Description
This extreme value kit includes everything you’ll need to start living an ultra-premium straight razor life; just add lather!
Dovo Sunday Shaver
First, start off with perhaps the finest razor we offer, our specially-commissioned “Sunday Shaver” version of the Dovo Bergischer Lowe. This is a limited edition piece which will, many years down life’s road, become a value collectible (if you’re able keep it ‘mint’ condition, of course….don’t nobody want nothing else).
Russian Leather & Linen Strop with White and Yellow Pastes
Next, any good straight razor kit needs an excellent strop. We’ve got you covered! We’ve chosen an Solingen-made Herold strop of Russian-type calfhide leather with webbed white cotton rear linen component. The two pastes [white and yellow] will maintain your strop for several years. No, it isn’t the biggest, but it works well, is made to a high standard, and appropriately priced for an attractive kit.
Alum Stone & Styptic Pencil
Finally, after a shave you need some soothe and some protect. The alum stone’s used after each shave for a gentle astringent. If you should happen to cut yourself, don’t fret; the included styptic pencil quickly seals any nicks. Both are made in France, and are the best in the world for what they do. They’re great compliments to this straight razor kit.
Silicone-Treated Anti-Rust Sleeve
The USA-made Silicone-Treated Cotton Razor Sleeve is highly efficient at protecting your straight razor kit’s Solingen-made Dovo razor. Yes, it is not as sexy as Margot Robbie’s deep blue gaze. But that hardly matters in choosing men’s grooming straight razor kits. Just keep it off of porous surfaces, please.
Above all, there’s no Chinese or Pakistani garbage here! Production hails from Germany (razor, strop, pastes), France (alum stone & styptic), and the USA (sleeve). In our view, this is the finest offer in a straight razor kit currently on the market, because it will keep your recipient pleased and actually USING their razor!
“Shave Ready”?
If you elect for the factory edge (= do nothing, no note needed @ checkout), you’ll receive your razor exactly as its manufacturers intended…pretty simple!
If you elect for The Superior Shave to further hone your razor [plz add “note to vendor” @ checkout], your razor will be delivered to you Guaranteed Shave Ready! The Superior Shave hones via a method best coined (by the old Thiers-Issard director) as “the opposite of tape“, where the hones’ shapes cater to performance and little else; you begin with your coarsest stone that’s shaped as the smallest imaginary wheel, and you progress to finer abrasives shaped like larger wheels, thus honing from the spine toward the actual edge, leaving a *thin*, concave edge first and foremost.
At one time, years ago, natural stones were used for the establishing and refining of a bevel. But the lapidaries necessary for such extremely refined stones no longer exist, to say nothing of sourcing the strata itself from Earth. So today, Dovo uses a pair of manmade, convex spinning discs to establish their bevels, and thereafter refines with bench stones hand shape to be mildly convex, before finishing on a pasted strop. The spinning discs are coarser, and have a shorter effective diameter, while the bench stones are finer, and have much longer effective diameters. Thus, the bevels are indeed concave, same as ever.
But the steel itself can withstand much more concaving than practical today at any factory, with no negative effects for the longevity of your razor, so long as you keep exclusively to shaving with it, keeping a low spine angle, and keeping skin well stretched and lathered; for its intended job, concaving a razor bevel toward its metallurgical limits only benefits the shaver. If you intend to use your razor at an angle outside of normal shaving work or upon a surface unlike a well lathered and stretched beard, however, a flat or even a convex bevel will better endure such odd usage of these tools.
There is no wrong or right choice for factory edge/further honed, but please do not believe all factory edges are never ‘Shave Ready’ – that is an absurd, yet common, belief. It is certainly the intention of Dovo when producing the razor that you to only need strop (after wiping off the factory oil!) just prior to shaving to receive a terrific shave. Thanks for reading this, and happy shaving!
