Every Mistake in the Book
I started trying to use a straight razor about 6 months ago. A work friend mentioned that his dad was starting to shave with a straight, and it just sounded way too cool to ignore. Granted, that work friend had peppered the conversation about his dad with terms such as "psychotically dangerous", "inanely stupid", and "early inheritance". Still, the whole idea struck me as absolutely intriguing. I've been shaving for a good 24 years now, and other than those first four or five tries with the Gillette disposable back at age 16, I had never seen it as anything other than a chore. Shaving was something to be done when absolutely needed, or when there was a possibility of womanly attentions.
When I heard about straight razor shaving, the entire concept of shaving took on a new sheen. About two weeks later, I was visiting New York for work, and took my wife along for the trip. She came back from a day of Manhattan shopping with a shopping bag in hand. A really ornate shopping bag with cloth ribbon handles. You know the type, the kind that make you think the bag should be carried by the chauffeur while the actual owner carries her poodle and ivory cigarette holder? She presented this bag to me as if it contained the Rosetta stone and told me it was my early anniversary present. I opened the bag and the subsequent four layers of manly colored cloth ribbons, even more manly patterned paper, and super manly high quality packaging box to discover a gorgeous silver tip badger hair shaving brush from C.O. Bigelow Apothecaries, and a handsome pot of shave cream. At this point, I still had never used or even held a straight razor, but had been eying them online for some time. I must have mentioned it once or twice (or thirty times) since the wife caught onto the idea and gave me the catalyst.
I have to admit at this point that despite my lust for a straight shave, I was still using Walgreens disposable shavers and a can of aerosol shaving gel. I did mention that shaving had always been a chore in my life, right? My hardware selections reflected that belief.
So mistake number one: I got home from our trip, and I couldn't wait to use that new shave brush. It added a dimension to the whole ordeal of shaving that mirrored what I was lusting for in a straight shave. It added quality products. It added a hint of vintage authenticity. It added long lost skills. In short, it promised to raise the tedium of shaving up the level of a ritual. So I used that gorgeous shave brush and the luscious potted shave cream along with my $0.79 Walgreens disposable shaver and shaved myself. Yes, scream blasphemy if you want. Let it out. I know! It was all I had, OK?! Those plastic shavers and one of those electric beard trimmers that feels like a Star Trek phaser in your hand were my only shaving hardware up until that point.
It turns out that even a $0.79 Walgreens disposable shaver can give a good shave when the beard is standing up straight. Again, blasphemy. But it's true. Hot toweled whiskers, a good stiff lathering from a quality brush and a cheap blade still gave me not only the closest shave of my life, but turned the entire matter into an enjoyable ritual. My desire to pursue a true straight razor shave was set alight by that experience.
Mistake number two: I had no guidance (I hadn't even thought about searching the interwebs for good advice on straight shaving, other than to stare in amazement at the youtube video of the round faced, goateed and slightly Greek looking man doing a straight shave with Rod Stewart playing the background. I scoured eBay looking for my straight razor, and being a cheap bastard, found myself a nice looking one for only $12 plus shipping. Click, Buy Now, Wait for the postal service and I was the proud owner of a cheap piece of Pakistani steel. After all, it said "High Quality" in the ad. Plus anyone who has studied the trends of forged metalworks lately knows that Pakistan and India now lead the world in metal manufacturing. Hell, the ornate new brass hinges I bought for the French doors in my dining room were made in Pakistan, so why should I doubt their ability to make a good razor?
The package arrived and I tore into it to find a small plastic sleeve with what looked like a straight razor in it. Granted, the scales were wonky. They didn't quite line up with the blade, there were no metal linings to the scales, just the plastic fake tortoise shell bits bowing against the blade. And the edge of the razor: it had this strange pattern of grooves that almost looked like someone had put it against an angle grinder for a few minutes before sticking it in the sleeve and shipping off to the USA. But it was a straight razor and it was mine. A simple test on my arm told me this wasn't sharp enough to cut a steak let alone shave my beard.
Mistake number three: I took this $12 piece of steel to the local knife sharpening shop. Now would be a good time to state that I live in Austin Texas. Depending on where you live and what type of music you listen to, that is either incredibly cool or amazingly provincial. One thing we do have here in Austin, within walking distance of my house in fact, is a real business that does nothing but sharpen knives. It has a big sign out front with the word "Sharpist" on it. The guy who owns the place is named Gray Wolf, and he has plaques on the wall from the hundreds of knife-throwing competitions he has won. When you walk in the place, there are usually a few horribly beweaponed individuals just hanging around the shop, swatting at the wasps that hover inside the open door. Hell, you can even sign up for knife throwing lessons out back of his shop. His apprentice promptly put that piece of Pakistani steel against the machine grinder, followed by the mechanical leather strop and put something resembling an edge on it. He even demonstrated the sharpness by slicing a piece of paper in half with my blade. Can I mention that I still had not ever seen SRP forum by this time and had no idea what the word "Sharp" actually meant?
Mistake number four: After having seen the Youtube video on straight razor shaving, I did know enough to get myself a strop. I had found a nice new one on eBay, by some quality company called Zeepk. It cost me all of $19 plus shipping (did I mention that I'm a cheap bastard?) and it even came with two more straight razors free!! Sweet. Both of them seemed to be slightly inferior in quality to my earlier $12 model, but hell . . they were free! I took my machine honed Pakistani razor home, took out my brand new 12" strop with no dressing or pre-treatment, clipped that sucker onto a hole in the track of my garage opener and proceeded to strop that sucker like I was an 1860's wild west barber. I had seen the Youtube video on how to do it, so at the very least I held the strop tight and used the proper motion .. . across raw leather that had never seen steel or treatment before that day.
Mistake number five: I took my cheaply made, machine sharpened, amateur stropped, ill prepared razor upstairs to the bathroom and had my first straight razor shave.
It was . . . .
It was . . . .
It was wonderful. The hot towel was soothing and exciting all at once. The lather from my brush felt like liquid silk on my face. The razor tugged and dragged like hell, and irritated my skin like a cheese grater, but it shaved me. I didn't nick myself even once, and in the end it still felt like a good job. When I rubbed my hands against my raw skin, it felt smooth WTG and ATG. There was stubble XTG, but I hadn't even tried to shave that direction yet. I splashed about 3 ounces of aftershave lotion onto my red face and stared into the mirror with pride. My veins coursed with an amount of testosterone that would ordinarily kill a man my age. God I was alive!
So then I found SRP. And I read. And I read some more. And I followed links. And I browsed online stores of shaving gear. And I studied and read some more. And I studied vocabulary terms and technical concepts on Wikipedia. And I watched every Youtube video I could find. And I didn't spend another penny on anything until I had read and studied so much that I understood every mistake I had made.
And still I have no regrets for the way I started this endeavor.
So now I shave with a fresh clean Dovo razor I purchased and had professionally honed. I strop it on a properly treated piece of leather that was purpose built for the job. I practiced and practiced the basic techniques that my grandfather probably knew by heart at age 17. I have never once feared the razor, diving in with respectful abandon to shaving in a way that brings me pleasure and satisfaction all at once. I am probably still making mistakes, but I'm making fewer of them every day.
A few weeks back I bought myself a Norton 4k/8k stone and have been teaching myself honing technique using that original $12 Pakistani blade. Heck, it turns out that the Pakistanis do make decent steel, they just don't excel at carrying it through to a final sharpened edge. Despite the wonky scales, the thing took a nice edge to it. I over-honed it a number of times and have had to do constant rework to try again. I've probably ground away a good eight of an inch of steel from this thing while I learned the stroke for honing. But heck, last week I got that cheap piece of $12 crap to take an edge so sharp it actually did that "hair-popping-in-two" trick.
So I'm a newbie, but I'm sold on the whole idea. I want to learn more about it, but at the same time I don't think I am in anyway vulnerable to the dreaded Razor Acquisition Disorder that seems to be going viral in my fellow enthusiasts. I've got one really good razor that shaves like a dream. Plus I've always got my first straight razor, all $12 worth, that will most likely forever rest in my shave drawer with pride.
