Thread: minimalism

Originally Posted by Slartibartfast

i am even more minimalist. i shave with my great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandfathers pocket knife using soap scum found in the sink at work.

Top THAT!

I took a piece of rock and meticulously ground the edge of a seashell until it was thin enough to cut hair, or at least pull it out by the roots. Now I shave by dragging a sharpened seashell across my cheek. My only pre-shave treatment is water that I obtained by digging a hole in the ground, and waiting for natural ground water to bleed into that hole. I dug the hole with the rock I used to grind the seashell.

Good sir, you have been topped.

Dinosilone – I find your post both instructive and thought provoking, as it points out (to me at least) the blurring of the two faces of SRP.

SRP caters to both the hobbyist and also welcomes, encourages and supports the new str8 shavers. These lines are blurred when advanced / hobbyist techniques are inappropriately applied, proposed to, or attempted by those who are just learning to shave without having them well grounded in the basics (minimalists approach) first.

Learning to shave with a str8, as you pointed out, is not a painless or quick task. Indeed, the shortest route is to learn to use the (basic / minimalist) equipment… that being a shave ready razor, strop, and prep. You were fortunate in having an instructor that you knew and trusted at your side to demonstrate the basics and provide guidance and instruction for both shaving and maintaining your razor. I would guess that there were hundreds of questions you did not even have to ask as they were answered before you thought of them. Your instructor knew you well enough to know how best to instruct you, and you probably had great confidence in him. This got you started on the right foot and you, eventually, mastered the basics. Your apprenticeship to shaving was accompanied by an on site journeyman. But even with one on one help you still had difficulty at first.

Imagine then how much more difficult it would have been to try learning from a book with no one there to correct your technique, or provide you with the equipment to get started. And your only avenue to ask a question was via long distance communication with someone you did not know. The book has been replaced by a computer, but remote instruction is today’s challenge. Thankfully, this forum and many of its membership has embraced the challenge of teaching str8 shaving to the newcomers. Your call for minimalism makes sense for this task.

The hobbyist / enthusiast however, wants to go beyond the basics. And many (if not most) of the post on this forum are in the hobbyist / enthusiast realm, and beyond what should be considered “the basics”. It is true that many in this area have a tendency to promote their method / technique as superior, that is human nature I suppose. Experimentation in the hobbyist realm is rampant. It is the internet, and the reader must do their “due diligence” with regards to advice and claims. What works for one person here may indeed only work for one person here. The hobbyist / enthusiast wants to take their “sport” to the next level. Trouble awaits those who enter here without first learning the basics.

You have not been doing it wrong for 40 years, obviously. You have mastered the basics. There is no need to go beyond there for a good shave. A truly great shave however is going to take a little more, and that is where it starts to get fun!

OK, I’m done rambling…

dinosilone, it's good to hear from an "old timer" who did it their way for many many years. I say good on ya, and if it ain't broke then don't fix it, and don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Unless you get that desire to try out the new toys and tricks like the rest of us .

And I shouldn't be surprised that when an honest post like this comes along that the first reactions are usually defensiveness and justification (of one's own habits). I think most of us realize that this is more than just shaving (at SRP at least), so no one should have to give an excuse why they spend so much on creams or strops or razors. But there's nothing wrong if a guy wants to take a minimalist approach as well.

Originally Posted by shooter1

SRP caters to both the hobbyist and also welcomes, encourages and supports the new str8 shavers.

The hobbyist / enthusiast however, wants to go beyond the basics. And many (if not most) of the post on this forum are in the hobbyist / enthusiast realm, and beyond what should be considered “the basics”. It is true that many in this area have a tendency to promote their method / technique as superior, that is human nature I suppose.

The hobbyist / enthusiast wants to take their “sport” to the next level.

I do agree with the above, but this is the same as any hobby: there's always going to be someone with better toys, more razors, better soaps, better in general...... and it does seem to breed a certain amount of competitiveness for some people. Just ask around to see if anyone here has only one razor and soap....

Originally Posted by ShavedZombie

I took a piece of rock and meticulously ground the edge of a seashell until it was thin enough to cut hair, or at least pull it out by the roots. Now I shave by dragging a sharpened seashell across my cheek. My only pre-shave treatment is water that I obtained by digging a hole in the ground, and waiting for natural ground water to bleed into that hole. I dug the hole with the rock I used to grind the seashell.

Good sir, you have been topped.

I pull my whiskers out one by one with my fingernails. Not only is THAT minimalist but it feeds my OCD!!

On a serious note, I found Dinosilone's post both endearing and enlightening. I'm sure most of us would agree that there's no perfect way of going about things, including straight razor shaving. Whatever works for you and you're happy with, God Bless. That said, one can always learn from others, and, if interested, adopt new techniques that might make things more enjoyable and/or more efficient. I kind of wish I were a minimalist, but alas, I have been bitten by the bug and have become an avid collector of razors, hones, strops, etc. as a hobbyist. Anyway, good, thought-provoking post, Dino!

Originally Posted by fccexpert

Bravo, I have been promoting a minimalist approach for some time. I see no reason behind the efforts of some to make the use of a straight razor some type of esoteric art. In my opinion, shaving is a simple manual skill that can be mastered by anyone with average or better hand eye coordination and a little patience. The key principle of my philosphy is:

Do what comes natural.

This applies to honing, stropping and shaving. In fact, as far as I can tell, most of the false starts and outright disasters I have seen here can be traced back to an attempt to force some type of unnatural motion onto the process.

I completely agree with this...anything beyond a razor, hone, strop, brush, and some sort of soap...everything else is a 'hobby expense'. This setup got my great granddad got by using this method his entire life. The reality of the matter is that shaving for the rest of your life should cost you more than $150 or so in gear...and lots of us here spend that every month. Heck, when I started, I only had $30 to make it through the next couple months in shaving expenses and decided to use it on a straight from an antique store, a piece of 2000 grit wet/dry, and a strip of leftover latigo from the leather shop. When I was done with the razor, it passed the HHT, TPT, and the rest of the 'tests' used to determine a good edge...heck it even shaved fine and I still have that first razor in my rotation.

The test of being a true minimalist is this: 1) Does it work. If you can answer yes, then stop...you're at a good stopping place. Being a minimalist doesn't mean that the wiki should be less than one page, it means that it should be fifty times larger than it is..."here are the top ten ways to hone a razor"...and such.

Shaving is the perfect hobby because we can utilize it every day. I think one reason that guys on the forums don't define the minimalism approach very well is that razors, strops, hones, hold their value very well. You can use these tools for many years and they will still hold their value years later. Their are many worse things you could spend your money on. If I go buy the latest Taylor Made putter for a 200 dollars, 3 years from now it won't be worth 50.