Thread: How did you end up here?

I'd had one of my grandfather's old brushes lying around for ages, never used it cause I didn't know shaving soap or cream was still made, one day I found Eramic shaving cream at a local store and figured I'd give it a try.
After a year or so using this I was on vacation at my in-laws' summerhouse, I noticed my father in law's Gillette Tech and Palmolive stick on the bathroom shelf while shaving with my cartridge razor, it was enough to trigger my curiosity, the next day we went out shopping and while my wife was looking at some hair color or something in a perfume shop I looked around in the men's apartement and found some Tabac soap and aftershave that I picked up.
When we got home that night I started doing some research and found a whole world of wet shaving, I joined B&B and hang around there for a while (I still drop by to say hello ), but as I got into the world of straights I started to lurk around here, and soon I found that this place had a lot more to give me regarding the hobby of straight razors, and soon I met some great people giving lots of good advice and helped feeding my AD's, so here I am

I started with a DE and canned goo at age 14 in 1970 and used it until I went electric at age 20, I used those until one broke in my late 40's. I had to shave and all I had was my late fathers DE and an old brush and some dove soap, luckily there were a few old blades left! I used that and it was great and that got me going on wet shaving and I liked it so much I went to the logical extreme of straight a year or two later.

Me and a buddy were complaining about the prices of cartridge Gillettes. He mentioned he'd looked at straight razors online and they were still being made. I figured 120 bucks today could last another 10 years at least. I was also in the market for another product to sell, and saw straight razors were really thriving. Interestingly, I'm on the wrong side of that market for it to do me any financial good. But it's ok...I am having fun.

I had dabbled in straight razor shaving in the 1980s but didn't stick with it. I had a small collection of maybe 25 straight razors and a few hones that had been in a drawer for over 25 years. In 2006 I decided to sell those on ebay and asked a friend to critique my ebay presentations. This piqued his interest and he did a bunch of web searching and came up with the shaving forums. I sold my kit and he told me that he was going to give straight razor shaving a try.

I tried to talk him out of it ..... 'waste of time' and $' but he wouldn't listen to me. His getting involved in it and buying straight razors rekindled my interest and before long I was regretting that I had sold my old stuff and replacing it 100 fold ..... but that is another story.

Wanna see some good stories about just how we got here? Check out the contest in "Beginners" forum. Have fun!

My fascination with straight razors began with the first haircut I ever had as a toddler. I watched the barber whip up some lather with a white mug, a brush and some hot water. When he stropped his razor, he explained it was a really sharp knife. I was amazed that he was able to finish my haircut that way without slicing the back of my neck open. From that day on it was my favorite part of getting a haircut.

In my teen years, when I started shaving with a Gillette DE, Neither my father nor my older brother thought it necessary to offer me any tips. I ended up shaving the way I shot pool at the local teen drop-in center, where my mantra was "if you can't shoot good, shoot HARD!" Consequently, I finished every shave with a styptic pencil. (I would not figure out how to shave without cutting my face until I was 39 y/o.) The thought of using a straight to shave terrified me.

I stumbled on a straight razor Yahoo group one time, but didn't spend much time there. Later, via Google, I found SRP and this was the first thing I saw when the page loaded. It was the first video I ever saw of someone shaving with a straight. Over time I talked myself into believing I could do that and in February of 2010, I joined SRP, bought an affordable shave ready razor from Larry Andro, a strop from Rupp Razor, and never looked back.

Funny how I never enjoyed spending a lot of time in the bathroom before. . . .
Namaste,
Morty -_-

Not that my wife is interested in my story, but others may be.

I always had a slight interest in straight shaving, if just for the awe factor. I was never happy with shaving. My family all used electric and I wasn't impressed. I tried cartridges after my brother had to use them on a trip in Switzerland. They sucked...slightly less. I quit shaving.
I used a trimmer before weddings and the like, but not a real shave.
I finally decided that I couldn't look like a fat homeless man my whole life. I found a series on instructables.com about straight shaving. One of the instructables had a link to this site. Between my obsession, and Glen and Dylan supporting my problem I have quickly grown my shaving to epically compulsive levels.

For awhile I was very concerned with living an independent and sustainable lifestyle - As much as possible, I wanted to be able to get by without needing to rely on buying things from a supermarket or drug store.

It occurred to me that buying replacement cartridges for a razor was a problem. I decided to buy a straight razor so I could shave without needing to buy razors or cartridges ever again. Unfortunately I bought a couple of Pakistani razors that were not able to shave. After getting a miserable shave, I decided to do some research about it... That landed me here.

I heard about wet shaving through another forum (pipesmokersforum) and went to B&B. I ordered a DE but still haven't received it and am now wanting a straight (though I will likely wait a little while before buying one).

When I was 18-19, I started shaving with DEs but with canned lather. Later I switched to the plastic multi-bladed stuff. I started to think about a more economical way to shave after receiving for christmas a Gillette 4 bladed cartridge razor. When the cartridges ran out and I noticed each box cost about $14 I wondered wether or not it was worth it, and accidentally found a video of a guy showing how to strop the cartridges so they could last about a year. I started doing this, and managed to make one last 7 months but by then I had remembered when I went to the barbershop as a kid and people would get a straight razor shave, so I started looking for straight razors. And, yes I bought a Krieger. Not nice, but at least did'nt get cut because the edge was extremely crappy and I while googling, I came upon SRP (not yet a member) and learned from the site and the videos about choosing a razor. I got a nice Dovo Best 5/8 from SRD, and started shaving. I also bought a DE while learning to use a straight. It's taken me almost a year to get a high quality shave with a straight but it's worth it. Shaving becomes a time for relaxation and concentration, really great prep before going to work. The Krieger is great for scraping stuff off glass surfaces.