Thread: Yet another new guy

Welcome hiigaran, great to see someone ask before purchasing. You are getting good advice here. While the initial outlay can be expensive, you need to look at the big picture, and weigh up what you spend already on sub par shaving equipment per year. A good quality straight razor will last a lifetime, in fact, several lifetimes if properly maintained. Eventually your initial outlay will be recovered from what you would have spent on throw away items, and you will get better shaves. Best of luck.

Hi and welcome. A little extra on the razor will make life easier in the future. You will eventually need a hone to keep the blade shave ready and a razor without issues will make it easier to accomplish. If looking long term use a barbers hone will be the cheapest option and shouldn't require lapping. Hth

The other alternative is an inexpensive D/E and buy blades from eBay by the hundred for $15.

Originally Posted by edhewitt

The other alternative is an inexpensive D/E and buy blades from eBay by the hundred for $15.

This is how I started. Micro touch one double edge and van der Hagen premium shave set. Both every inexpensive but improved my shaves tremendously. Next I bought a poor man's strop from whipped dog and practiced stropping with a butter knife. Eventually bought vintage straight razor and had it professionally honed. Started incorporating straight razor into my shave routine more and more until I was able to do complete 3 pass shave with straight razor. Now use straight razor mostly but occasionally use DE.

Everyone has hit the key points - both stay off of ebay, Larry at Whipped Dog and think about a DE.

If you are interested in the DE you can ask around Dubai about the Indian Grocery/General Goods store. You should be able to find almost everything locally if you want to try a DE with a little searching. If you go the DE route the shaves will improve, the costs go down and you will have the soap/cream, brush and that DE to do clean up when you decide to learn how to use a straight razor.

Another option in Dubai would be the Korean markets. In addition to DE gear you might find a CJB 101 or one of the other Feather Clones and Dorco or Feather Blades. No need for a strop or blade maintenance.

Shavettes are also an option, using 1/2 of a DE blade. Not as comfy as a SR IMHO but works in a pinch. Many of the Barber/Beauty supply stores carry them. Barber shops are another place to look. I found DE blades in Jakarta by asking the barber at the Mall for instance.

Many of the DE blades we all use are made in India and Egypt (and Turkey and Russia and...) so what you need may not be that hard to find. And searching will give you and excuse to find other things... Arko soap for instance is Turkish. It has a cult following in the wet shaving world.

A hint...don't ask for a Boar brush...you might find synthetic...

Let us know how it goes...

Smooth Shaving...

Sounds like solid advice to me. I'll probably check a few places out the next time I go shopping. Thanks guys.

I think every one else summed up the advice quite well. While you can shave with just water, I don't know why you would. For the added comfort you can use an inexpensive soap like Williams for probably less than a penny a shave. Welcome.

Just a quick update. Still haven't ordered anything. I have an account issue with PayPal that needs to be sorted out over the phone first.

Finally managed to order! Good god, PayPal was difficult to get through to resolve this issue. Anyway, now I just need to wait...

Alrighty, gave that baby a test drive today.Here are my thoughts...

So I opened up my package to find the sight unseen and poor man's strop kit. Took a few minutes just examining everything, from the balsa, to the blade itself. The strop came rolled up, so I need to find some way to flatten it out. For the time being, I've looped it on my towel rack.

Of course, the most important part was the razor itself. It came covered in oil, which was as expected. Opened it up and gave a few different grips a try. So far only the standard grip seems the most natural for me to hold, but we'll see what happens as time progresses. Either way, wiped off that oil with some toilet paper and slapped some shaving gel on.

First use was...Well, it wasn't a disaster. I didn't cut myself, nor did I feel any stinging sensation when I rinsed off, which seems to be an occasional occurrence when I shave with standard blades and I'm either in a rush, or not using water/lather. That said, I'm not quite sure how effective the shave was. Perhaps it could be that I didn't see much of a difference due to having shaved only about 12 hours prior, but at the same time, I still feel a tiny bit of the sideburn that I shaved on. I'm going to attribute this to inexperience though. It would be completely unrealistic to expect anything more at this stage. I still don't know how much pressure is too much, so in all likelihood, I may have been going at it a little too gently.

Shaving was also a bit awkward. Though I mentioned that the standard grip felt the most natural, it was still quite a bit of a task trying to get the sideburn done. Using my left hand, I did the left sideburn, but it was hard to see where I was going due to either my hand in the way, or some part of the razor itself.

At that point, I felt like trying something a little more difficult, and attempted the 'stache area. Keyword here is 'attempted'. I don't think I managed to successfully do anything. I'm probably going to need some advice on this. Hardest part was directly under the nose. I'm guessing WTG is not the right way to go about it here. I briefly attempted ATG, but I kept snagging hairs, so I stopped.

Anyway, that's all for now. With regards to maintenance for the razor and strop, any tips there? Should I cover the razor in oil again after each use? If so, anything in particular, or can I just use something like cooking oil? With the strop, I read somewhere that you can rub leftover shaving lather into it to keep it from drying out, if you run out of that neatsfoot oil. True?