Aug. 9, 2022 - Headless Mammoth Hoggin' Day 9
AA Tags: #RawHoggin #MammothMafia
Soap Weight: 134.2g (0.8g used)
This hog sure is temperamental. It seems like each time I mention something about the brush not being comfortable, the day after the brush feels like it's behaving better again. I'm really starting to enjoy this brush and the face feel. The lack of density makes it easier to splay compared to the Zenith I've been playing around with doing a few hand lathers.
Yesterday a few people commented on my soap usage saying 80-90 swirls is too much so I tried 60 today and I had barely enough to complete my full shave (3.5 passes). What do these 2 pass (or in some cases, single pass) shavers know anyway? 😂 To me, those 20-30 swirls was the difference between a good shave and a great, luxurious shave and today I was left with slightly subpar lather for my cleanup pass. Also it turns out that a swirl is a very inaccurate measurement since u/RedMosquitoMM loaded far more with 40 swirls yesterday than I did with my 60 swirls today, so YMMV and all that. I'm going back to my luxury lather tomorrow. Wet shaving for me is a way of pampering myself so I'm not going to hold back to save a few pennies each day.
A few years ago I went down the path of weighing my soaps and trying to optimize soap usage but it was tedious and definitely took some of the fun out of the hobby. I'm revisiting soap usage right now mostly to get a feel for how the boar is breaking in and how its soap usage compares with other brushes. I've already confirmed that I'm not somehow using up a ludicrous amount of soap lathering this softer soap so I'll just get a few more data points and be done with this experiment.
I'm continuing to notice incremental improvements to my shaves with the shavette. The past few days I've been getting better results along my jawline and less irritation and not spending as much time getting there. The blade still feels smooth but it feels like it's taking more effort to get a close cut even going ATG.
Side Story
Since there are a lot of silly acronyms in our hobby, I thought I'd share an amusing story related to that from a few days ago.
August 8th is Father's Day in Taiwan, because the number 8 is pronounced "ba" in Mandarin so 8/8 is baba, which also means father in Chinese. This past Sunday we went to a nice shopping mall in Taipei with my parents to celebrate Father's Day early at a Japanese BBQ restaurant inside the mall. After the meal, we decided to walk around a bit with the kids and we passed by an area where they had a bunch of expensive ($2000+ USD) massage chairs on display for people to try out. The brand of these massage chairs is OSIM, which I wasn't really familiar with and I didn't think much of it as we walked past the display to head to the elevator.
Out of nowhere, my dad approached me and asked (in Mandarin), "Do you know what OSIM stands for?"
"I don't know." I responded.
"Oh shit, it's Monday." My dad said, with a shit eating grin.
The thing is, my dad is generally a pretty serious person. Before he retired he was a physician and it's very rare for him to joke around so this caught me off guard.
Not sure if I got the joke, he continued to explain with almost a whisper next to my ear since we were in public: "TGIF means Thank god it's Friday. OSIM is: Oh--- Shit--- It's--- Monday."
He seemed rather proud of himself and couldn't wait to share with my mom as well, so as we were waiting for the elevator, he walked over next to her and explained OSIM to her. My mom seemed unsure about what my dad said, and she repeated, "Oh shi... shi... shit it's Monday?"
My parents spent around 30 years in the US so they've seen enough American television to be familiar with the word and what it means, but to hear it from both of them for the first time in my life (and probably their lives as well) was such a precious and hilarious moment.
A belated Happy Father's Day to all the wet shaving dads out there.
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