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  1. #1
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    Quote Originally Posted by RayG View Post
    Because anyone can shave with a DE.

    BTW, did you just call Lynn chubby?
    "Round faced." If he takes offence to being called a round faced guy, he'll forgive me when I buy a razor.

  2. #2
    Member BobKincaid's Avatar
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    Default A Wealth of Reasons!

    Obie, without necessarily meaning to, probably wrote the creed for a lot of us with his response, from noobs like me to the pros on this site. Such elegance in words! Made me want to go and bust out all Zen on my strop with whatever razor needs it (and when DON'T they?). I can feel myself relaxing just thinking about it.

    Romac touched on some of the practicalities involved and tapped the "green" (sustainability) angle that I share.

    Another writer spoke to that aspect of str8 shaving that touches upon the seamless intergenerationality of the practice. That one runs close to the bone with me, too.

    I remember watching old movies with my father (gone these three years now) and, when a scene would pop up w/ a str8 in it "Dad, did you ever learn to use one of those?"

    "No," he'd say, "I always wanted to, but I was always in too much of a hurry. I wish I had." This, from a man born in 1924 who, though a blue-collar worker all his life had as keen an appreciation for fine things as any person I've ever known and delighted in the rare occasions when he got to pay attention to his appearance. His trips to the barbershop were attended more seriously than some folks pay to church attendance.

    And so it was, a couple of years back, with my father gone, that I happened on some website with mention of straight razors. I had no idea anyone was still doing it, but it woke up an itch I couldn't quite reach to scratch. Upon further investigation, I found this place a little more than a year ago, and slowly, Slowly, SLOWLY got started.

    I'm approaching my tenth shave now, and I think of Dad every time I begin my routine, knowing he'd have enjoyed it, too. If anything, RAD would've owned him. Lord knows, it's got me by the short-and-stubblies.

    I love the learning process, and the nuance and the places that such esoteric knowledge leads. Heck, I know more about soap composition now than I did in the first 45 years of my life. The same goes for steel composition and what remains of real, honorable mastercraftsmanship. This has been, to say the least, an enriching experience.

    On a practical level, I agree that the mirror is a terrifying thing. THAT blade at YOUR throat can be quite daunting. That's why I stopped looking at it for awhile.

    I reasoned that shaving has been going on for a VERY long time and, as such, most likely the razor came before the mirror, or at least before the mirror was very good, like, say, a polished bronze thing from three thousand years ago. Consider the Greek myth of Narcissus. If he'd had mirrors, he likely wouldn't have spent all that time staring at his reflection in the still waters of a pool, and such self-admiration wouldn't have been an affront to the gods. That meant the idea of spending time looking at our own visages is of relatively recent vintage on the human evolutionary scale.

    To me, that meant that the phsyical skills of hand-to-throat likely pre-date the concept of working with a mirror-image of oneself (consider the Roman Legionaire attending to his beard on a quiet morning in camp somewhere in Gaul). As such, I did a couple of things: (1) I sat in the tub with my cartridge razor and shaved without a mirror, judging the effectiveness of my shave as men have done for aeons: by touch; (2) when I was ready to start handling the straight razor, I sat with the side of an unsharpened pencil and mimicked the stretching and practicing various strokes without a mirror.

    I've come to the conclusion that our hands know our bodies best and that the mirror can be quite the most daunting part of the process. Because, however, my hands learned before I watched them doing it in the mirror, the mirror was less of a terror-inducing golem.

    It has helped me significantly, such that I can stand before the mirror and get as good a shave as I've ever had and do it in an unbroken line that leads back to the earliest urges of the human male to alter his scruffy nature and present a more pleasant face to the world around him, a world that saw him more often than he ever saw himself.

  3. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to BobKincaid For This Useful Post:

    MistressNomad (03-31-2010), Obie (03-31-2010)

  4. #3
    Wander Woman MistressNomad's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by gsurko View Post
    "Round faced." If he takes offence to being called a round faced guy, he'll forgive me when I buy a razor.
    Besides, even a bean-pole can be round-faced. We got a bunch of those in my family, including me. No matter what you weigh, you'll always have those cheeks! It ages well anyway.

    BobKincaid - What a lovely post. I bet your dad would be proud.

  5. The Following User Says Thank You to MistressNomad For This Useful Post:

    BobKincaid (03-31-2010)

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    The Assyrian Obie's Avatar
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    Default I need convincing

    My dear BobKincaid:

    Thank you for the kind words. I liked your post as well. It was quite touching, actually, and so well thought out and well written. Such good stuff.

    Regards,
    Obie

  7. The Following User Says Thank You to Obie For This Useful Post:

    BobKincaid (03-31-2010)

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