Things I learnt during my previous 999 posts
Dear fellow SRP members,
I hope this message finds you alive and well. This being my 1000th post, I thought I might wrap up what I have learnt since 03-29-2008.
Bit of background: I switched from electric to DE a while before I joined. I found another forum most helpful during that period, as they have some outstanding tutorials and reviews for all things DE shaving. Then my best man coaxed me into trying a straight. I searched for straight razor forums, found SRP, but did not quite like it, because there was little information for beginners that was easily accessible. And I was anxious to get started.
In hindsight, all the necessary information was actually there, though. I found that out while trying to get to the root of my teething problems, most of which were bloody, literally:
- Having a shave ready razor is absolutely essential. My first razors were not, and this had a rather negative impact on my initial shaving experience.
- Shaving two or three times a day does not necessarily make the learning curve any less steep. It will, however, affect your marital life, up to a point where your wife might be secretly looking for professional help for you.
- A wider blade (5/8 or, in my humble opinion, 6/8) is better suited for beginners than the 4/8 blades I started with. 4/8 blades are easy to manoeuvre, but they also make it difficult to watch the angle of the blade against your face.
- A 1/2 hollow grind is a good compromise between feedback (which you get in spades from a full hollow) and the ability to cut hair with slightly wrong angles.
- One razor is good. Two are better. Three are the beginning of marital difficulties, or early warning signs of a neurotic personality disorder. Replace "razor" with "hone", "strop", "brush" were applicable.
- A brush is a tool with which to apply lather to a face. Expensive brushes can, but not necessarily will, enhance your shaving experience.
- Unlike inexpensive brushes, most inexpensive creams, soaps, aftershaves, etc., will have a negative impact on your shaving experience. Expensive products like those made by Castle Forbes or Art of Shaving, tough, have the ability to change your shaving life forever.
- Knowledge transfer is not always possible. While using a bigger hammer if you cannot fix the problem is a proven path to success when it comes to IT security, it does not work well with straight razors. If a razor pulls because it is not shave ready, additional force will not make your shave more successful, let alone comfortable. Holding the razor in a grip that is a light as possible, and applying no pressure to the blade against your skin, will remove hair consistently, and efficiently, provided that your razor is sharp.
- Strops get nicks. Buying an expensive strop will not help you to learn stropping faster, or better. It will only lead to your turning an expensive strop into a nicked pasted strop, eventually.
- There are many hones on this planet. While it may be tempting to buy as many of them as you can, no stone, or combination of stones, will turn you into a honemeister. Practice will, though, but it takes a lot of time.
Some things that I personally find have improved greatly - as always, great big thanks to Dave for implementing them! - since I first came across SRP:
- The Chat now actually works:
Peak for #srp@freenode: 37 (Mon May 4 02:37:42 2009) - Much of the information previously buried in, and scattered across, the forum is now reasonably well accessible through the Wiki. While the Wiki started out as a show of strength of a few people's will, it has since attracted a fairly sizeable group of Wiki workers.
- The SRP community have been able to compile a database containing almost 500 razors at the time of writing.
- The new review system is fantastic, even more so since SRP members have started actually using it.
- The new classifieds system works like a charm.
But that is all technical, and was reasonably easy to achieve. If, however, you compare the number of active users at the beginning of 2008 to the number of active users today, you will notice a marked increase. Whether this is a trend, or even permanent, remains to be seen. What SRP - users and moderators together - have managed, though, was to keep the spirit of SRP alive despite the influx of many new users. SRP keeps thriving despite cultural change, and the odd disagreement, and I find that encouraging. SRP has one of the most qualified, dedicated, and diplomatic moderation teams I have ever seen, and I think that SRP is well equipped for many more users, and years to come.
So here's to another 1000.
Cheers,
Robin
