Saturday 26th August 2017
Pre Shave: Hot Shower + L'Oreal Pure Power Charcoal Face Wash and Proraso White
Razor: Rocnel SE-G (Pass around)
Blade: GEM PTFE (#1)
Brush: Plisson Pure Badger
Soap: L'occitane Cade Rich
Post: Alum Block, Cold water and Humphreys Witch Hazel
AS: Penhaligons Blenheim Bouquet
The Rocnel SE-G pass around arrived today, I had deliberately not shaved first thing today as I was hoping the Rocnel would arrive, as I had a number of gardening chores to do I decided to leave my shave until the evening.
The first challenge was getting the blade loaded, after loading the blade quite easily into the razor upon tightening the handle the blade was still loose. I then remembered that you are supposed to tighten the blade with the grub screw first and then tighten the handle. After doing this and then being happy that I could load the blade I then took the blade out to round off the the corners. Fortunately I had a sharpening stone for sharpening chisels etc. in the shed which was just the job to round the corners off. Thanks to
@Blademonkey for this tip on rounding the corners which I decided might be a good move as after loading the blade earlier I could feel the corners and I had read a few reviews and SOTD posts where the sharp corners of the GEM blade had caused some issues.
So how did it shave? Fantastic, I took it really easy and seemed to find the angle almost straight away. The first pass on a day and half growth felt slightly tuggy but was cutting with ease, the second and third passes felt really smooth. I did need all three passes to get a really close shave as I felt that two passes were not enough, unlike with the Timeless DE razor I had the pleasure of trying recently, but this was the first shave. Oddly whilst applying the alum block I noticed a tiny weeper suddenly appear on my top lip but rubbing the alum over it and holding the alum for 10 sec soon stopped this. There was barely any sting from the alum and no post shave irritation.
One shave is not enough to get a real feel for this razor I think, but after just one shave I am already impressed. Thanks to
@Paul and
@riverrun for making this possible.