Thread: First DE shaves...a surprisingly uneventful experience..

Not long after I started straight razor shaving, I asked my dad what my grandfather used, figuring it would be a straight razor. I was surprised to find out that from what I can gather he used a gillette fat boy, slim or super speed - some sort of gillette TTO that is long gone now.

So I got a fatboy and a super speed flare tip, and an assortment of blades. I don't figure anything is ever going to unseat my morning straight razor shave, it is too fantastic of an experience and it's predictable and danger free.

But I was surprised at how much literature is out there about how bad I could get sliced and diced by the DE.

I have two shaves under my belt so far, one with an astra blade and one with a treet blade. The treet blade gave me bad razor burn and my first ingrown hair, but the astra blade was very smooth. Not quite as close yet as the straight, but not a bad experience. And the whole process felt very....well, safe. No weepers, no nothing second time around. Maybe if the razor burn stays away I can open up the fatboy a little further.

It did take me a while longer to make two passes with the razor than it does with a straight, though ... a little over twice as long (8 minutes vs. 4). And it does definitely lack in comparison to shaving with a straight razor - it feels sort of like listening to the radio with ear protection on, there is definitely a lot less stimulation than there is with a straight. I've also never gotten a single ingrown hair while shaving with a straight razor.

it seems like a good route to go, proficiency with a straight, and then buy a DE for curiosity (to see how things were for g-pa). The things you do with a straight come naturally on the DE then (constant angle, orientation of the blade to the direction of the cut), and unless something changes, it seems awfully hard to get in much trouble.

(I did nick myself up quite a bit with a straight razor when I first started several years ago, but it's rare these days that I even get a weeper with that - once a month or so)

Little did I read...there's a thread right below mine about how someone else went "backwards".

DE's are a nice shave; gotta mind the pressure though, those brass bodies have some weight to alot of them. They just kind of got well...HO HUM, I guess for lack of a better word. The straights were an adventure, and continue to be that. Having both options though, is a nice change of pace at times. Good luck w/ the fatboy. The cheap Wilkinson blades from wal-mart are nice, but I like my Personna blue meds from westocoastshaving.com the best, might wanna check those out. You can get a 100pk for $18.

I can get personna reds locally, and maybe blues at Sally (I haven't stepped in there). I like the astras a lot, they're cheap, they seem to be moderately keen and they didn't give me any burn (presume that means their edge treatment is pretty uniform). I snagged 100 of them off of ebay for $12.

Until next week when I say I've ordered 3 more razors looking for something a little more aggressive, for now I'll say I'd like to stick at the two DEs I have.

The issues, btw, with a straight razor go away as soon as you get the hone job on them "just so" and have the chance to use them every morning for a month. You just automatically stop doing anything dicey out of habit, and the thought of bad stuff goes totally out of your mind.

Hmmm..sally carries the blue. Thanks for the info Dave, I really need to walk in there and check that place out. If you want aggressive the open tooth combs are good, but I just can never get as close as I can w/ a straight w/out some irritation, sensitive skin sucks when you have wiry coarse stubble...

Shave #3 (the second on a particular astra blade) was very nice. Also saw personna blues at rite aid, though they were labeled something else. 50 cents each...no thanks!

Very easy mild shave with and then against the grain, and no razor burn. Possibly because the super speed flare tip seems to be very mild in general.

Shave #3 sunday was nice, best yet. monday morning, I had 3 ingrown hairs, though. In the prior year using the straight, I had zero ingrown hairs.

Maybe from the ATG pass? (I never do ATG with a straight razor, only Xtg). No more atg for a while.

Not sure which shave caused them, but possibly saturday or thursday last week.