Thread: Le Grelot and Heavy/Coarse Beards

I'm sorry you totally either misread or misunderstood my post. There was no amusement or joking. I am very serious here. If you read various posts over time you will see this topic comes up all the time. People do have the notion they must match the razor or grind with the type of beard they have. I was only trying to point out this is not true.

The original post stated the author has a heavy beard and was thinking of buying a le grelot, a part hollow. The natural assumption was that he was thinking of buying it because he has a heavy beard and asks if people with heavy beards would respond to his question.

Personally I have all kinds of razors and sizes and grinds and people gravitate to the kind of razor they prefer. My only point was that people should not buy a razor thinking this is what I must buy for my beard type.

You seem to have misunderstood what I said. I did not say people should buy any specific type razor and in fact said people will buy whatever type they like. As far as barbers go, your correct some barbers did use 4/8s razors though that was rarer. My point was barbers will use what works best for them. It does not matter whether a barber personally prefers a 4/8s over a 6/8s. if the 4/8s just doesn't do the job he isn't going to use it.

razor wonderers,

This may be devolving into a bit of a he said, you said, if I read you correctly, you didn't understand what I was implying, you inferred what?, etc.

Let me re-direct the conversation to: if you want one really fine shave, get a Le Grelot. These are really nice blades and the ones which come from Martin @ rasurpur.de seem to fly in the face of the advice that you can't get a shave ready razor from your average vendor.

I have other razors of more hollowish grinds which will shave me as closely and as comfortably as the Le Grelots, but because of their full hollow singing grinds, I can hear each hair being cut - and I am really hard of hearing. To me, these razors do not sing, and I don't care what others may offer in explanation, they grumble. The Le Grelots are a comfort to both my face and deaf ears as they silently and most comfortably shave my face. And I rather like that experience.

Can other blades shave as well? Yup! Do I really like the Le Grelot a lot? Yup. Would I recommend others to try one? You betcha.

Wade in all, but you can 't win this one with me on this razor.

best of shaving,

I think there are 2 issues here.

The question of the starting post was: would a le Grelot be good for me as I have a heavy beard? Answer IMHO: yes a le Grelot is a good razor for a heavy beard but also for less heavy beards.

2nd issue: do you need a haevier grind for a heavier beard? IMHO thebigspendur is right saying you should not automatically assume you need a heaveier grind because you have a heavy beard. Best is to find out for yourself what works best for you. Shaving results with a straigth depend on a lot of things: the intrinsic qualities of the razor (steel, grind, temper etc.), quality of honing and stropping but also your face's intrinsic qualities: heaviness of beard, sensitivity of skin, thickness of skin, your skin preparation and your own dexterity, technique &c.

To summarize: a le Grelot is IMHO an excellent razor. I get very good results with it although I DO NOT HAVE A HEAVY BEARD.

Sold my Le Grelot. It was a full hollow made from Swedish steel. Top quality in every respect. Gives a smooth comfortable shave. So I can well understand that the bespoke models from Martin at Raserpur German are fantastic.

He honed the razor for you in the price you paid. The razors do not leave the factory like that and most distributors do not rehone. So while you purchased your razor from a specialist, many don't and they will not receive the same experience. So the argument about the quality of finish from the big manufacturers has not been put to rest at all.

I totally agree with The Big Spender in that a well honed razor will cut any beard.

The narrower the blade width, the easier it is to maneouvre under the nose. The wider the width of a blade, the more soap it will collect and so the more strokes you can make between cleaning.

As production techniques improved, the straight razor developed from a full wedge to a full hollow singing razor. Unless razors are different to any other product, manufacturing improvements are driven by cost efficiencies more than anything. So to my mind, I have no reason to believe that a full hollow will give a better shave than a wedge. I like a medium hollow at least because the hollow stops the blade sticking to my face.

Still when you find the razor you really like, that's a great feeling and well worth sharing.