Hi all. I've been lurking the site for a while and figured it was probably the time to introduce myself and start making some posts.
Way back in the day, I bought my first straight razor - a Boker in a pawnshop back when I was 14. I stropped it with a piece of leather charged with jeweller's rouge and taught myself to shave with it. However, as I got older, I found that I didn't always have the time to strop the razor and properly prepare for a shave. In fact, I got a little careless about it and gave myself a pretty good cut. As a result, I put aside the straight, and when I had to shave, I used a cartridge razor. However, that irritated my skin and I shaved as little as possible. In fact I sported a full beard for many years.
However, I recently received a promotion at work, and there are certain appearance standards... like being clean shaven. So now I have to shave daily. Of course I initially started with a cartridge razor and aerosol foam cream, and and it quickly became apparent why I had developed such an aversion to shaving originally. Razor burn, acne, etc...
So i started looking for better ways to shave. Even though I stopped shaving with I straight, I still appreciated their aesthetics and have bought a few nice examples when I came across them over the years, so I decided to try shaving with a straight again, and here I am!
