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I look forward to reading about your future shaves with it, will you please tag me? ThanksSaturday's shave
Came home last night to a Royal Mail "sorry we missed you" delivery note. Up with the larks this morning to pick up the parcel, a Rocnel SE-G Gem Razor.
Pre-shave - Aloe Vera soap, followed by BBA Pre-shave Oil.
Razor - Rocnel SE-G.
Blade - GEM SS (day 1).
Soap - Gentleman's Groom Room Essence of Scotland Sweet Gale Traditional Shaving Soap.
Brush - Simpsons Chubby 2 - Best Badger.
Post shave - Myrsol "Metilsol" Astringent After Shave, followed by Ibiza Aloe Aloe Vera Cream.
My first shave with a GEM razor!
Plenty of preparation this morning. Approached the shave with a lot of respect and a degree of nervousness. The Rocnel came pre-loaded with a GEM - the razor blade looked in good condition, so I decided to go ahead. On the first few strokes, the blade tugged. Decided to stop and reloaded with a new GEM (these thankfully arrived earlier in the week).
Reloading was easy, only because I had seen a Youtube video. The razor came with no instructions - not sure it would have been so intuitive to load without first having seen the video.
Back to the shave - very short, light strokes, the feedback from the razor was good. For some reason it sounded different, as if the blade was scraping the stubble off. The end result a very efficient shave, reasonably smooth.
First pass was with the grain, a few weepers on my neck and chin - which is most unusual for me, especially at a first pass.
Decided to go for a second pass, ATG. Felt good on the face, nice and smooth, one weeper - nothing to write home about. When shaving the neck, ATG, a few more weepers emerged.
Cold water rinse. After applying the Myrsol (Astringent), noticeably more tingling than usual. Decided to apply aloe vera to calm the skin down. Post shave no issues with the weepers, but some redness, which I was miffed about, as I thought I had been careful and had good technique.
First impressions:
1. Yourshaving.com provided excellent service, on opening the razor there was a free gift: La Toja shaving soap, which I am looking forward to using;
2. The Rocnel was much smaller than I imagined/thought;
3. The razor is very well made, looks like a Grade-A piece of military kit;
4. Very efficient shave, a mild/aggressive razor, - a few notches down from the Muhle R41, if I can make that comparison.
5. I really enjoyed that ATT SE1 out of the box (in terms of a non DE razor). For me, and I appreciate that YMMV, the Rocnel GEM did not feel that good/smooth compared to the ATT SE1 out of the box. However, I have put this down to technique. When shaving I aimed to keep the cap on my face - perhaps I got the angle wrong occasionally.
This one is going to be a keeper. I need to work on the angle, I am sure that when I can consistently find the sweet spot, this will just give as good shaves as the ATT SE1.
All the best,
Chris
I look forward to reading about your future shaves with it, will you please tag me? Thanks
Thanks Chris.@Blademonkey Will do. I think when I get my technique sorted, this will be a sweet razor.
All the best,
Chris
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