Thread: Shaving with something other than a razor

That's awesome! I've been told, though haven't verified it personally, that an obsidian blade can be made with an edge as fine as a single molecule. I don't know if that's completely true, but I can say that they are ridiculous sharp. I haven't tried to shave my face with one, but I have shaved a little bit of arm hair off to test an obsidian edge, and it produced less resistance than my (at the time) Mach 3.

Surgeons used to use obsidian as scalpel blades as well, its silly sharp!

If you ever go up a volcano, they wont let you go up in normal shoes if there is any obsidian out there as it will go right through the shoe and open your foot up in a flash. They'll typically give you sturdy boots with metal plating in the bottom and even then, you simply wont believe how quickly the soles get sliced up.

Great video. Interestingly, it appears that the stone doesn't lift the lather off the face. I wonder why that is.

Originally Posted by Greginator

That's awesome! I've been told, though haven't verified it personally, that an obsidian blade can be made with an edge as fine as a single molecule. I don't know if that's completely true, but I can say that they are ridiculous sharp. I haven't tried to shave my face with one, but I have shaved a little bit of arm hair off to test an obsidian edge, and it produced less resistance than my (at the time) Mach 3.

Yes. Obsidian can be sharpened down to a molecule. It's commonly used in scalpels as said already. It's a pretty wicket material

Originally Posted by vthomlinson

i recently had a little girl come up to me at the park and give me the nicest sea shell with a fairly straight side about an inch and a half long.. for some reason.. i keep looking at it and thinking i should sharpen it up and see if i could shave with it..

I seem to recall reading somewhere that the earliest recorded usage of razors was stones and sharpened sea shells... Might be worth an experiment..


I, personally, was a KnifeKnut before razors attacked me and my wallet... And I hated my Gillette Fusion... I already had a Spyderco Triangle Sharpmaker which put ridiculously smooth edges on a knife when you used all the rods (rough, fine and ultrafine) and all their angles (point of the triangle, then the face of the side of the triangle)... It actually shaved me much better than the Gillette... So, I used that until my father remarked how it reminded him of his straight razor. I googled Straight Razor, found this place, and the rest is history.

Fun Fact. If you ever get a knife sharp enough to shave with, do that in a public restroom... The first guy in my dorm who saw that ran to the RA screaming... I think he thought I was trying to kill myself

Cheers.
Jeremy

Originally Posted by ehammers

Great video. Interestingly, it appears that the stone doesn't lift the lather off the face. I wonder why that is.

I wondered about that too.

Originally Posted by FTG

Still waiting for the "Shaving with a spoon" video to appear... (followed by the even more adventurous "Eating with shaving spoon" video! )

All the best,
Michael.

It's not shaving, but I have heard that when Sir Wear Dunlop, an Australian army doctor used a sharpened spoon as a scalpel. This was when he was a POW in a Japanese prison camp during WWII.

I shaved the sides of my face & the neck area with a broadhead while waiting for my first straight in the mail.

It wasn't very comfortable but it did a decent job considering.