SOTD - 2026-02-02

• Prep: Stirling Unscented Preshave Soap
• Brush: Unbranded; synthetic?
• Razor: Stirling de3p6s standard head
• Blade: Feather Hi Stainless (2)
• Lather: Stirling Scots Pine Sheep Shave Soap
• Alum: Stirling Travel Size Alum
• Aftershave: Stirling Deton-8 Aftershave Splash
• Serum: Ash Hopper Blueberry Serum
• Lotion: Humble Bee Botanicals “Calendulove” Face Cream

Single pass WTG. Wow. This was not fun. I should have rinsed that lather off and started again with a different soap but instead I pushed through the mildly irritating effect of this soap. I was so hoping that the sheep’s tallow would make a difference - but any difference that made was taken away by how my face reacted. Now my lips are a little swollen. Lesson learned. And unsurprisingly Scots Pine ranks as my least favorite Stirling scent.

Comfortably close shave on most of my face except for under my chin. Closeness on the upper lip came at the cost of a couple small weepers. So far my experience with Feather blades is that past the very first use they are complete garbage. It will be some time before I try reusing a Feather I think…

Maybe it is just that it won’t allow me to create a new piefed account on Voyager…

I’ll try creating the account with other means and see if I can use it on Voyager maybe?

I need a mobile app that works well. Is there such a thing that will allow me to host my username on wetshav.ing? Voyager will not allow a piefed user host.

Thanks for any info, I really don’t have a good handle on all this server stuff…

SOTD - 2026-02-01

• Prep: Stirling Unscented Preshave Soap
• Brush: Unbranded; synthetic?
• Razor: Stirling de3p6s standard head
• Blade: Feather Hi Stainless (1)
• Lather: Stirling Campania Shave Soap
• Alum: Stirling Travel Size Alum
• Aftershave: Stirling Campania Aftershave Splash
• Serum: Ash Hopper Blueberry Serum
• Lotion: Humble Bee Botanicals “Calendulove” Face Cream

Single pass WTG - a comfortably close shave. Some irritation in problem areas (chin, one place on neck) where I tried touching up too much. Wish I coulda got it closer on the chin and neck. Ditching the Taconic aftershave balm seems to have gone well.

I had been intimidated to use the Feather blade in this razor but I think it went alright. I think this shave maybe had the least amount of tugging so far, but still some on my chin. Maybe I should try a slant or open comb some day?

First time using Campania. It’s nice, very clean smelling, but a bit tame. I would rank it as my 3rd favorite stirling scent so far.

SOTD - 2026-01-31

• Prep: Stirling Unscented Preshave Soap
• Brush: Unbranded; synthetic?
• Razor: Stirling de3p6s standard head
• Blade: SharP 7 AM plus super platinum (3)
• Lather: Stirling Duke Shave Soap
• Alum: Stirling Travel Size Alum
• Aftershave: Stirling Duke Aftershave Splash
• Balm: Taconic Aftershave Balm
• Serum: Ash Hopper Blueberry Serum
• Moisturizer: Humble Bee Botanicals “Calendulove” Facial Cream

First pass WTG. 2nd pass XTG on upper lips, cheeks, chin. It was a mistake on the upper lips - I got overconfident because I could tell that I had the lather dialed in really well today. So now I have some irritation that could have been avoided. Also maybe did not help that this blade is on the 3rd use? But really I think it would have been fine if I had even just been less aggressive on the XTG pass.

I included the serum and lotion because I think they both help with irritation from the shave and help to balance out the drying effect from the alum. They are both pretty amazing products! I’m considering ditching the Taconic balm and just using the calendulove. Too bad as the Taconic balm is still mostly full…

First time using Duke: it’s pretty nice! I think this has claimed the #2 spot for me in terms of Stirling scents. Gf and I are on the same page on this one - very nice but not quite as nice as Deton-8.

Thanks for your perspective. I think I will keep trying to make it work with the boar brush that I already have. I really want to try a badger brush - do you have a recommendation for a quality choice? (Budget of $100 maximum? Is that reasonable? I know badger gets expensive…)

SOTD - 2026-01-30

• Prep: Stirling Unscented Preshave Soap
• Brush: Unbranded; synthetic?
• Razor: Stirling de3p6s standard head
• Blade: SharP 7 AM plus super platinum (2)
• Lather: Stirling Deton-8 Shave Soap
• Alum: Stirling Travel Size Alum
• Aftershave: Stirling Deton-8 Aftershave Splash
• Balm: Taconic Aftershave Balm

Single pass WTG. Not super close but not too bad; a comfortably close shave. I did a relatively good job keeping it irritation free except for a few places on my neck and my chin. This razor and blade combo feels like a winner potentially. Deton-8 is awesome!

I appreciate your offer very much and have been giving it some thought. I think I want to move away from synthetic materials generally since I am trying to minimize sources of microplastics in my life… But I am very interested to hear your perspective on synthetic vs. natural brushes. Maybe I should try to set my growing fear of plastics aside?

SOTD - 2026-01-25

• Prep: Stirling Unscented Preshave Soap
• Brush: Unbranded; synthetic (I think) kinda not a great brush but so far I SUCK at lathering with my boar brush, one moment my lather seems perfect the next moment it disappears completely…
• Razor: Stirling de3p6s standard head
• Blade: Astra SP green (3)
• Lather: Stirling Sharp Dressed Man Shave Soap
• Alum: Stirling Travel Size Alum
• Aftershave: Stirling Sharp Dressed Man Aftershave Splash
• Balm: Taconic Aftershave Balm

Taking down 8.5 days of growth, one pass WTG. I would say it was a socially acceptable shave, a bit more irritation than I was going for, not terribly close on the upper lip and parts of the neck. My lather was maybe (?) not dialed in well, or perhaps it was that this is the 3rd use of the blade. Not too bad anyway, and the alum combined with aftershave and balm helps a lot. Sharp Dressed Man is fine I guess, the shave soap smells like ivory soap to me but the aftershave is nice imo… Gf says it is OUT however. Deton-8 is the favorite so far.

Sadly this shave is probably not close enough to guarantee I will not have to use a beard net at work tomorrow. I must do better…

I love how you can see the fingers digging into his face. I never thought about how excruciating it would be to birth someone from your forehead… Awesome work!!

I feel your pain with the winter driving, we have had a lot of rough days where I live. Do you have snow tires? I have found that they make an enormous difference (but sometimes it is sketchy driving no matter what).

Good luck with the new workplace! Sounds stressful, but maybe it could be very rewarding?

Nice video! I was hoping you could provide some more context as to the bevel angle and what advantages/drawbacks there are with having such a large angle.

I know very little about straight razor shaving but I am getting interested and may have to try some day… Still need to finish learning the DE razor first I think.

The first time I tried to make a lather with a boar brush… Was an epic fail!!! I think I must have soaked it for too long or not gotten enough soap. It was also my first time trying the “scoop” method instead of loading directly from the puck - I think that is what really did me in. I tried a practice lather today loading from the puck and it turned out great.

Not sure about what went wrong with the scoop method, maybe I am vastly underestimating how much soap I pick up when I load from the puck, or maybe boar brushes are just like that on the first use?

Yes, there is a difference between staring and looking, in so far as those terms are commonly used in american english:

From Oxford Languages via Google: Stare: look fixedly or vacantly at someone or something with one’s eyes wide open Look: direct one’s gaze toward someone or something or in a specified direction So “staring” means looking fixedly or vacantly. This takes “looking” to a different place because it implies your thoughts are lingering on the thing you are staring at, which in the case of cleavage would be sexually suggestive (and therefore could make someone uncomfortable). It’s not too far off from catcalling in my opinion. It is much less sexually suggestive to stare at someone’s shoes or a cool hat, so clearly the context of staring is important as to whether it is offensive.

Also, you seem to have missed an important part of my earlier response:

It is also important to think about how choices over what one wears are driven by many factors, not just a desire to have people look at you. I think many women (especially younger women) have been made to feel that they must wear revealing clothing to fit in or be cool, so it isn’t really so simple as just an invitation for men to stare.

This is why I don’t think that it is accurate to say:

So if women want to wear clothes showing off their breasts then I am quite certain they want people to look at those breasts.

There is a difference between looking/noticing and staring in my opinion.

It is also important to think about how choices over what one wears are driven by many factors, not just a desire to have people look at you. I think many women (especially younger women) have been made to feel that they must wear revealing clothing to fit in or be cool, so it isn’t really so simple as just an invitation for men to stare.

As for why men should not stare, it is because the male gaze (everyone’s gaze really) has power and affects people’s emotions, and it is worthwhile to care about how other people feel and not do something that would make a large portion of people feel uncomfortable such as staring at someone’s cleavage. Basically, it is impolite.

Although I do not personally feel that apartments are inherently depressing, perhaps someone who was more worried about exactly what decisions they are allowed to make about their living space might. They may be considering the lack of agency one experiences in some regards as a renter, which could make them feel as though every apartment type situation was inherently depressing.

Try a deodorant that aims to control the population of bacteria on your armpits. Bacteria are what actually produce the chemicals that smell bad. Since switching to a scentless bacteria controlling deodorant, I still sweat but my stink is gone. Same for my partner. And it’s much healthier for you in my opinion.

Here is one such product (the one that I use):

https://superdeodorant.com/

It would not make a chain reaction because the nuclei of typical atoms are unlikely to split when irradiated (that is to say, hit by the pieces of the original atom that split) and will more likely ionize (have an electron knocked off) or transmute (turn into a different element by changing the number of protons).

In nuclear weapons or reactors the uranium must be “enriched” because regular uranium atoms are too stable to sustain a fission reaction. We must have a high amount of rare uranium-235 (the easily splittable isotope) compared to U-238 (the more common stabler isotope) which is why uranium needs to be enriched. Most of the atoms in your salad are stable isotopes, so there will likely not be any cascading fission reactions even if your teeth were somehow able to trigger one (or even 1000) every single time you took a bite.

Here is a review paper listing many peer reviewed sources relating to the circadian rhythm:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8800593/

The circadian rhythm in mammals has a large body of scientific evidence.

Yes I do in fact apply this same exact logic to soldiers in WWII - just as it applies to many of the people who made up fighting forces in the past. There is a long, loooong history of using dogma, duty, brainwashing, even intoxication, to manipulate people into fighting to the death.

If you read firsthand accounts from German soldiers (or really ANY nationality) during WWII, you will quickly realize that they were heavily propagandized in a way we can only begin to understand today. Young German men during WWII had grown up under Nazi rule and had it drilled into their heads at every possible moment. And the choice was to conform or to be shunned (or more likely killed). This does not excuse any of the atrocities they committed, but gives context to their actions and shows how blaming only the soldiers misses a big part of the picture. The same goes for atrocities perpetrated upon the German people by the red army, or for atrocities carried out by IDF in Palestine, etc…

Also, I think you should reflect on the language you use in your comments. I am attempting to be polite, but your comments are outwardly rude.