Thread: A bit to learn

Originally Posted by Nepsis

Thanks for the input! I did find a brush and some shaving soap at the local Walgreens...should be enough to get me going (will experiment with varieties later).

Straight razor shaving is the most demanding of a shaving soap/cream's quality. Please tell us the brand you are using, especially due to inexperience. Also prudent to make sure you've got the right ratio of water to soap, even a good beginner brand like Van der Hagen can be sub-par without proper hydration.

Originally Posted by Nepsis

From the bit of reading I've done here, looks like I need to have the razor honed, and make sure the strop is conditioned. Strop conditioning looks easy enough, but any advice on finding someone to hone the razor? Just a matter of popping by the local barber shop, or should I search the yellow pages for someone who sharpens knives? Any way to evaluate whether they'll do a good job prior to them actually doing it?

Uhhhh. It really depends on the barber/knife sharpener. Reading through posts on this site has led me to believe that straight razors have become something of a lost "art", including the profession that were the foremost authorities on the subject. Same goes for knife sharpeners. Reading through culinary forums has shown me that many knife sharpening places can't even sharpen regular knives to a good cook's requirements. A lot of hardware stores are more suited to garden tools and standard workshop equipment, not higher end knives. They can butcher the steel of good knives and may rip off way more steel than appropriate. If they can't bring a quality knife up to the steel's level of fineness, what would they do to a tool designed to be fine enough to safely cut your facial hair?

Originally Posted by Nepsis

Thanks,
--R

You're welcome!