It has ocurred to me that I have never said a bit about my background and what motivates me to use the straight razor. I am 41 and picking up the art at a late age, but I have a four year son who will benefit from my work and learning. I started shaving at age 13 as usual and was scared of the bladed razors since there is an oportunity to cut yourself. So I used one electric after another for the next twenty five years and never got an adequate shave out of any of them. Perspective girfriends would point out that I was clearly unshavened and my electric shavers could do no better. It wasn't until my wife told me that I better get a much better shave that I threw out the latest electric and picked up the latest free P&G Fusion and gave it a try. Better shaves then the electrics but a lot of redness and blood every where. I picked up a free P&G Mach 3 Turbo that did better then the fusion, a smaller amount of blood and still a lot of redness. Whent to CVS and picked up a P&G Sensor Excell, this one did much better then what came before limited redness and a little blood. By this time I was noticing a trend the older the shaving method the better the shave. That's when I got a late 40's super speed which gave me the best shave of my life. Now what leads me to the straights? Simple as stated earlier the older the method the better the shave so I went back before the safety's were invented and found a little gem called a straight razor. Mine is still out for sharpening . But the rule appears to apply the oldest method of them all will give me the best shave of them all if I have the time and patients to work with it and learn to wield the straight right. My wife and the family think I am nuts.