I'm Lanky and I'm looking at buying a razor. What do you think of my planned kit?
Hey guys,
I'm from Sydney Australia, and I'm looking at buying a straight-edged razor. I have a beard, and want a razor to maintain the edges of my beard. Honestly, I never much liked shaving with disposable three-blade monstrosities, and especially hated constantly buying new blades and having nearly no way of maintaining disposable blades. I want to take control of my facial hair, and feel a straight razor is the best tool to do that.
I popped into Men's Biz, a local shaving boutique, and they put me into this forum along with some other resources. At the moment I'm looking at a number of items, and I'm wondering what the saged wisdom of this site's members have to contribute to that.
The items I'm looking at are as follows:
Dovo Solingen 5/8 straight razor in classic black. This seems like one of the top brands around, and is a fairly well recommended razor as far as I can tell, which I can also find new affordably.
Men's Biz Super Badger Hair Shaving Brush. I understand super badger is the best kind of brush (am I correct here or have I been misled?), but I don't want to spend too much on a brush.
Dovo Solingen 2-Sided Prima Rindleder Strop with 45x300mm stropping area. Again a top brand. I understand the strop might be a bit small and would necessitate stropping with an x-pattern? I imagine I could learn this easy enough, but am I underestimating the challenge?
Shaving creams / soaps and styptics: I'm really not sure how to proceed to be honest. My skin is pretty sensitive and I find it can react quite negatively, so I'm probably going to play this by ear. With styptic, I understand witch hazel can be a good alternative? I ask because I know it doesn't set off my skin. There are also shaving creams (not the kind of rubbish you get in a can) which I find work for my skin. Is there anything I should be avoiding or looking for with the shaving creams / soaps?
Hones: I know this isn't exactly essential, but I can't help but look. I've seen some top-end glass and ceramic hones, but these are big expenditure, especially since I see both 4000 and 8000 grit hones being recommended.
I've found a Taidea 3000-8000 white corundum dual-sided hone for less than a tenth of the price of the ceramic or glass ones. Other than that I find second hand ones rarely in good condition and I have no way of knowing how they hold up. Are Taidea any good, does anyone know? They seem to specialise in kitchenware, but 3000-8000 grit is incredibly fine for kitchenware. Would it do the job, or could it do harm to my razor? Would I be better off just holding off until I can afford a serious one?
Thanks guys. It's good to be part of this community!
Lanky