Fat++; // RIP original formula

Oh yes. I heard about the tallow formulation’s demise too late to get a backup puck, so once this is gone, it’s really good

Very nice haul! I have that same Parker 51 in dark green, with a matching pencil. Wonderful both

💈 Britannia Tue 23 Dec 2025 💈

• Brush: Simpson Chubby 2 Super Badger
• Razor: Wade & Butcher The Celebrated Hollow Ground Razor For Barber’s Use (8/8" quarter hollow, barber’s notch, carbon steel)
• Lather: Mitchell’s – Wool Fat
• Post Shave: D.R. Harris – Marlborough

To celebrate my newly arrived Celebrated, I went with a fully British setup. This chonky razor came actually shave ready from eBay – a first for me, and it’s a very pleasant razor. Silent like a wedge, very smooth, and look how pretty it is 🤩

Fat++;

Always such a nice post shave feel with The Fat.

antibiotics, glucocorticoids, inhalations, etc

Yup, it’s one of the more impressive prescriptions😥

Mon 22 Dec 2025

• Brush: Chisel and Hound – Screwdjriver with v28 Fanchurian
• Razor: Heljestrand 14 (7/8", full hollow, carbon steel)
• Lather: Barrister and Mann – Hallows
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann – Hallows

Ok, Hallows fell flat and got the wife’s veto. It happens. Otherwise great shave with the full hollow Heljestrand.

Thanks! I’m recovering nicely, and it feels like I’ll be back on skis by January 🤞

Agreed. It’s like the TI Le Dandy or the Puma 88 that way: the geometry isn’t special in any way, but they shave great I suspect it’s the steel that feels so nice?

Oh yeah, not fun at all, and a bit scary in the moment

It’s really wonderful. This is my first try of vegan omnibus and I forgot it’s vegan until I read this. Really good stuff

I have tried a smush of hallows in Excelsior and liked it, but I kept forgetting about it for a few seasons.

And, uh… 3rd Abalone?!?!

Why yes! How else could I do a three-way comparison 😅

When there was the big discount on boker.de, I bought a couple of Abalones in addition to the one I was gifted by the sub in 2023

Thanks! Straight-forward eBay purchase.

If you’re interested, I’ve done some light research on these razors and written up some interesting to me details here.

Sun 21 Dec 2025

• Brush: Chisel and Hound – Screwdjriver with v28 Fanchurian
• Razor: C.V. Heljestrand MK № 10 (6/8", square point, half hollow, carbon steel)
• Lather: Catie’s Bubbles – Dranks
• Post Shave: Catie’s Bubbles – Dranks
• Fragrance: Catie’s Bubbles – Dranks

Dranks is some good stuff, glad I sprung for it. Today was one of those rare (for me) shaves of multiple days of beard. I’ve been recovering from a nasty pneumonia and shaving wasn’t a priority, but today, my lungs don’t rattle anymore when I breathe, so cheering with Dranks seems like a good choice. Looks like I’m getting better just in time for the holidays.

Thu 18 Dec 2025

• Brush: Chisel and Hound – Screwdjriver with v28 Fanchurian
• Razor: Puma 88 (5/8", round tip, carbon steel, hollow ground)
• Lather: Barrister and Mann / Southern Witchcrafts Samhain
• Post Shave: Barrister and Mann / Southern Witchcrafts Samhain

Boltzmann++;

😉 @gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social

I got my smush today!

Both 21st and 24th work for me

@walden@wetshav.ing

I called my preference (1 dot over 2), but I don’t know yet which is which. I want to try to get my third abalone as close as I can to that edge using my synthetic progression before asking @whosgotthepudding@sub.wetshaving.social to reveal which is which

Spiced++;
R. Saito ++;

It went really well! I wrote it up here

I was a bit slow and careful in the beginning, but quickly found my groove.

Why So Serious? — Fri 12 Dec 2025

• Brush: Chisel and Hound – Screwdjriver with v28 Fanchurian
• Razor: SK式1 (6/8" extreme smile R. Saito-style blade)
• Lather: Noble Otter – 茉莉綠茶
• Post Shave: Gentleman’s Nod – Musashi

So this razor is unlike any straight (?) razor I’ve ever tried. @gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social pointed this category of razors out to me and without it I would never have tried one. On first glance, these extreme smiles reminded me of modern fantasy razors with dragon tails, battle axe blades and whatnot. But as it turns out, these razors have an interesting story behind them, unfortunately one that seems difficult to google without reading Japanese.

Ryuichi Saito (斎藤隆) seems to have been some sort of barber celebrity in the 1950s and '60s in Japan, where he founded a network of barber/hairdresser schools called Saitō-kai (斎藤会) in 1950 and later a foundation for the standardisation and the advancement of barber education. In the process, he also designed two lines of standard razors for barber schools. On the one hand, fairly regular, heavy grind straight razors known as the Ribbon or Rosette 40 and 80 models, and on the other hand, the SK series (SK stands for Saitō-kai) with their smiling blades. There are the types (the “式” in the razor name means “type”) 1 (most smiling, and the one I have), 2 (medium smile), and 3 (slight smile). They were designed by Saito to be the easiest razors to use. Here, you can see how an SK式1 compares to an SK式2:

and here you can see an SK式3 for reference:

These razors were produced by many Japanese razor makers, including some famous ones like Kikuboshi and Diamond Hayashi, but I have no idea who made mine. (Most of the info can be found here, but all of the references mentioned are dead and only the second one has been archived).

This razor came blunt like a butter knife, but otherwise in great shape. I spend some time on the 1k stone to carefully set the bevel. I was worried that I’d grind some facets into the curved edge, and it took me quite some time until the rocking/rolling stroke felt natural, but I managed to get it to break the packing peanut skin in no time without creating any facets or corners. The bevel is still very narrow, which makes me think that this razor has seen very little use. And of course it also meant that refining the edge on 5k and finishing on 10k went very fast.

@gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social had pointed out that this shape is actually great for shaving the hollow parts under the jaw, and while the geometry felt quite odd, it’s true that it fits really well into any concave part of the face. What a fun razor.

The shave felt good and went fine, but I obviously still need to learn the geometry better because I’m far from BBS.

Thinking more about the curved shape, I remembered having seen bronze-age Germanic, Celtic, and Egyptian razors with similar smiles (in the order I mentioned them):

So straight razors seem to be the modern fad while smiling edges are the OGs, huh.