The Shield AC: My Sixth Pick in a Favorite AC Razors Series
I’m SIG SOLO, and this is my channel. This shave is the sixth in my series on my nine favorite stainless steel AC razors. I’m going through them alphabetically, so I’m up to S: the Shield AC.
The Gear
This razor is fantastic. 63.9 grams, an 85mm handle that goes from 10 to 12.5mm with some nice knurling on it. A 1.15mm gap and 0.12mm of blade exposure. On paper, that makes it the most aggressive of all nine razors in this series. I’ve got about four days of stubble, almost four and a half. That’s what this razor is built for. This isn’t the one I reach for when my skin’s feeling rough and I need something gentle. I might have some trouble around a mole and a couple of bumps I’ve got, but that’s how it always goes for me.
Mike over at Shield made this one, and I picked it up secondhand from a guy in Denmark a couple of years back. I’ve got it in five different alloys at this point, and it’s easily in my top five, maybe top three, of every razor I own.
The brush is the titanium one Mike over at Shave Revolution sent me a couple of years ago. Synthetic knot, about 22mm, gentle, not scratchy at all. I don’t face lather, so I can’t speak to how it’d do there. When I face lather with other brushes I usually want something closer to 24 or 26mm, but I don’t do it enough to call that a rule.
The bowl is the black one from Hendrix Classics. Pete sent me that one about four and a half years ago.
The soap is Stirling’s Barbershop, and to me, it’s the barbershop. It’s got the blend I want in one: citrus, musk, a little powder, everything a barbershop scent should have. There’s an Ariana & Evans barbershop scent that’s a close second for me, but this one’s still my favorite. You can see the puck’s still darkening in color as it ages, and that’s the real vanilla in it doing that.
Thanks to Mike for the brush and Pete for the bowl.
The Shave
Six shaves in on this Feather Professional blade, and I feel the blade a little more than usual right out of the gate. That’s probably on me, not the blade. This razor has real blade feel. Not in a menacing way, but if you want something mild with barely any feedback, this isn’t it.
I think about the Asylum RX version two here. I’ve tried that razor eight or ten times and I still can’t get it to work for me. Too much. The Shield isn’t that. It’s got bite, but it’s controlled. Easy to get under the nose too, which isn’t always a given with a razor this aggressive.
The design is clearly inspired by the Blackland Vector in size and shape. The angle’s different though, and the blade sits more exposed, more visible, than the Vector does. I like that.
Second pass, and I’m asking myself the question I ask on every razor in this series: have you tried the Shield? I’ve got nine of these to get through and I’ll probably ask it nine times. This one isn’t for a day when my skin feels rough and I want something soft. It’s for three or four days of growth, on a day when I actually want some blade feel. Some days this is exactly the right razor. Other days it isn’t. Depends on where my skin’s at.
By the third pass it’s smoothing out and feeling a lot easier than it did at the start. That four days of stubble was probably the reason it felt tougher early on, not the razor.
Where This Fits
Compared to the other eight razors in this series, this one stands apart. Same DNA in some ways, but more blade feel than most of them. Call it more efficient if you want. I don’t have a better word for it, but that’s what I’d say.
For the aftershave, I went with the Stirling Barbershop to match. If you’ve never tried a barbershop scent and want an easy way in, one with no surprises, a lovely all-around, potent scent, this is it.
Perfecto, mondo. Like, subscribe, hit the bell, and share. And you know why we do this. We’re not obsessed. We’re dedicated. Six, out.