Viking Revolution Luxury Safety Razor Shaving Kit

Good morning. I just received this kit a few evenings ago and last night I was able to try it for the first time. The kit came well packaged in a thin, yet decent, tin with lots of foam padding securing everything in place. While very nice as a gift case, it is impractical to me. However, this might make a decent under-tree gift for someone in your life. Just don't be surprised if it gets placed under the sink or in a drawer somewhere and never actually used. Skip to the bottom for final conclusions of the experience. I'm going to skip over the soap and oils in this review since those can easily be replaced relatively cheaply. Just suffice to say that they are okay. Not 'great', but definitely not 'horrible'. Their Sandalwood scent seems to have a very pungent chemical kick to it, but to each their own. Pulling out all the supplies was pretty straight forward. --The scuttle bowl is VERY thin and very tiny, though. Barely able to fit the brush down into, let alone make lather! If you're thinking of making this scuttle bowl you're go-to, I would HIGHLY suggest not! Placing the soap puck in the bottom took nearly half the space! How is one to create a proper lather with such a tiny area? Not to mention that the bowl is perfectly smooth on all sides, making it all the more difficult to create a lather with only brush and bowl. --Moving on to the brush. It seems sturdy enough. It opened up after being soaked in warm water, and took a lather from a proper bowl quite well! The bristles are not quite as soft as others I have felt in the past, though, but this could be the fact that it just needs to be broken in a bit. Time will tell. The handle construction feels like cheap Chinese plastic, especially once warmed up. I wouldn't be surprised if the glue holding the bristle knot comes loose within a month. --Looking towards the razor/brush holder (one of the main parts that pulled me to this kit) shows a decent construction completed in a black-chrome finish... then covered in a horrid etching. This is not something I would be proud to place on my sink long term. Although it looks of decent construction, there are quite a few things that this holder does not take into account and something that makes anyone with any amount of OCD scream! while the brush is held nice and steady, the bristles have nowhere to drip- dry except onto the edge of the base, creating drip spots on the nice chrome finish. The base under the brush should have had a cut-out (or even a wider, lower area below the brush) in order to place the scuttle bowl underneath to alleviate this issue and help the whole kit to flow together better. But nope, the poor scuttle bowl sits all alone after its use of trying (and failing quite a bit) to create lather. The part that makes the OCD scream in terror is when the razor handle is placed into its cradle. Looking at the construction of the handle, there is an insert at the very head that allows the head to sit in the cradle perfectly. That is, until the handle is left to slide completely into place. Once left to slide to its resting position, the handle comes into contact with the base of the holder, leaving the razor sitting (not hanging!) at a very uncomfortable angle to look at. While the brush is perfectly verticle, the handle looks as if it's just leaning into place. This is NOT good! True, I do have a bit of OCD, but I believe that this would have an effect on anyone, blatant OCD or no. I took the razor out of its cradle to inspect and make sure I didn't mess anything up. Sure enough, the handle was tight, the blades installed perfectly, the holder was straight. It all seemed on point. The holder is just around 3mm too darn short! Again, for a kit at this price point, this is a complete and horrible oversight! --On to the main part that most all buy this kit for: The razor! As razors go, there's nothing outstanding about it, outside of the blatant etching. To me, this just lowers the quality of the looks and makes me feel like I'm being branded. For this reason alone, I almost repackaged the kit and sent it back immediately. I don't need to read "shaving revolution" every time I go to cut my bristles down. If I had known it was so blatant (not subdued, as I had initially thought), I would have skipped on the purchase. The weight of the razor seems good. Not too weighty, yet enough to know that there's something in your hand that you're about to scrape across your skin. The handle is very shiny and slick, without any kind of aggressive knurling, so make sure your hands stay clean of soap during use! I pulled one of the Japanese steel blades free from the packaging and dumped it into place, tightening the wings with a slight twist. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the blade's edge seemed VERY aggressive; there's quite a bit of blade showing from under the wings and are quite far off the safety bar. If I had a measuring tool besides a tape measure, I'd give specifics, but suffice to say that when comparing it to my father's 50+-year-old razor, it has about 2.5 to 3 times the blade showing with about 2 times the height from the bar. This is very aggressive and makes it VERY easy to cut yourself with! I wanted to give it a fair shake, anyway, so I kept moving forward with the use. Using the razor felt like wielding a battleax with a slippery handle. It looks pretty, but isn't good for battle. The aggressive blade length jutting out from the holder made me very cautious of how I was holding and dragging the unit across my skin. Yes, it cut the whiskers (no surprise there), but I place that onto the decent quality of the Japanese steel blades. I don't know how many cuts one blade will get me, but if it's at least 4 I'll begin buying Japanese steel blades for everyday use. --All in all, I give this product 2.5 stars in total. Definitely NOT worth $60, when I can scrounge around Amazon and find better quality items separately for around the same cost plus shipping. Is it good as a starter? No. There are cheaper starter kits out there that will do just the same. Is it good for a beginner? I don't think so, due to the VERY aggressive blade opening. Is it cool to have on your bathroom sink? Personally, the black chrome looks nice, but easily dirtied by any splashes and looks very gaudy compared to the rest of my sparse sink setup. The stand's blatant etching makes the entire setup look even worse and hurts my OCD when I see the razor in its holder sitting at an angle. Would I recommend this to someone I love? No. Go find a cheaper outfit/kit or build your own.