Thread: How did you end up here?

When I was younger, and actually needed a barber, I would get a shave along with the trim. Many years ago. Anyway, I was thinking about how relaxing the straight razor shave was, so went In search. No place locally, then found AOS. $60 for a shave!
So I searched the web, found this place and have become spoiled.

I bought a few straights in a box at an auction. They got looked at but then relegated to a back shelf for future possibilities.

Fast forward a few years. At a garage sale in the 50 cent box there was a hone. For 50 cents what the heck, I bought it. After researching the hone it was a razor hone! Mmmmm, where did I put those razors?

The razors needed more than a barbers hone and to make a longer story short I ended up here.

Tim

Though my journey started back in '08, technically I suppose the beginning was when I was around 15 or 16. My grandma lent my mom a memory box full of pictures that belonged to her parents. Along with the pictures we found my great grandfather's straight razor and an unknown hone. I was intrigued, but my only real reference to straight razor shaving was from the old movies. When no one was home I ran the razor over the hone a few times and tried to shave with it, but it was obviously butter knife dull and didn't remove any stubble whatsoever. I carefully dried the razor and put it back into the memory box, and it went back to my grandparent's house.

The interest must have still been in the back of my mind, since I flirted with the thought of a barber shave for many years afterwards but never went. Fast forward many years later to 2008, and I was bored at work and still thinking about that barber shave when I googled "straight razor shave". Low and behold I discovered a couple online vendors (back in those days it was still a burgeoning niche market) with a wide selection of razors, strops, soaps/creams, brushes, you name it. It felt like I had stumbled upon a whole new world. That same day I found Lynn's old shaving vid from his Yahoo group days, and I felt this is something I could do myself. Not long after that I found SRP, where I lurked and read everything I could.

At that point I finally went for a barber shave. The shave was close, but I had massive irritation and a few cuts. Then I definitely felt it was something I could not only do, but do better than that barber!

A couple months later I bought a badger brush and some Proraso soap and ditched the canned goo forever. Shortly after that I finally joined SRP after months of lurking and researching, and I purchased my first razor from the classifieds: a 5/8 Dubl Duck Satinedge. I never looked back

PS - After I started using a SR my grandma gave me her father's razor (yes, the same one from all those years ago), which I honed up and is now a part of my rotation.

Been shaving with a straight for a long time and decided to throw a couple of old razors on ebay... I got so many weird questions about each razor that I quickly became over whelmed ( and irritated)... I had only ever thought of a razor as a tool, not a work of art of ritual to be perfected.. Quite honestly I thought straight razor affionados were strange to say the least.... Well in an. Effort to answer some of the questions i became to admire my straights more and more... I stumbled on this dite and realized that i was not alone and learned a lot from the fellows here. This is my face book. I look forward to getting on here every day. It is not just for razors anymore, it is for the comraderie, kinda like the barber shop my dad and grampa would go do to on the wekend to shoot the bull...

As I recall it was during my third or was it my fourth stint at Sing-Sing and they were about to get me for making a shank and I had to think fast and told them it was a home made straight. Then they made me use it to show I wasn't fooling them and I thought you know this isn't half bad. It's all history from there.

I’m on a quest for the ultimate shave.
- I started shaving with a DE in 1979
- I also had a "mini-lawnmower", but I gave it up. It was too painful. I haven't tried one since about 1990.
- About 1988 I got a straight razor shave from a barber north of Seattle. It was just amazing.

A few years ago I bought a straight razor just to try if it was even better than the DE.


Then I found this great site. Got RAD and will never turn back to any other method of shaving.

Thanks Lynn, for starting all of this.

I also used to get the final SR trim from my Dad's old time Barber. Mr. Calloway had a small shack Barber shop in the old part of town.

My Dad used to go to him because he was cheap. My Dad always kept a shaving mug around to do his trims with. He never used a razor to shave. He always told me that his beard was too tough and he never could find a razor that wouldn't chatter trying to cut his beard. I remember him sawing and sawing for several minutes with his electrics. I saw him wear out many a shaver.

After I lost Dad I decided to try wet shaving with cartridges and quickly found out that I liked it much better than the canned crap. Last November I wondered if the old farts had the shaving part right also. I started looking on the internet a was routed to this site and motley crew.

I bought a shave ready blade from Razorramone on the bay and here I am with a full blown case of RAD,

Started shaving at the tender age of 12. My whole teenage-28 years of life were spent using multibladed razors that left me with ingrown hairs, razor burn, and the odd keloid every now and then. By the time I was 28 I could only shave 1 time every 5 days. I had to use rubbing alcohol to keep razor burn and pimples down. There were times I would go for months just growing a beard because I could not stand the thought of having to pay $18 for blades that the spanish inquisition would have used to torture the odd heretic.

Around the time my Daughter was born I started looking on Amazon for knives. I am easily distracted by sharp objects by the way. I kept seeing straight razors on there. I began to research and most of it said that razor burn, ingrown hairs, and all the other goodies I was suffering from would be kept to a minimum by using a straight razor or a DE. I desided to go the cheap way and got myself a Parker with 120 shark blades. I went to AOS and got their sandle wood travel pack. I still laugh when I think back on those first few shaves. As bloddy as I made myself, it was no where near as painful as using a mach 3, quattro, etc...

So after 3 weeks of using the parker I found classicshaving.com and picked up a Dovo best 6/8. Around that time I also found this place. Now 300 (give or take a hundred, leave me alone I had a bunch of concussions stupid college football and rugby!!) shaves, 52 straight razors and 5 safety razors later I cant even remember what one of those POS's feel like. I actively try to recruit my friends who are jaded by Gillette to the wet shavers brother hood. I have sent out full shaving kits to my friends in the military and here in phoenix because I believe that strongly in it. This isnt just a hobby, for some this is the only way they can shave pain free. Of course the bonus is that it is great fun and super relaxing!

anyway rant over. Hope you all enjoy the rest of your day!

I can't believe that some of us had to discover wet shaving, I guess that makes me one of the old farts, even though I' almost as dopey as I was when I was 21.
Oh and at 12 you were one hairy kid ALB1981, however I just used my fathers stuff when I started to shave, which was a DE with a can of "
RISE" a no protection can of foaming goo that didn't do much for lube, but my aunt told me about hair conditioner. We had cartridges come out the first being a continuous band that was wound inside the case,forgot the name, Astra or something, but we both always went back to the Gillette and I started to use his old straight,which was fixed up by his Barber in 69 or 70, I found this place and couldn't believe all the newbies and lost souls {electric guys}. I thought the whole male world knew how to shave instinctively, like hunting and other caveman stuff.

[QUOTE=Grizzley1;951634]I can't believe that some of us had to discover wet shaving, I guess that makes me one of the old farts, even though I' almost as dopey as I was when I was 21.
Oh and at 12 you were one hairy kid ALB1981, however I just used my fathers stuff when I started to shave, which was a DE with a can of "]

lmao ya I kinda am still! in college my teammates called me sasquatch....From 12-15 I only had to shave my neck and chin. It really sucked because I couldn't grown a moustache until I was 28, so I always had a chinstrap beard. Now I rock a handle bar :-D