Day one using the Supply Provisions Single Edge razor and I was very much looking forward to seeing how it shaved. Having only started wet shaving in October of 2015 I had not yet had the opportunity to experience a single edge razor of any kind and I was therefore very interested to find out how they shave in comparison to a DE.
I will start of with some photos of the razor and my initial impressions of it.
My initial impression was that the razor was smaller than I thought it would be. I am not sure why I thought it would be large but assume that the previous photos and the design make it look like a hefty razor. The razor itself is nicely finished and appears to be very well machined (bar one area that I will get to in a moment). The brushed stainless finish feels like it has been somehow textured and this provides additional grip. The razor comes nicely packaged and includes 3 adjustment plates, 40 Personna blades and some basic use and care instructions.
Even with my limited experience I was able to tell that the safety bar and blade stops were aligned correctly and straight. The adjustable plates fit evenly and correctly once there is a blade inserted (I noticed that there was some play without a blade but this is obviously going to occur).
The screw which holds the plate is small as mentioned previously by both
@alfredus and
@bald as. I also noted that there was ample thought put in to the design of the screw and spring assembly as such that the spring is secured to the screw in such a way that it will not simply fall of once the screw is removed from the razor. That being said I too noticed that the screw is small enough to easily fall down a drain and I was not only extremely conscious of not removing it above the sink I would likewise be concerned in an bathroom with a central drain located on the floor or an open shower in to which the screw could accidentally drop towards and roll in to. I would have to agree that this is the single biggest design flaw of the razor. That being said I would expect that engineering it in such a way that the screw was somehow attached to the adjustment plate itself would probably have involved a different method of machining and would also have lead to the requirement of having a screw in each head. Both of which would have lead to an increase in cost I would suspect. I would have to however echo the thoughts of others and feel that it would be wise to have either included a spare screw and spring assembly with the razor and/or make them available as a spare part.
The razor comes with three plates of differing levels of aggression. The level of aggression is marked on the inside of the plate with a series of dots with one being the mildest plate and three being the most aggressive. It was also on the inside of the base plate that I noticed the one part of the razor that to me appears to be not quite as nicely finished as the rest. Perhaps I am simply being fussy but I noticed that the notch where the key form the injector goes appears to be roughly finished. It appears that this part has been done by hand and it does not appear to have any of the same precision that the rest of the razor has. It may be hard to see in the below pictures but if you look closely you can see an amount of variance in each plate. I would not expect that this would cause any considerable amount of difference in the way the razor works though. What I do expect is that once again this is an area that would have required additional machinery in the manufacturing process and may have been costly to implement effectively. I suspect that the reason this has been finished by hand is because it was a more cost effective manufacturing solution.
@bald as was kind enough to give me a demonstration on how to load the razor when he dropped it off to me and I found it very easy to load a blade. The blade sits nicely on the blade stops and aligns perfectly with the safety bar.
For my first shave I decided to go with the mid range aggression plate. I lathered up with Shaver Heaven Forbidden Forest and tentatively started using the razor. Initially I found that there was a large variation in terms of the angle that could be utilised when using the razor. I read in the instructions that I should be using a fairly steep angle but quickly noticed that although I was getting reasonable audible feedback. I found the razor to be extremely smooth initially with very little blade feel but the reason for that quickly became apparent as I was not getting a great result. As such I moved to a steeper angle and noted that the audible feedback increased, I did however note that the razor did not feel as smooth at a shallower angle and there was definitely more blade feel (the blade feel is not a big issue for me as I do not mind a small amount of it). After two passes WTG and XTG) I noted that I had nowhere near the results that I would expect from almost any DE razor and was nowhere near close enough to start an ATG pass. I decided to try another XTG pass and even still found that I was not getting close enough to move on to an ATG pass. Any normal person would have probably stopped here and decided to have another go tomorrow. Unfortunately I am somewhat stubborn and as such I decided that the best option was to move on to the aggressive base plate.
It was at this point that I noted that A) the screw which holds the backing plate is so small and slippery that it is very difficult to remove when the razor and/or your hands are wet and B) (as mentioned by
@bald as ) the blade has to be removed in order for the change to take place. Additionally as mentioned above one feels the urgency to move as far away from any sink or drain as possible and even then is deathly afraid that the whole process could result in the screw being lost forever. I found that removing the blade with the intent of reusing it was quite fiddly (perhaps because I am a novice) and during the process it fell on the floor and as such I felt it best to dispose of it and start with a fresh blade.
In the end moving on to the aggressive plate was the best decision for me though. I'm not sure what the reasons are but as soon as I changed I instantly found a great steep angle at which the razor was exceptionally smooth with only a small amount of blade feel. In addition I instantly saw a change in results. One more XTG pass followed by an ATG pass (plus a few small touch ups) and I had achieved a nice close shave. I had a couple of very small weepers on my chin area (an area that is notorious for these on me) but I put that down to a lack of experience with the razor type rather than the razor itself. My alum block quickly informed me that I had a small amount of irritation in a couple of small spots on my neck which I put down to having performed way too many passes (5 in total I believe plus the touch ups) which in hindsight was an extremely poor idea on my behalf (what did I say earlier about being stubborn LOL).
Having got my initial experience with both the Supply Provisions Single Edge and injector razors in general and also having found what appears to be the ideal setup with the razor for me I very much look forward to seeing what results the next few shaves bring.
