WetShaving
This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
New subscribers welcome!
Please visit our wiki, which is always and forever a work in progress.
While this server is funded by personal contributions, we'd like to thank Zulip for giving us a Community subscription to their chat software (available at https://chat.wetshav.ing/).
๐ช Check out these alternative front-ends for this server:
https://gem.wetshaving.social/ - a nice modern interface
Our sister Mastodon instance is https://wetshaving.social/.
๐ช Track the uptime of our various services here:
https://uptime.selfhost.ing/status/wetshaving
๐ช Community Rules
Rule 1 - Behaviour and Etiquette
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Be Respectful. Do not bully, flame, or harass others.
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Malicious comments are not allowed but heated discussion and salty banter is okay.
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Low effort replies and complaints about content will be removed.
Rule 2 - Content Guidelines
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Mail Calls, Simple Questions, and SOTD posts belong in the recurring weekly threads.
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Posts must have sufficient content to generate a meaningful discussion.
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Images, links, or videos must include additional text that summarizes the topic.
Rule 3 - Reviews and Disclosure
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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Use the [Review] in the title if you can provide comprehensive details with enough familiarity to answer follow-up questions.
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Disclose how the product being reviewed was acquired (e.g., PIF, loan, or purchase). If the product was provided to you directly by the maker or vendor free of charge or at a discount, you must disclose this fact even if the item will later be returned to the maker or vendor.
Rule 4 - Advertising
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Vendors are to keep marketing within the biweekly Deals/New Products threads.
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Non-vendors may post topics about products if it will foster a compelling discussion.
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
Rule 5 - Inappropriate Content
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All NSFW/L content must request mod approval and be flaired appropriately.
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Non-shaving related NSFW/L content is not allowed.
Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
- The rules may not apply perfectly to every situation. The mods have final discretion.
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Tabula Rasa - 23. November 2025
single pass head shave, great shave ; single pass on the face except moustache, soul patch and broader chin area - good shave
This sounds very stupid on my part, but now it was the shortest time I ever had a full goatee. What was supposed to just be a minor trim of the areas under my mouth directly to the sides of my soul patch turned into a full-blown re-styling and shave thanks to a mishap. Small PSA: if you're using a trimmer, no matter for what area, make sure you have a) the right guard comb on it, b) any guard on if you're not doing detailing/contouring. In my case, I had absolutely no guard on my zero gap trimmer and zing! one of the connection areas between moustache and chin fluff was erased. Well, shit happens - I trimmed the remaining hair into the shortest stubble possible with the 1.5 mm guard and went ahead with my shave - just with a bit more areas to cover with lather than originally planned ๐ค
I'm still amazed how good VoA can smell if you get it just right. Today, while the trimmer luck had forsaken me, the wetshaving gods smiled at me and blessed me with a really great lather. Under all the dank leather and burnt rubber, I can get a little citrus/bergamot note and I simply stopped to be frustrated at my mistake. Like Bob Ross said, maybe it's all just happy accidents. This soap can get really slick and it treated my skin well during the shave.
I was kinda impressed how well I managed to freehand style some kind of stubble anchor beard. The basic henriquatre shape was still noticeable in short form, but there was also a bit of longer scruff grown around it and I had to shave the previous "connection areas" right below the moustache and above the classic chin goatee part. Full disclosure, I didn't do that with the 30 mm brush, but squeezed the remaining lather out and dabbed it there with my fingertips. It sure isn't 100% symmetrical, but that's barely noticeable at a stubble length anyways. Now I plan to give my facial hair time for regrowth; the good thing is that beard hair is a renewable resource as it simply grows back.
However, even though it resulted from a frustrating mistake, I had gotten such a good to great shave out of it that I can't be angry about it. Things will happen and sometimes I just need to adapt on the go. Hope y'all had a great weekend and a very relaxing Sunday โ๐ป
Valley of Ashes ++
You're not the first person who's said they smell a burnt rubber in VoA, which is interesting to me. I get a bit of rubber for sure, but much more of the bright citrus notes. Funny how different noses work!
It's definitely interesting. To me, the rubber note in VoA is like skid marks on a race track from slamming the brakes, drifting, etc. The citrus note is definitely prominent, just usually more drowned out by the harsher scent notes for me. So my nose doesn't even reliably work the same every time! ๐