Using Time Before you Feel new Stubble as a Measure of the Closeness of a Shave.
Have you ever wondered whether you can use the time before you start to feel fresh beard growth again to compare shaving systems and razors?
It is not uncommon that someone new to traditional wet shaving asks which shaving method produces the closest results.
In their replies some fellow-shavers will suggest straight razors, some will suggest safety razors, and some will suggest that there is no difference between these two systems. Occasionally the latter answer comes with the caveat that a shave with a safety razor is as close as with a straight razor, but does “not seem to last as long”, or something to that effect.
This particular answer has always puzzled me, as to me closeness and the time until you can feel the new beard growth go hand in hand.
In fact, I believe that you can use this time to compare the closeness of a shave between various razor types and even between various razors of the same type.
I did a little experiment a few weeks ago, when - while moving house - I stumbled across a barely used Braun 7 Series electric razor that I had bought in 2012 for short overnight trips where I only wanted to take a carry-on bag along on my flight. I was not overly impressed then, but recently tried again as by now wet-shaving with an electric razor like the Braun 7 Series had become more commonplace.
I found “wet” results were much improved over “dry” results with the same razor and kept using it for a while to gain more impressions.
It quickly became obvious that it was no match for my safety razors, let alone my straight razors, which overall give me the closest shaves of all.
Of course, like many things in shaving, my conclusions are highly subjective and will vary for individuals depending on experience, technique, equipment, preparation (including honing and stropping in case of a straight razor), shaving soaps or creams used, and individual beard growth.
Battery and head of the Braun were replaced and then I finished a representative number of dry and wet shaves with the razor using similar preparation (except for the dry shaves) to my traditional wet shaving prep.
This is how many hours typically elapsed after a shave before I would feel a comparable growth of stubble again:
- A straight shave lasts me around 13 hrs.
- A shave with a safety razor lasts slightly less, around 10 hrs.
- A “wet” shave with an electric razor lasts me around 7 hrs.
- A “dry” shave with an electric razor lasts me around 5 hrs.
Presuming that above times and “closeness” are closely related, I believe that a more meaningful answer to a novice’s question which system shaves closer thus may be saying that 10 hrs after a safety razor shave my beard feels like 13 hrs after a straight razor shave.
I should however add that for results to be valid someone needs to have reached proficiency with the shaving system.
This will take very little time in case of electric and cartridge razors, a few weeks for safety razors, but will take considerably more time with straight razors, where an often mentioned number to become reasonably proficient (and get comparable results to a safety razor) is around 100 shaves, and possibly a few hundred more before one consistently achieves noticeably closer and smoother (not the subject of my discussion here) results.
B.
