Thread: What Was Your Inspiration To Straight Shave?

I got into it when I saw a video on LiveLeak, was called, "The Manliest Shave", and it got me thinking, next thing you know, I ordered a starter kit from The Classic Edge, lurked here for about 5 months before posting, and the rest is history. Turns out the gentlman in the video, Willi, is/was a member here. So after a year and a bit, which I worked out the other day, that I am still probably between 150 and 200 shaves, which makes me a novice at best. Either way, my skill level and experience are nowhere near Willi, who makes it all look so simple.

My inspiration:

My dad was a barber at one time, and I remember him showing me how to strop and shave with a straight razor.

Nice, I have seen that video before, that was a fast shave. Lol

Geofatboy was my inspiration :-)

Ingrown whiskers and tugging and pulling even with using BIC Sensitive skin disposables for ten years. Internet searches for ingrown whisker treatment led me to SRP. After three months with my grandads DE, I switched to DOVO best quality and have never gone back.

I had replaced the handle of a pruning saw with some spalted maple that had been laying around the shop. I liked the look of it, so i did a google search of spalted maple projects and found SRP. I got a few ebay razors, made scales and once i was finishes I had to learn to use them.

Originally Posted by babbott

I had replaced the handle of a pruning saw with some spalted maple that had been laying around the shop. I liked the look of it, so i did a google search of spalted maple projects and found SRP. I got a few ebay razors, made scales and once i was finishes I had to learn to use them.

Now that is an original reason to pick up straight razor shaving!

I was given a multiblade plastic shaver and when I ran out of cartridges saw the cost of each box, and figured there might be a better way. I found you could strop these things and I got almost a year out of one cartridge. This stropping reminded me of barbershops so I thought of straight razors (I had seen some for sale in the street in a trip to Bolivia). I was lucky I found this site and started lurking around. I bought my first real straight, and I'm sold. Shaves are a lot of fun now.

...and then Dad did us the honor of dying in his mid-40s, before he ever got around to initiating my younger brother and me into the Art of Shaving. His gear was nothing spectacular: a 1969 Gillette TTO "Black Handle", some unforgettable brush, and Everyman's shaving-soap/aftershave duo: "Old Spice". But he never got around to teaching us.

My teenage years passed in-sync with the turbulent 1960s, and if/when I shaved my face, it was with someone else's not-too-fresh Gillette "Trac II" and a pressurized can of Gillette "Foamy" shaving cream, with a splash or two of "Brut" or "Canoe." After Woodstock, "the song remained the same" through five years of service in the US Army (Infantry); although, IIRC, I traded the Gillette "Foamy" for Schick's "Hot Lather" (postings in AK and W. Germany).

Then twenty-five years in Israel, with no shaving, then back to the US and a now-"vintage" Gillette "Trac II" with more Gillette "Foamy". And then I discovered "that other wet-shaving forum"... you know, the one that reminds you of that overpriced B&B that your wife convinced you to spend a week at. Yeah, that one. So I got into safety razors: Gillette DEs and Schick SE injectors, I bought a not-inexpensive (but "cheap") silvertip badger shaving brush, along with several cakes of The Gentlemen's Quarter (TGQ) shaving soap (hat-tip to Colleen Hurley, aka Churley) and several tubs of QED shaving soap (hat-tip to Charles). And it was good.

But then, my tattoo artist -- JimmyHAD -- showed me some pre-1800 straight razors he had, that he wanted to sell (No, I didn't buy or try any of them). I wasn't hooked, but was very curious, and discovered SRP and its online forums. I bought my first straight razor in late-November 2006, along with a Russian shell strop; several more straight razors followed in the coming weeks, and "A Star Was Born".

The OP asked about "inspiration" to start straight-razor shaving. I think that, for me, it was the very European "side of the house" which resonated with my Euro-centric upbringing and experiences while stationed in W. Germany and my years in Israel. I looked (and continue doing so) at wet shaving as a genteel, masculine way of doing a routine chore, while elevating it (and me) to a higher cultural level. As an American-born-and-raised male, much of it was culturally counterintuitive: (for example, learning that the #1 male shaving scent -- soap/cream and whatever level of afterscent -- was "rose"). But,as the one said in Monty Python's "The Holy Grail", "I got better". Straight-razor shaving IS "suave and debonair", no question about it. So, I "walk the walk", but I sure don't dress the part; nope, not here, in South Florida. The dynamic is "The Big Lebowski" meets Jermyn Street.

It's become even more enjoyable -- "fun", even -- what with the various OTD threads (Shave and Fragrance, to name but two of many) in which I regularly participate, and all the rest on SRP. But the original inspiration was one of self-betterment, plain and simple. And it worked!

I was a kid, maybe 10 years old, and watching my old man shave with a Gillette something or other. I hadn't seen him in 7 years, didn't remember what he looked like even, as there were no photos. The marriage didn't end well and Mom didn't keep any pix of that one. Anyhow, in passing he told me that if he had his druthers he would rather shave with a straight razor, but because of his vagabond lifestyle it wasn't happening. So I never forgot that offhand remark.

Somewhere around 1972 or '73 my then wife and I were in a shopping center and stumbled upon Hoffritz For Cutlery. I bought a relatively high end badger brush @ $80.00 USD, a strop that was branded as Russian, and a CV Heljestrand with white celluloid scales @ $35.00 USD. IIRC I picked up an Old Spice shaving mug and puck. The razor was very attractive but it didn't offer the shave my DE or maybe it was a Schick injector by then, so I threw it in a drawer and just continued to use the brush. Eventually running out of the puck and reverted to lathering with whaever bar of soap was handy in my palm. Face latherer.

In 1984 I had gotten crossways with my union business agent and if I was going to work it wasn't going to be in the state of FL so I hit the road and found myself in northern NJ. I became friends with a barber who collected straight razors. I caught the bug and began collecting them too. He gravitated to fancy decorated celluloid scales while I was an Sheffield horn and ivory man so our collecting didn't really conflict. I amassed a pretty impressive collection and learned to shave with a straight from a 70 year old barber that worked with my buddy.

I had bought a few coticules from various local barbers, learned to hone, after a fashion, from my 70 year old friend , but he told me to use the 'weight of the blade' and no more than 5 round trips, or I'd "lose the edge." So I guess he must have been referring to touch ups because that method didn't work very well for the stuff I was picking up. I lasted awhile with the SR shaving but as my few shave ready razors got dull, and I couldn't bring them back to shave ready, I took the path of least resistance and went back to the Gillette "Good News" twin blade disposables with my Hoffritz brush and the bar of soap. Shaving after all, was a PITA that had to be done so the quicker and easier the better.

I sold most of my straights, just keeping a couple of dozen of my favorite stub tails, Sheffields and a few Solingen full hollows. Lugged them around until 2006 and decided to ebay them. Regrettably I offed the three vintage coticules as well. My friend JB Horen was a computer whiz and I asked him to look at my listings to see if the pix and descriptions were good. This wound up piquing his interest and the next thing I knew he told me he was going to get into shaving with straights. I tried to discourage him from wasting his time and money in pursuing this inferior and atiquated method of shaving but he is bull headed and I may as well have been talking to the wall.

So he jumped in with both feet and the next thing I know he is shaving with vintage straights and ancient Gillete 3 piece DEs to boot. He told me about the shaving forums and I began perusing them. Bought some DEs, brushes, and eventually, having sold all but one of my straight razor collection, some straights. Thanks to Lynn Abrams and to Randydance, among others, I learned how to hone, and to shave with the dad blamed things. A few years in I was getting shaves equal, or better, than I could get with any other method. I'm now at the stage where unless I'm really running too late for church I won't even consider shaving any other way. No other way to live.