The Straight Razor's Future

What drew me to wet shaving and eventually to straights was the fact that, to me at least, it is art. There is in my view craftsmanship in the act itself, as well as in the hardware. There is a dignity in it that far exceeds mass produced, plastic razors manufactured in the millions or billions and foam in a pressurized can. I don't think the majority of men see the value in that, nor do they place much value in taking the time to learn that art, or hone the skills necessary to become proficient at it. It is seen as more of an inconvenience.

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Originally Posted by SRNewb

What drew me to wet shaving and eventually to straights was the fact that, to me at least, it is art. There is in my view craftsmanship in the act itself, as well as in the hardware. There is a dignity in it that far exceeds mass produced, plastic razors manufactured in the millions or billions and foam in a pressurized can. I don't think the majority of men see the value in that, nor do they place much value in taking the time to learn that art, or hone the skills necessary to become proficient at it. It is seen as more of an inconvenience.

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I always feel that there are always a select few that hold the knowledge of any given topic. And those individuals are entrusted to keep and pass on that knowledge. Maybe you cook, cure meat, understand photography, make soap, brew beer, or shave with a SR. These are activities and skills that could easily been neglected into extinction but for the few that continue to hold the knowledge and keep it alive. When we lather up in the morning were. Ot just shaving but keeping this traditional method alive. If we can convince one more person to join in, we can be sure it will survive.

I wish I could say that I've introduced someone to wet shaving, be it with a straight, DE or SE. But truth be told, I can't even get anyone to stick with a cart, but try a decent brush and soap. For everyone I know, using a brush to whip up lather is too much work when they can press a button and get foam in an instant. Their loss.
If I ever come across anyone actually interested, I'll definitely help encourage them in any way I can. But right now I just feel so very blessed to have found it for myself. All of my straights except one(a family heirloom) I bought second hand and cleaned them up and honed them. The same for my DEs. I am so glad they are available to me, and hope to shave with them for as long as is physically possible.
I sincerely hope wetshaving does not die out, but I have enough straights that if it ever does, I'm good for the rest of my life. I'm good with that part, at least.

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Originally Posted by SRNewb

I wish I could say that I've introduced someone to wet shaving, be it with a straight, DE or SE. But truth be told, I can't even get anyone to stick with a cart, but try a decent brush and soap. For everyone I know, using a brush to whip up lather is too much work when they can press a button and get foam in an instant. Their loss.
If I ever come across anyone actually interested, I'll definitely help encourage them in any way I can. But right now I just feel so very blessed to have found it for myself. All of my straights except one(a family heirloom) I bought second hand and cleaned them up and honed them. The same for my DEs. I am so glad they are available to me, and hope to shave with them for as long as is physically possible.
I sincerely hope wetshaving does not die out, but I have enough straights that if it ever does, I'm good for the rest of my life. I'm good with that part, at least.

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Who knows? You may already have. Don't forget that when a new user posts here, what you send him off with in terms of advice and/or encouragement may be the difference between giving up and trying again armed with better knowledge. You never know what statements or bits of advice will hit home with someone.

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Originally Posted by OCDshaver

Who knows? You may already have. Don't forget that when a new user posts here, what you send him off with in terms of advice and/or encouragement may be the difference between giving up and trying again armed with better knowledge. You never know what statements or bits of advice will hit home with someone.

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This is true. I have received a huge amount of encouragement, mentoring and guidance from the shaving forums. I hope I can and have done so as well.

The straight razor made it into an article in Wired

The fact that Dovo has a three-year backlog it's a indicating factor that if there were enough new straight razors on the market there would be buyers for them. I think wet shaving is growing, and all of us here on the forum can expect a significant growth in the next 5 to 10 years, I only hope that manufacturers can keep up with the demand. One thing that has a vast amount of responsibility for the current growth is media, I'm not talking about TV, I'm talking about internet, youtube especially. One thing that would be great is that the guys on SRP, the experienced ones, could participate more on Youtube, there's a lot of videos out there, but only a few people know what they're saying.

Another thing, whether we admit it or not, the forum here is a small niche. The majority of people doesn't like to spend their time reading, they want to know all there's to know about a subject in a 5 minute tutorial. I mean, here on the forum we're talking about 100.000 people, on the mass accessing websites (again youtube) we are looking at millions.

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Originally Posted by WilliamDallaPorta

The fact that Dovo has a three-year backlog it's a indicating factor that if there were enough new straight razors on the market there would be buyers for them. I think wet shaving is growing, and all of us here on the forum can expect a significant growth in the next 5 to 10 years, I only hope that manufacturers can keep up with the demand. One thing that has a vast amount of responsibility for the current growth is media, I'm not talking about TV, I'm talking about internet, youtube especially. One thing that would be great is that the guys on SRP, the experienced ones, could participate more on Youtube, there's a lot of videos out there, but only a few people know what they're saying.

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I think there's two things going with youtube:
1) people like the idea that other people are watching them, especially when "other people" is some nameless, faceless mob
2) those of us who watch peoples shaves stand to get all sorts of things out of it, half of it is negative in my opinion. Things like
a. there are a lot of us who would rather watch people do things than lift a finger and actually do something
b. we can privately shame the person who is doing the shaving and feel good about ourselves (the eternal natural law that everyone likes to feel better by stepping on someone else's competence - especially when we get to do it by watching a video where the person making the video can't rebut anything)
c. when someone does something especially well, like if someone did a complete WTG and ATG shave in 3 minutes, everyone would want to see it just to see if there was something to learn

I'll bet in 3 years, there will be twice as many people shaving on videos in youtube as there are now. People can't resist the above.

Let alone the stupid stuff about reviewing a cream in a shave video. (my opinion). shaving with a straight razor is like carving, in my opinion - you need to get your tools set and then do it, you'll learn more doing it than you will doing anything else

I liken it to driving. Driving a manual transmission vehicle vs. automatic.

Manual transmissions are in decline for many reasons. I'd argue most just don't want to learn and consider it onerous - despite any benefit or enjoyment they may get. The auto industry is happy to oblige and charge you an extra $2k for an automatic (or, worse imho, not offer w/ manual).

Some, like my mother in law, just want to go from A to B and not worry about shifting.
Others, like my parents, cringe at the thought of paying extra for a car to shift for you when they can do so themselves just fine.