Thread: What is the best use of my money?

What is your objective as a straight shaver?
All the advice in the world is moot without knowing that...

Are you looking for sustainability? Comfortable shaves? Saving the planet? Cost savings?

Edit:
I missed this:

I am very frugal, so money saving tips would be great.

That being the case, it would be, IMO, prudent to get items that will give you long term return on investment for their ability to save costs.
You already mentioned you want a badger hair brush.
That being the case, this is really good advice:

Originally Posted by Casteel33

I would say 60 for a badger brush and norton 4/8k hone will get you the best bang for your buck in the long run.

The strop looks good quality end good shape. I would suggest that you get some green paste for strops (8$) and a good rozsutek stone (29$, grain 8000). If your razor is honed you can keep it honed simply stropping 2-3 passes each time before shaving. Then once, max twice a year you'll need to retouch it with the stone. If you keep it honed like that you won't need the 4000 stone. Keep the rest of yout money and continue perfectioning your shaving technique. Later on you will use your money to buy a better razor or maybe to buy a gift for your lady.

I also think you should look to spend more on a good brush. I've had my Kent since I started out and never looked back. It has done me proud through both creams and soaps of all types.

As for what else you spend the money on (don't spend it all on a brush!), have you considered getting one of those all inclusive sets? You can get more for your bucks that way and it will depend on where you shop from.

I agree with what people say about the Norton stone though. I got mine for £50-60 GBP, so easily USD $100+. You can get better stuff for that sort of cash that you will use more often. I have a pasted paddle strop which I use to touch up my razors. I rarely use the Norton and may end up selling it.

I am waffleing on the idea of getting a strop. Here are a few more pictures of my strop. I am not the best at getting pictures, but these are better than the ones on my other post.
From this picture you can see a few blemishes and what I can only discribe as pitting. Here you can see a slight bend, but if you hold it tight it is not noticable. This is getting better since I have been following advice found on this forum. Advice like: apply lather and roll a bottle over it; Don't hang it in the bathroom (This helped a great deal when I moved it to the hallway!), ect. this is a little more pitting 3/4 of the way from the top.This is what the top looks like.

I only hesitate to spend money on a strop because they are one of the more expensive items, and I am not convinced that this one isn't getting the job done. Any more comments on the strop are certainly welcome from the strop jockies

Ask yourself if you are happy with your shaving. The common sense advice is get comfortable with shaving first before you spend a lot of time and money learning to hone. If you are happy with your shaves now, maybe you don't need to change a thing - you could use your $150 to attend the next SRP get-together event where honing, restoring, stropping, shaving, etc are all taught and expounded upon in a friendly, hands-on environment

If you are not happy with your shaving, are your shaves at least improving? If so, maybe you should save your money until your shaves' quality starts to level off when you can reevaluate. If not, maybe you need to send that other razor off for honing. If that doesn't help maybe you should then think about improving your strop, brush, and lather equipment

Ultimately you will have to decide what the best use of your money is. Do your homework and use your noggin! You don't have to spend much to get great shaves.

Ask yourself if you are happy with your shaving. The common sense advice is get comfortable with shaving first before you spend a lot of time and money learning to hone.

I am impoving for sure. I do think I would like a couple of extra razors just to do come compairson, so I may send them off for honing. I am just trying to assess my equipment and make sure I dont have any really major deficencies.

What is your objective as a straight shaver?

I would say that the more I learn about straight saving the more I want to know. I am after the best shave possible, but I would also like to learn to hone and restore, but I know that I can only learn so much at one time. Right now I would like to focus on the basics of a good shave and want to make sure that I have the basics down.

I would get an "extra" strop. Redundancy in this area is a good thing... for me anyway lol! Of course a newspaper can work in a pinch. Hence, if you don't have a rock, I would get a Norton 4/8 or Naniwa 3/8 right off. Honing your blades is a good thing, and as much as you might want to go slow - not being able to put an edge on your blade puts an end to things quick.

Good luck!!

A nice brush, since it sounds like you kind of want one. Get your other blades honed, and keep one back as a reference blade--use it once a month or so to remind you how the others should feel.

A real linen strop, there's one available at The Superior Shave, is a nice thing. I don't know if that's what you've got on the back of your Illinois strop. I recently got a shell strop with this sort of real, scruffy-looking linen back and the two are fantastic. I don't think you'll like another strop any more than the very fine one you've got--but that's just my experience. I've had steerhide strops for years but now only use them for the postshave cleaning stropping now.

The SRD modular is a good tool; I think someone else recommended it and I agree. It ships with a bottle of diamond spray but I'd recommend a bottle of CrOx spray as well, to be put on one of the pressed wool pieces.

The last thing I'd recommend is trying another soap or two. I finally tried some Mitchell's Wool Fat, after years of reading about it here. It's really nice stuff.

Happy shopping and happy shaving to you.

Ok, so I have made two purchases today. I thought I would follow the advice of DFiredl and invest in a Frank Shaving brush. I think someone else recomended this seller, but I can't remember where they said that. So I ordered this brush Fine Badger Hair Shave Brush, XL 26mm Dia, With FS Logo
I also decided that as much as I don't want to spend money on a strop I probably should get one just in case I do something really stupid and distroy one of them. Also I would be good to have something to compare it too. Several of you have recommended a three inch one. So I ordered this one. Design 3" Wide "Big Daddy" Burgundy Latigo Leather Strop. So with shipping I spent $71. I have a little over $125 left. I am thinking of getting a Norton 4K/8K from this website Norton Water Stones Its listed for $80. That should still leave me some money to get a couple of my razors honed before I destroy them on my new hone