Thread: Straights in the news

Following article posted in my local newspaper today. I was expected another poorly researched article which tends to be typical of many of the journalists in my local but noticed that they managed to track down Lynn.

A career on the cutting edge | The Chronicle Herald

Young Dartmouth barber reviving the art of the straight-razor shave
Lydia Buxton trims the beard of Myron Burt of Chicago with a straight razor at Veniot Celebrity Barber Shop in Dartmouth. (INGRID BULMER / Staff)



THE FIRST TIME Lydia Buxton held a razor blade to a man’s neck, there were a couple of nervous jokes, a bit of jittery giggling and at least one bribe.
"We’ll give you an allowance raise if this goes well," her father told her.
At just 15, she could forgive her dad’s trepidation at being her guinea pig for her first straight-razor shave; she was a little nervous herself.
"I probably would have been more nervous if it had been someone else," she said. "I just remember being awkward and fumbling and telling myself, ‘Just keep the skin tight.’ "
Today, at 23, Buxton is an old pro at the art of straight-razor shaving. She hones her craft Saturdays at Veniot Celebrity Barber Shop on Prince Albert Road in Dartmouth, where she works once a week to help put herself through school at NSCAD University.
Though she only does one or two full shaves a month, she uses her straight razor after most haircuts to tidy up the edges.
Her routine for giving full shaves is as well-worn as the Velvet Razor honing stone sitting on her desk, or the leather strop hanging from the countertop.
First, in order to open the customer’s pores, she drapes a "fully wet and piping hot" towel over the fellow’s face, leaving just enough of an opening for his nose to poke through.
Then she walks over to a retro-looking machine called Campbell’s Lather King, and after a brief mechanical whir, a dollop of warm shaving cream falls into her hands and she lathers the customer’s face.
Using one hand to pull his skin taut, she deftly wields her Weck Hair Shaver in the other to shave once with the grain of the hair and then once more against the grain, with another hot towel in between.
And, at the end of it all, the customer — who has often grown drowsy during the shave — gets a chilly surprise: an ice-cold towel on the face and an optional spritz of zingy aftershave.
"When you tip up the chair and they look in the mirror and they get their hands up there feeling it, they say, ‘Oh, it’s so, so soft,’ " Buxton said in a recent interview at the barbershop.
The "baby-butt-smooth" shave that comes from using a straight razor is a pleasure known only to a relatively small percentage of men these days. Once the norm, straight-razor shaving began to fall out of fashion after the First World War as safety razors found their way into modern households.
But to say there’s still a core of diehard enthusiasts is a bit of an understatement. Those who like it, like it a lot.
Case in point: Lynn Abrams. The moustachioed 60-year-old man from Cape Girardeau, Mo., once owned about 1,500 straight razors, including some dating back to the 1700s.
"It became like a quest for me," he said by phone from Missouri on Monday. "I wanted to see what every razor felt like."
A former insurance executive, Abrams now owns a shop in Medina, Ohio, devoted to shaving supplies and he runs an Internet forum about straight razors called straightrazorplace.com, which now boasts millions of hits each month and about 37,000 members.
Though he had shaved occasionally with a straight razor as early as 1973, Abrams decided to permanently convert about 20 years ago and make the ritual part of his daily life.
"For most of us, particularly those in business, we look at shaving as a chore that we have to do every day. That’s it. We have to shave to go to work," he said. "But what happens when you get up an extra 15 minutes early and you take that brush and you put it in hot water and you mix it with suds and you strop the razor, you make it something that you look forward to every day."
For some, what starts as mere curiosity develops into near-zealotry. Straight razor devotees have unyielding opinions on everything from the best brands of soaps, creams and aftershaves to whether badger, boar or horse brushes give the best lather.
Abrams said some fellows are so fanatical about straight razors that they even persuade their female partners to shave their legs with them.
Aficionados pay up to $3,000 for a custom razor, with some made from tusks or horns or even hippo bones.
But Abrams insists that beginners don’t need to shell out loads of cash to get started. A simple razor and strop set costs about $130 — though he suggests adding some good soap and a brush to whip up a decent lather.
Abrams advises newbies to expect a few razor bumps and nicks along the way.
"Don’t go into this art immediately thinking you’re going to have the best shave the first time out. This is something you have to learn."
Though only a handful of shops in the Halifax area offer straight-razor shaves, including Demone Barber Shop on Agricola Street and Veniot, Abrams said interest in the old-time art of shaving is definitely growing.
"The sport, as we call it, has just gotten absolutely amazing," he said. "People try this, they fall in love with it and it just kind of goes from there. People all of a sudden are wishing they could grow a beard faster."
Halifax’s Dereck Thibault, 30, was considering celebrating the end of Movember — the month when men grow moustaches to raise awareness of men’s health issues and money for prostate cancer research — with his first foray into straight razor shaving at a local barbershop.
"For me, shaving is a last-minute thing before I go out the door. I can’t stand shaving," he said earlier this week. "I suppose it’s like anything that’s a menial task in your life. It’s the same reason you’d go to a restaurant to get a nice cooked meal. It’s something you can put in someone else’s hand and feel that luxury."
But, as the end of Movember drew near on Wednesday, he was still undecided about his ’stache.
"I don’t know," he said. "The moustache has been working out for me. I’ve had a lot of compliments. I might keep that going."