Thread: Yet another newb

Hi everyone,
I'm a 57-year-young newb. Call me Morty.

I'm a former sewer pipe sailor. I served in the Navy during the Vietnam War and the Cold War. After attending Naval Nuclear Power School I was stationed on the Poseidon missile submarine USS Casimir Pulaski SSB(N) 633B. I completed seven FBM deterrent patrols for a total of two-and-a-half years of my life submerged in the far North Atlantic. I supervised nuclear propulsion plant operations & casualty control but I wish to God I could have served on diesel boats. Nothing surpasses them; absolutely nothing!

I first became fascinated with straight razors when my father brought me to his barber, who finished every haircut he gave me with lather from a shaving mug & brush and a straight razor. At the age of 5 I really didn't understand what was going on, but I had the sense that the way the barber dragged his “knife” down the back of my neck without cutting me was cool.

At the age of 12 I found my father's WW II ditty bag hanging in the bathroom closet. Inside it I discovered two really old shaving brushes. One had curled over bristles, worn beyond use; the other is shown in the photo below. My father didn't want it so I claimed it for my own. I used it sporadically from the time I started shaving at age 17 until I was 36 (its bristles are hard as iron!)

When I was nine years old I found an old white ceramic mug among my older brother's toys after he had gone away to another state to attend high school. My mother told me it was a shaving mug that a neighbor at the house we lived in when I was a baby gave my brother to play with. She said my brother would not want it and I could keep it. (An aside: years later I would discover that many diners served coffee in this same style of mug. I was disappointed until I discovered that a cake of Williams Shaving Soap fit the mug perfectly.)

When I started shaving at age 17 I carved up a bar of Ivory Soap to fit the mug & set to work. I could never get my father's hard-as-iron shaving brush to make a decent lather, though, so I resigned myself to that which came out of a can of Gillette Foamy.

Around the age of 35 or 36, quite by accident, I found a cake of Williams Shaving soap and a shaving brush (boar's bristle) manufactured by Van der Hagen in my neighborhood drugstore (still sold today). That combination in my antique “shaving” mug produced a lather far superior to anything that came from a can. I was in hog (bristle) heaven!

I happily shaved with that combination until I was 46, when the brush began losing hair faster than I was! I returned to the drugstore & bought a second VdH brush. The lather with that one sucked. I bought a third brush and that one sucked too. What to do?

This was 1999 so I went online and found a young lady in the far Northwest who sold shaving brushes along with other shaving accoutrements (wish I could remember who she was). After a bit of research I decided on a wooden handle silver tip badger brush with stand. At a cost of nearly eighty dollars, I questioned my sanity, but something in the back of my head urged me to take the chance. After using that brush with Williams Shaving Soap to build a lather on my face I never once looked back. That brush serves me well to this day. I only wish I had purchased a brush with a handle perhaps three inches long, because once soap hits the wooden handle it becomes slippery and difficult to hold.

My father & older brother were never close to me so I was left to my own devices to teach myself how to shave. I employed the same unsuccessful philosophy that I used when shooting pool: “If you can't shoot good; shoot hard!” Consequently, I found myself using a styptic pencil with every shave up to the age of 40 or 41, when I finally figured out that the goal was to cut my beard hairs without gouging the top 1/16” of skin. (Another aside: I figured out on my own just three or four years ago to gently shave twice: once WTG & a second time ATG to achieve a decent, comfortable blood-free shave.)

I never lost my fascination with straight razor shaving. One Christmas in a shopping mall I came across a small vendor booth selling straight razors. I was tempted but the way I carved up my face daily with my Gillette double edge “safety” razor (talk about an oxymoron), I was terrified by the thought of slicing open my carotid arteries with one of those miniature Katanas. I longed for the chutzpah & courage to give it a go, but my fear got the best of me. (Some years earlier I snipped the guard off a plastic disposable razor just to see what a bare “straight razor” might feel like against my skin. I leave the results of my stupidity to your imagination.) *sigh* :-(

A few years ago, quite by accident, I happened across the original Straight Razor Place on Yahoo Groups. That resurrected my long sleeping passion for straight razor shaving but alas, I was still terrified by the potential damage I could do myself with an unguarded blade. Not long ago while watching my favorite Star Wars flick, I pondered Yoda's advice to Luke Skywalker (see my sig below). I Googled straight razor shaving and that led me to the current home of SRP.

Reading the posts and the Wiki and watching some of the videos fortified my courage. I purchased a couple of shave ready straight razors from the classifieds and a strop and I'm giving it a go. I often find myself feeling the same frustrations Luke felt under Yoda's tutelage, but I have no intention of flying off before I'm ready. I intend to eventually master straight razor shaving because the Force is with me.

One last comment and I will shut up.

An unwanted “gift” my service in the Navy left me with was a profound hearing loss. I'm as deaf as deaf can be with zero residual hearing. When I read the comments about Lynn's DVD I'm filled with a sense of longing because that (and all other audio advice) is permanently beyond my reach. I'm not looking for sympathy. I only mention it to express my profound gratitude to those of you who took the time to write out the advice included in the Wiki and to let you know that any future advice that may be typed out will also be devoured by me with much gratitude and appreciation.
Namaste,
Morty -_-