Thread: Starting out in Monterrey, Mexico

Hey everybody,

I am Manuel from Monterrey, Mexico (northeast, pretty close to Texas). I am just starting out with an Thiers Issard razor my wife got me for my birthday from Art of Shaving. I found SRP looking for instructional videos and it looks like a fantastic place to learn and grow into this new hobby.

As a side-note, I read the piece on "Shave ready" razors not actually being shave ready. Does anybody know if this is the case of Art of Shaving razors?

Thanks a ton!

Welcome to SRP!
No the TI razors from AoS are not shave ready. Send it out to be professionally honed. There are lists of honers in the classifieds on this site.
In the mean time, you can practice stropping with a butter knife. You did get a strop too, didn't you? If not, get one, you strop every time you shave.

Make sure you read over the beginner's guide in the library, it will answer a lot of your questions.
And ask questions if you have them - we are here to help answer them.

Most importantly enjoy the experience.

Hola, Manuel! Bienvenido a SRP.

Welcome to the forum. There is a lot of information and friendly, knowledgable people here.

Yes, unfortunately it does, it is not shave ready, unless you paid for honing.

Some stores will send them out for honing, if you request & pay for it, some refer the buyer to honers, some don’t sell honed razors, they are franchises. I hone for some AOS stores in Southern California.

PM me and I will hone it for you, for postage, if you cannot find anyone locally.

Originally Posted by criswilson10

Welcome to SRP!
No the TI razors from AoS are not shave ready. Send it out to be professionally honed. There are lists of honers in the classifieds on this site.
In the mean time, you can practice stropping with a butter knife. You did get a strop too, didn't you? If not, get one, you strop every time you shave.

Make sure you read over the beginner's guide in the library, it will answer a lot of your questions.
And ask questions if you have them - we are here to help answer them.

Most importantly enjoy the experience.

Thanks Cris, it is a relief to learn that the rough shaving experience I've had this week wasn't 100% on me but rather a dull razor. I will look for someone who can hone in Monterrey as sending it out to the US is quite complicated. Mexican post is not very reliable.

I did get a good strop and will definitely spend some time practicing in the meantime. I am doing quite a bit of reading on SRP Wiki, the forums as well as in other sites and learning a ton, but there is no learning like experiential learning! =)

Thanks again!

Gracias Leatherstockiings!

Originally Posted by Euclid440

Yes, unfortunately it does, it is not shave ready, unless you paid for honing.

Some stores will send them out for honing, if you request & pay for it, some refer the buyer to honers, some don’t sell honed razors, they are franchises. I hone for some AOS stores in Southern California.

PM me and I will hone it for you, for postage, if you cannot find anyone locally.

Thank you very much for the offer Euclid440! As I mentioned to criswilson10, Mexican post is very unreliable and I don't want them to lose my razor... =) I will first try to find someone who might be able to hone it for me in Monterrey and, if not, I'll take you up on the offer. The lady who sold it to my wife told her it was shave ready. No mention of honing except as a maintenance service for later.

Thanks again!

Hi and welcome. Be careful when looking locally for honing and make sure they are razor honers and not knife sharpeners or you may get back a damaged razor that still won't shave. Good luck and any questions feel free to ask.

Originally Posted by eddy79

Hi and welcome. Be careful when looking locally for honing and make sure they are razor honers and not knife sharpeners or you may get back a damaged razor that still won't shave. Good luck and any questions feel free to ask.

Thanks eddy, do you have any tips on how to know whether they are razor honers and not knife sharpeners? Are there any significant differences in the whetstones they use or something like that?