Recently acquired a standard razors brand safety razor through a pif from one of our coolest and most knowledgeable resident sly guys Mel aka Warhawk. I'm still taking some time to work with it before posting an actual review so I can be as informed and honest as possible. In the mean time, boy am I having a heck of a time dialing in this razor to give me consistent shaves. I typically use a merkur 37c slant bar and it works great. I seem to prefer gillette silver blue, 7oclock black, or feather in this razor and they also all work great with the silver blue being a typical go to for me. Loaded up a fresh gsb into my fresh standard razors de and with a huge smile on my face and excitement in my heart I dove head first into.... The worst shave of my life haha. I'm really thinking it was a combo of blade choice and technique/angle. I really love this razor... It looks and feels so nice in the hand, the grip is awesome, I like how light weight it is, but I want to feel the same about the final result. I have many different blades at my disposal and am not afraid to order more so I figured I'd reach out to the forum and see if anyone has any experience with this razor and/or any suggestions. The reviews and talks about these all around the internet make them sound pretty universally loved. I'll play with the angle part on my end but could anyone make any suggestions out of the blades I list?
I currently have on hand: feather, gillette 7oc black, gillette silver blue, gillette nacet, voskhod, crystal, merkur, dorco 301, and personna lab blue.
Before getting my 37c slant I pretty much couldn't ever really get good shaves. With the 37c I get great shaves as long as I use silver blue, 7oc black, or feather but nothing else. I literally could not shave my neck at all prior to getting a slant razor. I'm starting to think (but severely hoping not, because I want to love this standard razors de) that maybe slants are the only thing for me.
I won't give up on this standard razors though because I think the great shaves are in there, somewhere, and I just need more time.