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/).
https://gem.wetshaving.social/ - a nice modern interface
Our sister Mastodon instance is https://wetshaving.social/.
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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October 22nd, 2025
I've been on the fence about Santa Noir since I got the set, but it's really starting to grow on me.
Have a good one!
October 22nd, 2025
$discord After using vegan Tabac yesterday I was tempted to use the tallow stuff today, but my responsibility to pump up the numbers for Fanzine took over. This will be my 9th Fanzine shave this month.
Today's lather was just great. I haven't used a GEM since August and typically the first shave back is a bit rough if I've gone that long, but I kept a light touch and was rewarded with an incredible shave.
22.10.2025
So I thought I could focus better on my kamisori shavette endeavour if I am using a razor on my dome that takes skill out of the equation. The Headblade razors are unfortunately very gimmicky and the inventor didn't take shaving behind the ears into account. While the 2-blade cartridges are probably the best, I got a small nick behind my left ear.
Speaking of nicks, today's face shave was crammed with irritation. I actually looked at different videos of experienced users with kamisori-style shavettes and thought I could put some things right into practice. However, I made the mistake of putting a new ProGuard blade into the J-7 since I thought they were only sitting around in my drawer. These are way less mild in comparison to the KAI Protouch MG - the teeth of the safety comb are spread wider across the blade while each individual tooth is much thinner. This was a weird case where the first pass felt alright, even almost good - but it went downhill quickly on the second. Tons of little blood spots around my circle beard; one weeper on the cheek; big red splotches of razor burn sprinkled on my neck. The alum was already burning and it didn't get much better. I'll probably need to use some antiseptic cream before bed and omit any face shaving tomorrow.
Well, live and learn - at least now I know these blades are definitely not for me. I can't even remember having so much irritation from the unguarded Captain Pink Mild by KAI...