The Importance of Good Stuff

Last night, I took my Lynn sharpened NOS Hess 44 Stainless for a shave with Penhaligon's Blenheim Bouqet shaving cream. Oh, my straight shaving brethren, can I get an Amen?? It was truly the Ultimate Shaving Experience so far.

It got me thinking... what was the main difference between this shave, and my first one several months back? Well, besides the fact that the first shave was done by very inexperienced hands...

Answer: Dollars spent

Yes, experience with a blade helps, but this is definitely a hobby that requires good equipment for best results. Now I'm not saying that everyone needs to go out and find a NOS Wonderedge, the most expensive cream/soap, a 200 dollar strop and a complete set of Shaptons. Not at all. There is alot of *good* stuff available out there for less money. What I *am* saying is educate yourself on everything you can. Figure out a price/performance ratio on all your gear, and go for the "sweet spot"; the stuff that's going to be good quality without breaking the bank.

If you settle for a Zeepk twenty dollar starter kit, you're going to get equivalent results, and probably give up straight shaving the next day.

Here's my newb ultimate starter kit that will give great results with minimum bucks spent:

Boker Red Injun (round point if you can find it) in decent shape will run you about 40 bucks or so.

Tabac shaving soap refill, 9 bucks if you shop around

Vulfix No. 1000A Pure Badger $25 vintageblades

Tony Miller strop, I think you can get his cheapest for around thirty bucks.

Get the razor sharpened by a honemeister, 25 bucks.

So for $129, you could have a very nice setup that will give you *great* straight shaving results.

to cut costs even more get one of these for $25 instead of 40 ";"

Vulfix No. 1000A Pure Badger $25 vintageblades

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Originally Posted by jszabo

to cut costs even more get one of these for $25 instead of 40 ";"

Vulfix No. 1000A Pure Badger $25 vintageblades

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Good find! I'm gonna edit the first post to show that price.

i found it when i ordered my first blade, its a good brush it holds lather really well the only thing i dont like about it is that it has a short handle and i use a mug it would be better used with a scuttle

From time to time a post pops up concerning shaving on the cheap. Alot of guys go for the minimal and are very happy with it. Unfortunately I'm not one of them.

i started out on the cheap end with strops,brushes and soap but i am ready to move on up myself. i got everything from vintage for $225 but on the good side of buying cheaper stuff you can always upgrade :D and add to your rotation/collection

I'm not disagreeing with you, but it's been my experience that you can't always really appreciate quality and subtle differences between products as a newbie. I was happy with my Korean-made guitars for years, until I started finding others (Canadian and American) that fit me and sounded better.

I anticipate that shaving will be similar, so at the moment I'm focusing on acquiring quality blades and getting them in shape. (The blades are, of course, the reason I got into this.) The fancy creams and soaps will come eventually.
J.

you can get quality blades without breaking the bank quality does not always mean expensive though. you can get a great blade in srp classifieds for under $50 that will shave as well as a $300 dubl duck. dont under estimate the "fancy" soaps either you will get a better shave with some mama bears soaps than you will with a .75 puck of williams if you are going to drop some money for the razor you might as well get the good soaps,strops and brushes to complete the ensemble :D

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Originally Posted by FloorPizza

It got me thinking... what was the main difference between this shave, and my first one several months back? Well, besides the fact that the first shave was done by very inexperienced hands...

Answer: Dollars spent

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I would submit that the "Dollars spent" has very little to do with your experience.
If I'm not mistaken you honed your first razor yourself, but even if you had the hess back then I am pretty sure you wouldn't have found the experience nowhere comparable to this latest one. Everything is important and yes some razors are better than others, but the money spent does not correlate much. I often see in the classifieds razors which are twice as good and twice as cheep just sit around while the more expensive ones sell immediately.
So no, I don't believe money is the limiting factor, but trying to be cheap most certainly is.

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Originally Posted by gugi

I would submit that the "Dollars spent" has very little to do with your experience.
If I'm not mistaken you honed your first razor yourself, but even if you had the hess back then I am pretty sure you wouldn't have found the experience nowhere comparable to this latest one. Everything is important and yes some razors are better than others, but the money spent does not correlate much. I often see in the classifieds razors which are twice as good and twice as cheep just sit around while the more expensive ones sell immediately.
So no, I don't believe money is the limiting factor, but trying to be cheap most certainly is.

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I guess I'm not being very clear on the point of the post. That being that it is very possible to spend very little cash and have just as good of a shave as I had last night with my real expensive stuff. My Boker Red Injun and Puma #85 are both *cheap* blades compared to the NOS Hess 44, yet they all shave quite comparably. So yeah,the money does correlate quite a bit. As stated in the first post, find the "sweet spot" for price/performance. Good condition Boker, honemeisterhoned, a puck of tabac, a basic badger hair brush, a Tony Miller entrance level strop, and you have all the elements for a gooooood shave for not much scratch. If that doesn't correlate much to money, what does? :hmmm: