Thread: It's simple...right??

It's just a shave. What's so complicated? Edge to face, take off the whiskers and you're done...right?

More and more I'm appreciating the many facets of this 'simple' act of shaving with a straight razor. I mapped them out in the attachment. I don't know about others, but to me, it reinforces why...

1. there's no fast track to shaving well (i.e. no 10 easy steps...or book on "how to shave like a pro in a weekend")
2. most answers to posted questions are not as simple as they may seem.
3. my shaving experience will vary day to day (though an "off" day with a straight is just another reason to come back the next day )

Ahhh, the pleasure of learning this wonderfully complicated simple pleasure!

- Dale
EDIT: Browsers may not display the attachment large enough. May want to save it and view in some picture viewer; Paint, Picture & Fax Viewer, etc.
EDIT 2: Here is a link to a PDF version.

Yeah, what could be simpler, yet what could be more complex? I couldn't agree more.

Dale, the jpeg is too low res. If you save and enlarge the text is completely pixelated.

Originally Posted by majurey

Dale, the jpeg is too low res. If you save and enlarge the text is completely pixelated.

Try this instead. I uploaded a PDF version. Much clearer.

- Dale

Now...add the variable of brands and you have and the number of variables explodes.

My head is all hurty now.

Ahhh, the old mind map. Thanks Dale, you've just brought memories flooding back of burning the midlnight lamp doing my studies and cramming last minute for exams. And I thought I had buried those horrific memories!

Seriously though, it's a good way of seeing just how much knowledge is wrapped up in this everyday practice!

So very enlightening. Even though I knew it could be bad, never saw it mapped out quite this way before. Interesting, and yet a little disconcerting to see the effects it can have on us all. Ohh well, time to shave!

I don't think it is all as bad as the chart would imply. This indicates virtually all possible senarios. Only the very new and inexperienced would ever attempt to venture down all of those paths before finding shaving nirvana. Or maybe the hopelessly obsessed? And just to get a good shave???

Then again....

Originally Posted by jimmyman

So very enlightening. Even though I knew it could be bad, never saw it mapped out quite this way before. Interesting, and yet a little disconcerting to see the effects it can have on us all. Ohh well, time to shave!

Originally Posted by honedright

I don't think it is all as bad as the chart would imply. This indicates virtually all possible senarios. Only the very new and inexperienced would ever attempt to venture down all of those paths before finding shaving nirvana. Or maybe the hopelessly obsessed? And just to get a good shave???

Then again....

The complexity is only bad if you assume you have to know everything or master everything to accomplish anything. That would be no fun at all and not worth the bother for most of us (for all but the "hopelessly obsessed" ). Indeed, you can have fun and be "successful" by carving out your own little piece of it all and enjoying it. Which should be the point of shaving this way anyway.

- Dale

Good thing I didn't see that flow chart when I first started. I had planned on buying one razor, one strop and one hone. Now, more than fifty razors later...

Another thought occurs to me related to this (I know, I know...I think too much). There are honemeisters and stropmeisters and metalurgists and historians and all the others who have some part of this thing mastered. But the nice thing around here is that the information is combined with encourgement to give things a try...and enjoy the attempts as well as the successes.

- Dale