The best part of straight shaving

Straight razor shaving is lot of small parts put together. If we forget honing and just concentrate on shaving there is choosing razor and soap, preparing your face, organize your stuff for shave, making lather, lathering your face, stropping, shaving and after treatments. I guess I am still forgetting something.

My best part of shaving is definitely making lather. I like different fragrances and scents floating around bathroom. I have to sniff lather bowl or brush time to time. It is kind of aroma therapy for me :) I bought Col. Conk's Bayrum shaving soap and that moment when I first time made lather of it I just couldn't stop sniffing lather bowl. Same happened with Fitjar's Fjellheim shaving soap.

Straight razor shaving is a carousel of small parts or options for a joyful ride. Concentrate on any one and you can get lost in the fun of it. Just like all the beings that make up a carousel so are all of the parts of the SR world. And don't forget the seat if you don't feel like getting motion sickness. Sometimes just sit and look at your gear, your razors, your aftershave, soaps, scuttle, bowl, creams, strop, the stack of hones from man and nature.....just sit on the bench and marvel at what the hell happened.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WW243

...just sit on the bench and marvel at what the hell happened.

---

Sums up life in general IMO... ;-)

The best part is enjoying something I hated doing for 40 years. My face feels good and not irritated. The quality of shave is first class. Of course it took 2-3 years to achieve the results almost every time, but in context of 40 years well worth the investment.

For me it's the satisfaction of achieving a BBS shave with a razor that I restored and then sharpened on a natural hunk of rock.

For me it is the peace and quiet of the shave, I have my wife convinced that I can do serious damage if she talks to me. The other day it payed off as we were visiting my mother who started to talk to me whilst shaving. SWOMBO came up to her with a serious look on her face and said "please don't talk to him whilst he is shaving, he has a sharp knife and might cut himself". I almost did because I was trying to suppress a laugh.

I think that straight razor shaving has disappeared for the simple reason that has ruined many things from our history - convenience. When I began shaving, it was with a can of Gillette goop and whatever razor. I thought that razor bumps, ingrown hairs, razor burn, and general pain-in-the-assery was just part of life. After 26 years I finally discover straight shaving, and i'll never look back.

Take a look at payphones. You don't see 'em anywhere anymore,because they've been replaced by cell phones. But, cell phones (in my area, at least), have horrible signal, always drop calls, and rarely even work. Payphones worked great, but cell phones are more "convenient".

But it is interesting when goo shavers are introduced and tried wet shaving then most of them wont go back to gillette and goo. I preferred growing beard than shaving with gillette or electric razor. Problem was that my beard was real mess so I had to shave already time to time. But it was not unusual not to shave for 3-5 months for me.

I guess internet has done it's own part making available knowledge of straight shaving to all and through forums you can ask and learn this art of shaving.

Concentration, tools, history , freshness ... yes I like it , and the hunt for special knives.

Straight Razor shaving has a definite Zen aspect to it for me. Quiet the mind be in the moment, focus on every stroke, experience the fragrance of the lather. You must not be angry or thinking about life's problems, they must be shed along with your whiskers and when the task is successful, Nirvana! Then of course your bummed out because you cant do it again until tomorrow.

There's all the standard responses, none of which I will likely disagree with but something very profound occurred to me on the drive into work this morning:

My little corner of paradise, this morning didn't look much like a place that could rightfully be called the Sunshine State. In fact the weather was very reminiscent of my days passing through RAF Mildenhall in the spring, gray, drizzling and generally just pretty dismal. Traffic was slow. For reasons I've never been able to adequately explain, slightly damp pavement in Florida is roughly the equivalent of a horrendous ice storm anywhere else. For some reason people are convinced that if their vehicles go faster than about 20 MPH on wet pavement they can spin out of control and become a traffic fatality with little to no warning. So I'm sitting there in a rolling parking lot with my fellow happy idiots heading off to struggle for the legal tender. Then suddenly the question came to me "How many of these people stropped a razor this morning?"

I've been at this far too long to revel in the bravado of doing something that most people consider dangerous. In fact once I was over the initial learning curve it was just a bit sportier than brushing my teeth. These days, it's just the way I shave. True, we are a fairly exclusive group, not because we're bad ass enough to shave with what amounts to a really sharp knife. The honest truth about straight razor shavers that make us even more special is that we insist on being individuals. We don't care that the rest of the lemmings are growing beards or shaving with whatever the marketing machine has labeled the next big thing. We do things our way. We're free thinkers. In the modern age that's far more frightening than the threat of cutting your throat with a straight razor. I obviously can't speak for all of us but even before I shaved with a straight razor, people always found me a bit unusual, the addition of the straight razor however, propelled me straight to the Crazy Uncle section.

Very well said!! I couldn't agree more.

I just couldn't stop sniffing lather bowl. Same happened with Fitjar's Fjellheim shaving soap.[/QUOTE]

Fjellheim is awesome, as soon as I get a sniff, I feel like I'm at the top of a snow capped mountain with a crisp breeze blowing.

The whole process appeals to me. I know it has filled a void beyond needing to shave for me. It frees my mind of all the trivial B.S. in life....well almost....

I love the simplicity of putting a near 100 year old piece of incredibly sharp steel on my face to remove the whiskers.

It has been the whole learning curve. Two years ago, I struggled through a shave, the cartridge would clog almost immediately, spent more time rinsing it than shaving with it. By the third shave, it was a real struggle, blunt and uncomfortable. Oh well, replace it with another $4 chunk of junk cart. Now I have a couple of straight razors with over 50 shaves each on them and still going strong, with just a strip of leather, that is the best part for me anyway.

My friend sent me Kanenaga to try out, so there is going to be new learning curve with that coming soon. I have just looked it and tested that it is sharp for shaving. Now I am just waiting right moment. I guess best parts keeps on coming :)

Well as a newbie it is to me a challenge. And each day that I do better with my shave I get more satisfaction out of it. When you are new there is a lot to learn. I am very much enjoying this hobby. Looking forward to learn how to strop correctly. Then when I master that hopefully I can learn to hone.

Roger

"The best part of wakin' up
is Folger's in your cup."

Not. It's true; I've stopped taken a break from homeroasting coffee, but not that low... and now I've (re)discovered the pleasure of whole-bean Eight O'Clock Coffee.

For me, the best part of straight razor shaving is not getting any of those !@#$ nicks or weepers that my beloved DE and injector "safety" razors invariably bestow upon me. OK, an equally good part is that I keep my "extra" shaving supplies in the bedroom walk-in closet, and every time I go in to get something I'm met by this wonderful amalgamation of aromas... a synthesis of scents... and, regardless of mood, it brings a smile to my face.

Straights have taken shaving to a whole new level for me, even DE's can't hold a candle to this experience.