Thread: Straight Razor Shaver Ages.

I'm 22 myself. Just started shaving with a Shavette in transition to a straight razor. I'm a sucker for high quality items and routines/vices.

I'm 23 and have been straight shaving since October.

Lots of twenty somethings in the mix. That's cool, most of you probably realize by now the discomfort and drudgery you've avoided by taking the road less traveled. Most of your peers are using overprice plastic crap and worse yet, electric razors. But you guys have figured out early how to enjoy your shaves and that's cool.

Me? I'm 48, my mind still thinks I'm 24 and my body feels about 96 sometimes but that's another issue. As my user name would suggest I entered the Air Force fresh out of high school when I was 17 and came out 25 years and change later. Shaving of course was mandatory and like most of my generation, I simply bought what the TV told me to, plastic crap mostly, culminating with the Mach III; which by the time I got out of the AF was used for face shaves as well as dome shaves. I was on terminal leave (not even officially out of the Air Force when I decided to stop ALL shaving and for a couple years I was going for the Walt Whitman, Karl Marx, ZZ Top look. Long about early 2007 I noticed that my salt and pepper beard contained alot more salt than I really wanted. I decided to start shaving again. Several months prior I had purchased a Gem Micromatic Open Comb but never really got around to finding blades for it so I went out, purchased a 10 pack of single edge blades, a brush from an antique store, some Williams and VDH Deluxe soap and I was on my way.

My collection took off from there and I gradually picked up more razors, additional brushes and better soaps. For a few years, I was strictly a safety razor shaver (SE razors mostly but eventually a small contingent of DE razors emerged.

About Christmas of 2009 I decided to try shavettes. The idea was to use these as basic training and if I got to where I could get a good shave with them, I would then make the call on traditional straights. So, that went on and despite some fairly hideous early shavette shaves, in a month or so I got to where I wanted to be and decided it was time to move to "real" straight razors. My first razor was a Boker Red Injun 102. I located a 3" wide horsehide strop (at the same antique shop that supplied the straight.) Come to think of it, that shop had quite a few decent straight razors before I became a regular patron, these days it's pretty fished out for the most part.

Earlier this week I celebrated my first anniversary of traditional straight razor shaving. My safety razors are still in the rotation but more and more, they are only used for the Sunday Dome and Face shave. I have done dome shaves with a straight but I must confess, it was a more than a little uncomfortable working on the back of my head with a straight so, I use a safety razor for this purpose (of course they're all old school single edge with a spattering of vintage Gillettes.) A couple things I know for sure. 1. Shaving has never been this fun before. I used to skip every day I possibly could but these days, I can't wait to shave and do so every morning, weekend or not. 2. I'll never again go back to modern day shaving tools. I've recently noticed that men in general, and movie stars in particular are very wrapped up in the George Klooney, Don Johnson, I only shave twice a month look. Did you ever notice that no one back in the day, seemed to be sporting the homeless guy look? Yeah, you can blame it on a general lack of formality in modern society but from where I'm sitting, I think that like most of us, guys back in the day simply enjoyed the hell out of their shaves.

Me, turned 50 last week... just 8 months (and counting) on the str8 world

i just turned 19 two days ago haha, many years to come in straight shaving.

Come September, I'll be 65. I've been wet-shaving all my adult life, but have been into straights only the last three years.

30 y/o. Started shaving with straights about a month and a half ago... now I have 5

Originally Posted by ebarbaric

30 y/o. Started shaving with straights about a month and a half ago... now I have 5

haha you really took the hobby and ran with it for your first month and a half. i hope to one day start a collection of razors too.

Originally Posted by hcintineo

haha you really took the hobby and ran with it for your first month and a half. i hope to one day start a collection of razors too.

I seem to have a "mania" with these kind of things. Got into fountain pens around Christmas time... now I have 14 haha. However, I look at it as an investment and something I'll leave for the kids.

I am 26 and have been using a straight for two and a half years.

Got started because the owner of the school I went to expected us to shave every day and my face can just not handle two days in a row with a mach3