Thread: Decided to make the switch

Hello,

I decided, after years of spending way too much money of disposables, not getting a close enough shaves from electric razors and dealing with skin irritation, to make the switch to a straight razor. Also, loving scotch and cigars, shaving with a straight seemed like the natural progression to becoming a classy gent. I found an article that highly recommended this forum. After surfing around the forum a bit I could see why the author held it in such high regard.

I was just hoping to get some advice on a good option for starting out. Being a student I'm on a pretty tight budget, so I have been looking at some replaceable blade straight razors, they seem to be cheaper and less work to maintain; but, I was wondering if they are really worth it? How well they work? Etc?

I am very open to other options so any tips on the best "set-up" for a beginner would be great.

If a real straight is the better option, where can I find an affordable straight? It seems a lot of people sell used ones but I was wondering how to properly sanitize the blade, how to pick out a good blade, etc.

Any other tips for a newbie would obviously be very much appreciated.

Thanks in advance,

Andrew

Welcome! There will be plenty of people on here with sage advice. I am not one of them. Anyway, I currently like using boar brushes which can be had for fairly cheap. I am buying older razors now and you can find them out there. However, get one from a respected vendor or maybe from the classifieds here. Preferably one that has been honed. There are quite a few folks from up North that will be able to chime in and be of better assistance. Oh yeah, get a decent soap or cream if you do not have one already.

I highly recommend Larry from whippeddog.com, he has great prices on razors and accessories! He even has sight unseen deals that are a real bargain, they might not be the prettiest razors around but they are fine shavers. I like the old razors with character

Thanks for the tip, looks like there are good deals to be found on that site!