ramshackle, and wasn't worth the small amount I made for it but my Yaqi razor heads are pretty good. Also Yaqi have been making a few original designs recently, their DOC slant and NIGHT HELMET (can't say that without laughing)

As for cloning in razors, it's pretty common place be it low end (MIC Yaqis eg) or high end eg Feather AS-DS2, which isn't to say there aren't new original designs eg Rockwell 6S.
 
Great thread. I've really enjoyed reading it, it's been great to have some focus on some less glamourous razors.



The DOC is a clone is a 40's razor designed by Mellon, PAA brought it back first and was made in India (the first zamak one, the aluminium or SS ones might USA made) but was supposed to be very mild. Yaqi then came with a zamak one a little more efficient than the PAA counterpart.

As for the Scalloped head, IMO it's much more aggressive than the DE89 - it's supposed to be closer to the Parker closed comb head, which might be a more efficient take on the DE89?
There's the Yaqi Cobbed head as well, which I've seen a number of MIC variants (eg Yintal), but I have no idea who made it first .

The Vikings Blade adjustable is MIC as well, and there's talk they are made by Weishi in their factory. Having a look at some other Viking Blade products and they are rebranded Baili/Weishi products. Some of the higher end VB razors look to have a higher QC than other MIC razors and look pretty decent though.

IMO, not all MIC clones are worthwhile. My Futur Clone is pretty ramshackle, and wasn't worth the small amount I made for it but my Yaqi razor heads are pretty good. Also Yaqi have been making a few original designs recently, their DOC slant and NIGHT HELMET (can't say that without laughing)

As for cloning in razors, it's pretty common place be it low end (MIC Yaqis eg) or high end eg Feather AS-DS2, which isn't to say there aren't new original designs eg Rockwell 6S.
Glad you've enjoyed it and some excellent counterpoints to the MIC argument there.
 
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