Thread: Beauty and Barber Razor

I would take advantage of Utopian's kind offer. At least, by having an expert look at the razor, you can make an informed decision about spending more money on getting them rehoned in the future.

Also, you may have found the bargain brand of the century and will never know. Let him have a look, he'll shoot you straight, then you can either discard the ones you have or start stockpiling more.

Thanks so much for all the feedback guys! Sorry about the delay in writing back. My grandfather passed away recently, and me and my family have been down in Texas taking care of the funeral arrangements and our grandmother.


Anyways, I went ahead and went to the TruHill and Fitt shop up in Chicago and bought me a Solinger "Best Quality" blade by Dovo with a nice little strop. I also went ahead and bought the Norton Stone kit with the 220/1k and 4k/8k stones.

The BIGGEST thing I'm going to do, however, is send Utopian one of my 2 Beauty and Barber razors to inspect and "attempt" to hone. I truly feel that it should be on the "DO NO BUY" list, but he is definitely in a better position to make it official or not.

My primary reason for this is to inform the SRP family about another "junk" brand out on ebay.

In the meantime, I'll be attempting to hone the other Beauty and Barber razor to start building my skills in preparation for honing my new Dovo. Unfortunately, it wasn't in shave ready condition when I bought it, and it's been tearing the hell out of my neck to the point where my towel is pink by the end of my shaving session. Believe me, I can't wait till my first smooth shave!

Any other thoughts/ideas?

BTW, thank all of you from the Bloomington/Chicago area for offering your help and advice! I can't tell you enough how warm and welcomed that makes me feel. If things go the wrong way with what I have right now, or if I feel like I need an upgrade, I'll definitely be sure to give you guys a holler!

I also bought myself a B&B razor and strop, and after 2 minutes of hell (and nearly giving up) I went on to by a Dovo. However, I'm now a little concerned about putting the Dovo on the B&B strop, and I was wondering what the thoughts of the forum were. Should I buy a new strop (I've been looking at the 3" Walkin' Horse English Bridle Strop from RasagePoulin.com) or can I get away with using the B&B one without damaging my Dovo?

The BIGGEST thing I'm going to do, however, is send Utopian one of my 2 Beauty and Barber razors to inspect and "attempt" to hone. I truly feel that it should be on the "DO NO BUY" list, but he is definitely in a better position to make it official or not.

My primary reason for this is to inform the SRP family about another "junk" brand out on ebay.

In the meantime, I'll be attempting to hone the other Beauty and Barber razor to start building my skills in preparation for honing my new Dovo. Unfortunately, it wasn't in shave ready condition when I bought it, and it's been tearing the hell out of my neck to the point where my towel is pink by the end of my shaving session. Believe me, I can't wait till my first smooth shave!

Any other thoughts/ideas?

A thought:

. . .Send the Dovo to Utopian, along with the B&B.

That way, you'll have one "known-good" razor. You can learn to shave with it, knowing that your technique -- not the blade -- is the cause of any problems you have.

"Learning to hone" isn't quick and easy, for many of us. You will probably be frustrated; you might do some damage to the Dovo. Let Utopian bring it up to "all it can be" quality.

If you want to practice honing on the B&B, go ahead. But be warned:

. . . Some bad-quality "razors" _cannot_ be sharpened to "shave ready".

You can spend a lot of effort, and get really frustrated, proving that statement is correct.

There's a minimum start-up kit for straight razor shaving:

. . . shave-ready razor

. . . strop

. . . brush

and it's possible to buy them for about $60, if you search the "Classifieds" here, and Whipped Dog Straight Razor Sales and some of the Vendors here.

It's _not_ possible to buy them for much less. After you have some experience, you can haunt your local antique shops and find inexpensive vintage razors, and sharpen them back to life. But getting that experience will cost some money.

You can polish a cheap piece of steel so it looks nice, but a _razor_ is tempered much harder than most steel -- drop it, and it cracks or chips. Assume the worst case -- that the B&B is what we call a "razor-shaped object", and that it will _never_ give you a satisfactory shave. Utopian may be able to do something with it; it'll be an interesting experiment.

Charles

PS -- I started with an antique-store razor, and learned to sharpen and hone on sandpaper. But that was a _good_ vintage razor. In spite of my honing efforts, I only understood what "sharp" meant, after I got a Dovo from Straight Razor Designs. There are limits to how cheap you can be, and still get good results.