Day 11/31 of ~~Tab~~OKtober~~fest~~
- Brush: Zenith 506B MB (27 mm × 51 mm Manchurian badger)
- Razor: Dovo Barbarossa Inox (5/8", shortened blade, stainless steel, Spanish tip)
- Lather: Stirling Soap Company – I, Rich Moose (sub-exclusive sheep tallow)
- Post Shave: Sir – Irisch Moos
- Fragrance: Atelier Rebul – 1895
I was at a conference in @PorkButtsNTaters666@sub.wetshaving.social's home turf and we met for a lovely dinner, where he surprised me with his Dovo Barbarossa to try. The Barbarossa is a fascinating and odd little razor. It's a 5/8" blade, seemingly made from the same blade blank as the regular modern Dovo 5/8"s, see my Dowo 41 Inox blade for comparison (which I happened to travel with, coincidentally), but the blade is about one third shorter. The Spanish tip makes it look even more stubby.
I've been curious about this for a while because I don't really understand why traditional straights have a ~75 mm edges. Anyone who, like me, has a patch with horizontal direction in their beard growth pattern in the hollow bits under the jaw line knows that the long blades get in the way where the shorter blade of a DE or a traditional kamisori don't. In short (pun unintended), the design made sense to me.
So, how does it shave? First off, with the short blade and the wooden scales, this thing is so light it's a bit unsettling at first. Then, I wasn't aware how much I'm usually just keeping the tip of a straight in view, and this short blade always tried hiding behind my hand. Both of these issues are just small deviations that play tricks with muscle memory, though, and easily overcome with a bit of focus.
The shave was uneventful, and the shorter blade wasn't the superpower I thought it was, but I probably need to play a little with the new geometry to figure out how to best exploit it before floating the idea of a sub-exclusive short-blade cleaver out of Ulrik's new 9/8 blanks 😅
