• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Ice Cube
• Brush : PAA Amber Aerolite Synthetic
• Soap : PAA Atomic Age Bay Rum
• Razor : Global Shave Club Fat Guy w/Bic Chrome Platinum
• Post Shave : PAA Atomic Age Bay Rum Cologne Aftershave

Discloser : I had the razor for a few days and my initial impression was good. Until after several days of use and I experimented beyond what I’d normally set my razors to (mid-mild) and noticed mechanical flaws. I cannot in good conscience recommend this razor to anyone. This is a bought razor that I will write off as a loss as it would be too much trouble for me to try to get a refund and shipping this back to the US from Singapore.
I am tempted to do a charge back to be honest.

We’ll start with what went right :

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To start I didn’t have any blade alignment problems initially, just pop in the blade and from the top down view you can see its fairly well balanced.
The blade balance from settings 1 (no body is going to use this unless you are shaving your privates) to 4 looks good and shave characteristics from 1-3 were very smooth, with setting 4 starting to give that hint of blade as it turns into the more aggressive settings.

Now, my preference has been to use a mild / mid-mild razor with a sharp blade so for a few days I have never gone past 4, getting to learn how the razor handled and to be fair right up to this point, it performed admirably.
I liked it quite a bit.

However things took a turn for the worse once I started to experiment with the higher settings and I can see why some people might not have noticed anything wrong with the razor (or noticed right away) until they set the razor to 5 and above.

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Starting from setting 5 you might get a mixed shave feel depending on which side of the razor is in contact to your face. The reason is the horizontal balance starts to go out of whack.
While it is not as noticeable on 5, it’s very obvious on 9.
One side of the razor has much more gap than the other.
This will lead to a vey uneven shave and possibly resulting in nicks, cuts, weepers and a creepers.

I’ll just add that the feel of the mechanism itself, when you open the doors / adjust the aggression, felt “cheap” in layman’s terms. Or if you are an engineer, it felt like it had very shoddy tolerances.

To put it bluntly, of all the adjustable TTOs I own, it felt the “cheapest” with even the Weishi Nostalgic, a made in China ($34) razor, felt, handled and had a more consistent adjustment mechanism over the Fat Guy.
For $89 (and now 3 figures) this is not a good buy with these issues.

To be fair though, the Weishi in my mind is the best buy for an adjustable TTO due to its balance in price, quality and most importantly quality of the shaves it gives.

But if you are happy to use a $89++ razor that you don’t go higher than setting 4, more power to you.

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Brush : Frank Shaving G5 Synthetic
• Soap : Pinnacle Grooming The One
• Razor : Tatara Nodachi Base + Masamune Cap w/Gillette Nacet Blade
• Post Shave : Pinnacle Grooming The One Aftershave Splash

Another year older.
Went with one of the best smelling oud based scent today.
While Pinnacle’s soap and splash made no claim, one whiff of the both the soaps and splash’s significantly present scent and you can tell which Designer Scent it took inspiration from.

Dolce and Gabbana’s The One.

Mature, dark and rich, it’s definitely as much at home at the office as it is at the club on a date night.
A scent that says “confidence” when you walk into a room.

Or like me, when you DGAF, on a day off, at home, in boxers and a tee and just want to smell fantastic.
🤣

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Ice Cube
• Brush : Oumo 24mm ACE SHD Dual Band Manchurian Badger
• Razor : Rockwell Model T w/Wizamet Super Iridium Blade
• Post Shave : Floid Black

Pineapple day!

Still feeling like crap with the flu, stuffy nose and all, but was still able to pick up the scent of the soap once lathered.
Loved that smoky pineapple scent.
Actually I really love Monica’s hard puck, it has a good amount of glide and slickness, lather has a little more body then her croap and smells just as good.

The Model T perform excellently, still a little more blade forward then the 6S/C but now that they have fixed their QC issues, the razor shaved smooth and true.
Then again, having the Super Iridium blade helps as well, making this combination a killer shave.

Finished up with Floid Black.
Again, smoky pineapples. Ummmmmnnnnphhh!

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube (not pictured)
• Brush : Oumo 24mm ACE SHD Dual band Manchurian Badger
• Soap : Soap Commander Gratitude
• Razor : Tatara Nodachi + RR-SS UFO Handle w/Wizashave Super Iridium Blade
• Post Shave : Epsilon Blue
• Others : John Varvatos Artisan Blue EDT

For Auld Lang Sayne my Friends.
Wishing all a Happy New Year!

Yeah, waited till it was 00:00:01 2021 before Having the evening shave, the first of 2021.
Debated on what I wanted to use for quite a bit, and in the end, Choose Soap Commander for the Theme I want to leave 2020 and going into 2021 with.
Gratitute.
Helps that this soap just smells fanfrackingtastic.

Loving the Super Iridium blades too, while I can tell its not as sharp as my Bics, it is smoother to the point that there is almost no blade feel even with the Nodachi’s more aggressive positive blade exposure geometry. All in all, a perfect, true glass, truly squeaky clean, faceturbation BBS shave.

And since its already past midnight, went with that beautiful Floid Blue scent and paired it with JV’s Artisan Blue (which is essentially Floid Blue Aqua without the menthol), so smelling fantastic going into the new year and gonna spend some quality time with the wife.

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Bowl : Sanded Textured $2 Stainless Steel mixing bowl
• Brush : Oumo 24mm ACE SHD Dual Band Badger
• Soap : WTF Vintage Barbershop
• Razor : Tatara Nodachi w/Wizashave Super Iridium
• Post Shave : WTF Vintage Barbershop

TLDR : Wall of text and explanation.
Don’s Vintage Barbershop smells great, works great.
Blade comparison between Wizashave’s Super Iridium (SI) , Gillette Nacet, Bic Chrome Platinum. The SI is a fantastic balance of the three.

Yesterday’s Kiritimati’s incense and myrrh bayrum had me wanting another myrrh centric, well Bergamot, Myrrh, Cloves and Spices (with menthol!) soap.

Wet The Face’s Vintage Barbershop’s scent is also quite something else, deep, dark woods and spice. Manly as Eff.

Lather Porn included as Don’s croaps are easy to whip up into that exremely creamy stuff. Not as full bodied as CK-6 but it has it’s own personality that’s for sure.
Slick, cushioning and did I mention it smells fanfrackinglytastic?

I have heard though that some do not like or have a reaction to the menthol, cloves and spices in the soap. Get a sample from Don first before buying the tub.
His samples comes in a small tin which is AWESOME for travelling.

Wizashave Super Iridium

Before I go further into describing what my thoughts about the blade I think I should clarify that this is a very subjective opinion and is based on what I feel when I shaved with the blade. Not very scientific as I do not have the tools to do exact precision (micrometers don’t cut it if you want to measure sharpness for example) measurements.

Smoothness to me is the presence of the blade as it passes across your skin. You will feel a rough blade while the smoother the blade the less you feel its presence as it glides across your skin.
This is why I chose to use my Tatara Nodachi in standard configuration (0.90mm gap, +0.13mm positive blade exposure) as I know that the blade exposure is positive and has that much blade on skin. If the blade isn’t smooth, you’d know it.

Sharpness is harder to judge as to me the sharper the blade the less resistance or tugging it has when growth meets edge. The sharper the blade the less resistance you will feel when it cuts off your whiskers. This is most evident when you go ATG, as less sharper blades will tend to pull a little.

Razor design here plays a huge part in how this works. How it holds the blade, angle of attack and gap can and will determine how well a blade can perform.

Again the Tatara here is chosen because it is at the moment one of the best Razor I own because of its precision engineering when it comes to blade angle of attack and how firm the blade is held in place. There is no flex, no chitter.

So where do I put the Wizashave blade?
I feel that it is smoother than both the Gillette Nacet and The Bic.
On my face, I almost cannot feel the blade at all.

If not for the audio feedback and the feel of growth resistance when cut, I could have easily thought that I forgot to load the blade.
This might not be a good thing for the user as if he or she is used to something with more blade feel, it is possible for a user to reflexively press harder and cut / nick him or herself.

Mind you, this is not to say that the other blades weren’t smooth.
If I were to not have used the blades back to back to make a comparison, I would be hard pressed to tell which is smoother.

Sharpness.
All three blades, on the WTG, XTG performs very similarly. It’s hard to tell which is sharper to be honest if I was to judge the blade on that first pass or second pass.
However on the ATG, the difference in sharpness can be felt.

All blades tug and pull. No matter how sharp. So when going ATG most people get irritation when the blade tugs a little too much. This is can lead to a whole different discussion on blade and razor relationships.

Which is why I used the same razor throughout my non scientific tests.
The SI performed as such.
On the ATG, it is about the same as the Gillette Nacet while the Bic still holds top spot on how sharp (little resistance) it feels when taking off growth.

Conclusion.
The Wizashave Blade is perhaps the best balanced blade of the three. Extremely sharp and possibly the smoothest blade I have used.
I say “possibly” because its YMMV and even I might change my mind after some time.

Are these the same Original PolSilver Super Iridium blades?
I don’t know. There are differences in the printing and my guess is this is OEMed by the P&G plant.
But since I don’t have PolSilvers to compare, I can’t tell for sure.

Definitely worth the price though.
I bought the 250 blades stack for $50 (+ free International shipping) which comes to less than $20 per 100 blades.

Do be aware though that an Ebay search for PolSilvers and many, many sellers are passing these Wizashave off as PolSilvers with equally ridiculous prices (up to $10 for ten blades)

I’d suggest you get from the source itself if you are interested.
https://wizashave.com/

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ps:
Going forward I have decided to scale back on daily postings and do the odd SOTDs or when I have something to say.

• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Brush : Frank Shaving 24mm G5 Synthetic
• Soap : Soap Commander Tenacity
• Razor : Rockwell Model T -R3.5 w/Derby Premium
• Post Shave : Nivea Men Deep Comforting Aftershave Lotion

Face lathered, and man I missed this soap. Fantastic scent.

Short term impressions I think the G5 is pretty much comparable to PAA’s Roswell knot (Peregrino / Amber Aerolite / Starcraft) I’ll be using the Peregrino tonight to get a comparison feel. I’ll have to use this brush long term though to really see if there’s a huge difference, but from the limited times that I have used the G5, I do think its a tad softer but still retaining that stiffness. We’ll see a month or so down the road.

The Model T is now performing well into my “Faceturbation Shaves” sweet spot.
Easy handling, aggression you can adjust to your mood, and most importantly, a neutral-moderate blade exposure feel that almost mimics their 6C / 6S makes this adjustable one that I now enjoy using. The settings are slightly more aggressive in comparison to the 6C/6S but since you can precision dial in to exactly the aggression you like (trial and error) its not really an issue now.

Finished off the perfect shave with Bourbon Vanilla of Nivea Deep Comforting’s aftershave.

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Bowl : $2 Stainless Steel Mixing bowl (Sandapapered Textured)
• Brush : Frank Shaving 24mm G5 Synthetic
• Soap : WTF Lodge 49
• Razor : Tatara Masamune Base + Nodachi Cap w/Supermax Diamond Edge
• Post Shave : WTF Lodge 49 Aftershave Splash

First things first, Frank Shaving’s G5 brush!!

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The first thing I noticed is that the fibers are finer then the pervious G4s as well as feeling much stiffer. It definitely feels like it has more backbone and is packed a little more dense than my previous Frank Shaving brushes.
Also, this thing feels and looks so much like fine badger, but you can tell it’s synthetic.

I would definitely highly recommend washing the brush a few times over. The fibers are dyed black and during the first wash there was a little bleed off from the dye. I would expect the fibers to lighten in color after some use.

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And yeah, I used Arko for that purpose.
Lathering with the brush several times over.
Loaded heavy and just lathered to clear and clean the fibers.

I can tell you right now, there is “backbone” and then, there’s Backbone.
My immediate concern at the time was, with that much backbone, the brush would probably feel stiff and scratchy. More on that later.

But to say that this brush can whip up a lather, holy frack!
I haven’t seen Arko lathered up like that.
Ever.
And to be honest, the picture really didn’t do that lather justice.
If I didn’t lathered this myself and used the soap I did (Arko) I swear I could probably pass it off as something from the high end artisan soaps.

So how did the brush felt in use?
Soft.
I didn’t know what to expect to be honest, I was concerned about the backbone it had but the moment the brush met face, oh my!
The closest I can compare it to is Gel Tips, it has backbone when you need it (face lather and you’ll be pleasantly surprised) but there’s an easy spring to allow the fibers to splay easily.

My first use, and some experimentation has already cemented its place in high in my brush rotation and if you have seen my SOTDs, you know I have been using my Oumo ACE SHD almost exclusively and this brush is easily matching it or better.
Yeah, possibly better.
Time will tell.

As for the shave itself.
Smelling great, feeling fantastic and REALLY happy

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Brush : Oumo 24mm ACE SHD Dual Band Manchurian Badger
• Soap : PAA Future Fiction
• Razor : Weishi Nostalgic Adjustable w/Tiger Platinum Blade
• Post Shave : PAA Future Fiction Aftershave Cologne and Star Jelly Aftershave
• Others : PAA Future Fiction Deodorant, Epic Solid Cologne, Singapore Memories Peranakan Oud EDT

Naming a scent can be pretty important.
Take the Body scent for today, “Peranakan Oud”, in which the oud in it is blended heavily with musk, tonka and florals that it’s very hard to make out the oud and very little of that signature agar oud survived.
Had I bought it blind, I would have been disappointed, thinking and expecting “Agar Oud”, but I got this after applying a test spray and being able to sniff it for a day or so.

Which brings to today’s SOTD.
Future Fiction’s scent is a sweet, bright, fresh pine-centric musk scent.

Notes are as per PAA’s website ;
Citrus (Lemon, Bergamot & Mandarin Orange), White Musk, Jamaican Ginger, White Pepper, Haitian Vetiver, Hiba Wood, Honey Amber, Black Sage, Peppermint, Jerusalem Pine

It is one of the series of musk scented soaps Doug released and while it
And it’s the perfect companion to John Frum, almost twin brothers but with different dispositions.

Went with an oldie today, a Weishi Nostalgic Adjustable.
Its cheap, it’s actually quite well built for the price, and it works.
It is a little blade forward but not much.
A little more care, using zero pressure, I got a perfect BBS.

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Brush : Oumo 24mm ACE SHD Dual Band Badger
• Soap : Gentlemen’s Nod Zaharoff Signature
• Razor : Tatara Nodachi Base + Masamune Cap w/Derby Premium Blade
• Post Shave : Gentlemen’s Nod Zaharoff Signature Aftershave Splash
• Others : Zaharoff Signature EDP

Spiced Lavender Oud.
Thas is what you’ll think of when you get a whiff of this set, and it smells fanfrackingtastic.
Wife loves this one.
She goes *sniff … sniff… snuggle.*

The soap base works better when more wet than thick cream so while I always say to start out with minimal water when lathering, do not be afraid to add more moisture in.

Like many these days, I would prefer my lather with more body, more of that dense sticky slickness, but the Cardinal Base seems to work better when it’s more runny.

Went with my Gentle Nodachi today, with yesterday’s Derbys.
The blade is still sharp enough to give a perfect clean BBS without the need for tight stretching of the skin.

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• Pre-Shave : Shower, PAA Cube
• Brush : PAA Peregrino
• Razor : Tatara Nodachi + RR UFO SS Handle w/Derby Premium Blade
• Post Shave : PAA John Frum Aftershave Cologne

Easy Simple work day shave.
John Frum’s spiced musk sandalwood was one of the best of the year it was released and is still one of the best you can get from PAA, definitely one of my top 5 PAA goto.

And with Derby Premium, for me at least, it outperforms the Tiger Platinums by quite a bit. Feels smoother and definitely takes less effort to get a true glass BBS. While like the Tiger, there is a very slight tugging when you go ATG, unlike the Tiger, the Derby Premiums for me, cuts closer, and doesn’t leave micro-stubble around my trouble spots.

All in all it was a very enjoyable and fantastic smelling shave.

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