Always expect the unexpected or, shaving on a budget actually works very well
Right. So I'm in my "car" (truth be told, it's a Citroën C4, the "replacment" for my Hirsch tuned Saab 9.3 Turbo...) on my way to Rügen, and my face feels smooth. That alone would not be noteworthy, if it weren't for the fact that I made a small logistical error last night: I packed the car.
That's right. All brushes, strops, creams, razors - everything in the underground parking. Great. Not. So I rummaged through my "stuff I bought but don't use" cupboard. Found two vintage razors, and some old cream, as well as an Illinois strop and an El Cheapo brush. The cream rather failed when I first tried it, and I always felt that the strop was tacky. Thankfully, the razors had been honed by 0livia and Bart, so I had that base covered at least.
Having tried a largish number of creams, I was actually able to get good lather from that cream this time. Not outstanding, but sufficient. The trick, as almost always, was to start with little water, and keep pumping the lather. I don't have a lather OCD, but having received a barista training in the past, I refuse to settle for less than meringue consistency. And behold!, it worked.
The strop is a different story: it worked well enough, but when compared to the somehow assuring feeling of gripping a SRD Premium, it's simply too lightweight for my taste. But it worked, and that's what matters.
The brush is a boar brush, cost me something like €4.5. I've never been a fan of expensive brushes. I have a tough beard, and like working the lather into my skin with a bit of force. Having a soft brush is counter productive in that respect. Granted, the thing is too scratchy for my taste, but again, it did what it should.
One of the razors was thrown into a bulk purchase by the venerable hoglahoo (thanks, Lee!), and I'm keeping it in case a beginner in Europe needs a cheap razor. The other used to be a very nice Reynolds before I got careless with a 1k hone. Bart somehow managed to get it back to shave readiness, but it certainly isn't a looker anymore.
Despite all this, the shave was good. Very good in fact. Found some leftovers of samples ben.mid kindly sent me (Elemis produces some absolutely great stuff, especially the shave mask), and that was that.
Right. Why am I telling you all this? Because there has been a lot of hype about NOS razors, up market creams and three digit strops and brushes lately. Mind you, I'm still glad to own my Old Traditional strop and some obscenely expensive creams and aftershaves. But my message is: you can actually get excellent shaves with a USD 75 setup (I actually paid less for the kit above, but you should be able to get something like it for about that amount of money).
So, dear beginnes, save your money for later. Get some good but inexpensive kit first. My first two razors were Wackers (which I hope have found a new good home), and one of them would have bought me today's setup twice over. No matter how much money you throw at hardware, it's the skills that count, and of which there are many required for straight shaving. Being on my BlackBerry, I cannot find the article, but there is a fabulous post by Glen about stropping (actually, there are several, but that one is especially good). That and the article on building lather in the Wiki would have saved me a lot of time, pain and money when I started.
Happy shopping and shaving,
Robin
