As I said in my introduction, I'm new to straight razor shaving. In doing a little reading here over the past couple of days you all are probably going to laugh at the lunacy that resulted from my ignorance, probably with a little knowing laugh in there, at my adventures and inexperience. Please forgive me, I didn't really have a lot of time to research... still don't have much.
I'm a poor college student. Straight razor shaving has intrigued me for several years, but I never really thought I could afford it having seen just the Dovos and Issards at a shop at the Mall of America. As a college student with a job that pays not that well and having a family to support, not a lot of money to go around. But my job requires me to be clean shaven almost every day of the week.
So one day I'm shopping for my monthly $30 - $35 supply of disposable razor blades for my Fusion Pro-Glide and for shaving cream and I looked at a Van De Haugen (spelling maybe wrong) shaving soap and think to myself, well that's cheaper. And it's usually associated with straight razor shaving. And I'm investing this much in blades each month, I wonder how long it would take to pay off a straight razor. So I looked at prices and thought that I could make a $130 razor and strop pay for itself maybe in 5 or 6 months. Then I found used ones that needed honing but thought, "well, I know how to hone a knife until they'll shave my arm, how hard can it be to hone a razor until it will shave my face?" Oh boy...
So I got a $12 razor from an antique store, got a strip of leather and some canvas for a strop and went to work. Long story short, with a 1000 grit hone and some youtube videos of people showing how to shave with a straight razor properly I got it to the point that it will shave my face... but not very comfortably. So I looked around a little (a little being key) and verified that, straight razor shaving is supposed to be at least as and should be more comfortable than shaving with regular disposable blade razors, and made another discovery. My 1000 grit hone was not fine enough to create an edge that will result in a comfortable shave on the face. So I got a barbers hone from an antique store.
I spent some time honing with the barbers hone and tried it out. Still not very comfortable. So a little more research and I find out that I need to lap the hone, and that there are professional honing services available... hmmm. In the meantime I tried to shave with my regular razor but, surprisingly enough, that was more uncomfortable than the straight razor... so I'm hooked on the straight razor, don't want to send it off to be honed because I don't want to go back to the regular razor in the meantime. Maybe if I just keep trying....
In the end, I was able to get the razor to the point that it will give a decent shave that's about as close or a little closer than my regular disposable razor, a little more comfortable, but definitely not comfortable... and I'm definitely hooked. Time to put a few bucks together and send it in for professional honing and deal with shaving with an electric several times a day in the meantime. Gotta find a proper strop too...
So, it's been fun, I love it, I enjoy the close shaves that result in me not having to shave before the first couple hours of work in the morning before I come home and shower off, but time to figure out the cash to get it worked on properly... and I'm totally going to get my family hooked on this too! Hopefully we'll be able to start setting aside the cash for Christmas presents soon, and I'm hoping I can figure out a way to get at least some of the males a professionally honed razor for Christmas to get them started. (No sense letting them repeat my mistakes.)
