Thread: Why Bother ????

All the scars on my face make me irrestible to women now. I too enjoy taking the time to do something the old fashioned way, not only that but the results are immeasurable better. Besides, how else could I have met all these great people.

I like the fact that it is a learned skill, that requires actual tools. To me, the fact that you have to slow down and set aside part of the day in order to do it, is one of the most appealing aspects of it.

Family "tradition". My Great Grandfather, now me.....Sadly I think this is where it ends unless my sister has kids, so more than likely this is where it ends

Horn

When you look at how rushed our collective societies have become its nice to take a step back and remember that the newest thing isn't necessarily the best for us. In a day and age where everything is instantaneous we still need to take time for ourselves or else we'll lose our sanity.

And like previously mentioned I definitely feel a bit close to my grandfathers when I reach for an older blade and a well broken in strop.

I use a straight because the scars give me character ;which gets me more women!

I've always been playing with old knives, tools and such, so when i found my grandfathers razor back so many years ago i wanted to learn how to shave with it and how to make it sharp. If the men of the old could do it, i should be able to do so also. At those times i also bough my first strop (that was from London 1994). It all didn't go very well (my face full of scars looked like a map of France) so i forgot it for few years.
Picked up my razor again as i heard some oldtimers at the local knife workshop talking about shaving with a straight. About techniques and stones they were using.
Again it was difficult at first but little by little i learned how to shave. Took about few months until i suddenly realized that it was the only way to get me the closest shave. That is why bother.
Upon finding SRP few years ago i got temporary RAD with almost 20 razors, but i soon realized that it is a way more than i really need so i sold most of them, and left only seven razors to go. I could still sell more, leaving me only maybe 2 razors that would be enough for the rest of my days. However, might be hard times deciding what to sell and what to keep (obviously my grandfathers ugly swede is a keeper).

Hmm why bother....

Well for me its like chasing the dragon, you have one amazing shave (maybe perfect) and you want every shave to be that way. Plus I love the fact that I can hold a piece of steel against my throat that is sharper than a sergeon's scalple with out disaster! Besides if it was good enough for the founding fathers, its is surely good enough for me! (not that everything back then was good, I mean slavery and Cholera sucked but the shaves were awesome)

I don't know why I bother. I'm not very good at it almost three months in. There are places on my face that I still have never approached a BBS shave, namely around my chin and under it. I have thought to myself that maybe that's why some guys have goatees, because the hairs here are so hard.

I know I started straight razor shaving to save money. That's certainly backfired in a big way, what with hones and a loupe, a scuttle on the way, etc.

Yet I still try. Sunday evening I did maybe six passes on the especially difficult areas for me simply because I wanted to know what the heck I was doing wrong. I realized that I was using too much pressure and decided to just do what all the old hats say to do: use little pressure. I didn't realize I was using so much, and it seems counter-intuitive that less pressure can be better, which was why I was probably using a little too much in the first place.

I got better results when I did that. It's the little steps forward where I learn something new (or implement something correctly I should already have known) that is its own reward for me, I suppose.

I know straight razor shaving isn't for everyone, but it is for me. Shaving with a straight is something that's moderately difficult and takes some skill to perform well. The learning curve for me has been steep, and I don't see it shallowing out anytime soon (what with me venturing into honing now). However, the curve might have been a cliff had not SRP existed.

So why do I bother? I'm not sure, but I do love it.

It just adds a bit of icing on the cake of life!

I just like to start my day off with total concentration, get that crap out of the way first thing.