Thread: so many choices....

Hello,

I was wondering if there is a place where some of the makes within brands of razor might be explained. As in, how they compare to each other. I remember hearing talk about how one of the ducks, was it the pearledge was better than the wonderedge or maybe it was the goldedge that beat the numbers, dah ().

I remember reading about the illinois strop numbers but another question I had was whats the difference between the different wade + butchers, ex. bows, choppers, "for barbers use" etc.. etc.. and also philarmonica numbers (are they just size)? Some of the differences are obvious to me like grinds, material of scales etc.. put past the cosmetic stuff are the various razors within a brand of different "quality".

I assume a lot if it might be subjective but is there a wiki article somewhere. sorry this might be getting a bit ungratefully demanding new-b-ish. My apologize if it seems that way. there just so many and so very cool.

Cheers,
Alan

It's difficult to do a comparison like that with razors. Different people like different things from their razors. It's easier to generalise & break down how the different grinds behave etc, but size, shape & maker are, as you say, more subjective.
Their are favoured makers, but a lot of that is down to what's in at the moment but people move on & find new makers to favour.
You could probably find characteristics of razors produced by the great cutlery producing areas, such as Sheffield, Solingen, Thiers etc.

Ben is right. For the most part it will take you some time before you figure out what razors work best for you. If you are just starting then you should be looking for something like a 5/8 or 6/8. You don't have enough experience to say what you really need. After you buy a few razors and do some actual shaving with them you start to develop what your needs are. Anything before that is likely to be influenced by other opinions, not necessarily in your best interest. That's not saying they are giving you bad advice. They are giving you advice based on their likes, dislikes, prejudices and opinions. Your beard, face and techniques will come into play when formulating what you want. There are a few things that everyone can agree upon. Zeepk, et. al., razors are crap. After that, it will depend on you.

Alan

I am also very new at straight razor shaving, What I have been doing is reading everything I could , Im starting to get a feel of what is good and what is not. I wish I could say that for soaps and aftershaves, I already have stuff I dont like in that dept. I have been going back and forth with certain things myself like what strop to buy, I finally decided to just spend the $80 and get a decent one. For me it seemed like I was spending a bundle to get started between the razor a brush , soap and a strop , you could easily spend $400 if you like decent stuff. The problem with me is I go crazy with everything I get into and now Im looking at custom razors.

With the exception of a few really popular brands we discuss all the time here that is a really difficult proposition. There were just so many brands and many brands were retail names only so its often times impossible to know who actually manufactured them. Even with Double Duck you have three distinct companies and different models don't correspond across the companies and we really don't know who made the ducks with a few exceptions.Mix all that with times past when you could make all kinds of wild claims about a product without having to back them up.

In the end you just have to try different brands and models and decide for yourself which ones you like. In the end if its a quality razor its a quality razor.

You can't find the comparison you want even for the current models of Dovo and that's not all that many blades and there are plenty of people who have used them.
The problem is mostly 'personal preference' and then I don't think anybody wants to commit to rating razors publicly. The guys with the reputation and the experience to do it know better than this.
If you want to know the only way to find out is to find out yourself.

Thebigspender and Gugi are right its hard to compare,so my advice is TRY AND BUY THEM ALL!!!!l

You can also do some looking into the SRP wiki pages, this one may give you some help.
http://straightrazorpalace.com/srpwiki/index.php/Good_Straight_Razor_Brands
I know it helped me, i recommend reading through all SRP's wiki pages to get a grip on what here is considered better and worse brands.

Originally Posted by Blackstangal

Thebigspender and Gugi are right its hard to compare,so my advice is TRY AND BUY THEM ALL!!!!l

He has a point!