hoglahoo

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Beginnings

When I first looked into possibly shaving with a straight razor, the main question I had in my mind was, "How can I make sure this will work for me?" I didn't want to ignorantly make some colossal omission and end up destroying my moneymaker or waste a bunch of time and money on something that today's technology had rendered obsolete.

My newbie approach

Printing out Chris Moss' guide helped me quite a bit, and researching on SRP the things Chris mentioned in his guide on SRP helped as well. And no matter how much information I gathered, I still had to make the leap at some point to believe I had a razor that could work for me and just try it. So I guess my question was actually more related to finding enough confidence to start shaving than I supposed. Getting answers to my low-level tech questions (eg. what kind of razor do I need, do I need a strop, do I need a hone, what else am I forgetting, how do I hold the razor, etc) tremendously helped me to approach the razor with that confidence.

Like learning how to swim?

If someone I trusted had taught me to shave in person, I think my approach would have been completely different. The building of my confidence to answer the "What do I need to do to make sure this will work" question would have been accelerated from do-I-feel-prepared-enough-to-proceed to hey-I'm-shaving in the time it took to lather my face. "How do I hold the razor?", "how do I lather?", and "how do I strop?" etc are actually accomplished the same way regardless - by doing. I don't know whether I am a visual learner, or I learn by reading, or doing, or what, but I know that when it came to shaving with a straight razor, everything I worked so hard to learn online suddenly (and naturally) took a backseat to the task at hand when the razor's edge began approaching my face. I realized much later that all I had really needed to know for sure at that time was that I was going to make it happen with what was in my hand - the how would just have to come regardless.

I can do it!

And when I think back I realize the first underlying thought I consciously had that led me to the possibility of using a straight razor was the very same thought that I ended up using to convince myself I was ready to buy equipment and start shaving. In between knowing and being convinced (how's that for a conundrum?), I needed to address my lingering questions about this and that such and such which I knew Chris Moss's guide and SRP would be sure to have answers for (which they did and still do). That thought I had which ended up being the answer to what I was subconsciously asking online in all of my questions was this: for generations, every segment of the population was represented by great numbers of males who shaved this way and apparently it was just as routine as brushing one's teeth. That includes the young, the old, geniuses and idiots. Which included me even in the year 2008. If they could do it, so could I, right?

Can't someone just show me the best razor / the best hone / the right way to do it! All this info is confusing

And now I wonder whether every question on the forums asked by guys who have not shaved yet could simply be restated as "please help ensure my success." Is that too much to ask? Maybe it is. Only the person doing the shaving can make it happen.

PS reading my musings could be detrimental to your health, especially if you have trouble thinking for yourself, feel the need to draw out unstated conclusions, or have some delusion that I have just offered some kind of magical formula for success. This is not a primer for getting started or anything like that, the fledgling will still need to do his homework and get good, confidence-worthy equipment. Unless you don't want to of course, in which case what difference does it make whether I say that you need to. This is only a-musing