Thread: How to Use a Razor

Taken from the paper wrapping of a "Silver Beauty - Full Concave" razor, Sears, Roebuck & Co.

How to Use a Razor

Lay the razor as nearly flat as possible and cut in a sloping direction. Do not scrape or hold razor at an angle; this will spoil the edge, irritate the skin and cause the best razor to fail. It is highly beneficial to wash the face with warm water and soap before shaving, and time spent in softening the beard adds materially to the comfort of the operation. To keep a razor in good condition, it should be stropped before and after each shave and honed every four or five weeks. Do not overhone, a few strokes only are necessary. If a good quality hone and strop are used and proper care taken of the razor, it should give excellent service for many years.

What do they mean by "lay the razor as nearly flat as possible and cut in a sloping direction"? Flat as in shallow blade angle? Sloping as in the tip leading approach or scything?

It's interesting to see the instructions that come with razors. I'm sure it's a translation issue, but my Dovo instructions seem to use "hone" when they mean "strop" and caused me all sorts of confusion when I first started.

Thanks for that mparker.

James.

My cynicism always gets the better of me with any form of instructions. At the end of the day the instructions were written by someone who wants to sell more knives. If they really want to sell more knives, why give you instructions in how to keep the knife working well "for many years"?

Same goes with any product. Instructions are to be taken with a pinch of salt in my opinion, they are almost always devised to make you use more product then you need, so that you run out faster, or to make the product fail sooner, meaning you need to buy a new one.

Si

One of the advantages of all this cr*p that comes with middle age is that you are able to remember when things were really different.

One thing that was *really* different in the 50's & early 60's is that "built-in obselescence" in product design and marketing hadn't caught on yet. Almost everything was built like a tank. My mother-in-law's toaster, received as a wedding gift in 1948, is still putting in good service at our son's home. (Many people have working vintage Toastmaster toasters in working use on the kitchen counter.)

How could they have stayed in business? I'm no business / economics expert but it seems to me there was a "unmet need" for products at the time before saturation of the market set in.

If Sears was looking to sell more razors, it seems to me they would have told you to hone "vigorously" every couple of weeks...

Just my 2 cents. Sure am glad they built these razors so well!

--Paul

The thing that struck me was that these directions would be read by guys that did know how to shave (at least by the standards of the day), and I suspect Sears didn't intend for them to be a source of comedy. There's very little of the sort of marketing exaggeration one would expect from the era predating deceptive-advertising laws (I've got a Shuredge whose directions claim it never needs stropping!), and while I immediately assumed the bit about laying the razor flat on your face was due to preemptively defensive lawyers, those sorts of lawsuits (e.g. the McDonalds hot coffee lawsuit) were still a good 60 years in the future when these instructions were written.

It seems likely that Sears really did think that these were reasonable instructions that wouldn't get them laughed out of the room and that would deliver a decent shave if followed. It may be that these directions were designed for somebody that had never shaved before, and that experienced shavers did it the way we do. But I thought they were interesting since they were intended for the common man (probably a beginner) and not a professional barber under professional tutelage.

Edit: Perhaps I was simply more observant this morning after typing up this post last night, but when I was shaving this morning I noticed that the spine was rarely more than a half width above my face, and actually lay flat on my face quite a bit as I varied the angle over my face. I knew my angle had been dropping in recent months as my edges have been getting sharper, but I guess I just never really realized how shallow it had been getting. I wonder if I could handle a long-term Feather relationship now...

I thought you were just supposed to hold it by the blunt end and scrape the sharp end over our face...

Originally Posted by mparker762

Taken from the paper wrapping of a "Silver Beauty - Full Concave" razor, Sears, Roebuck & Co.

How to Use a Razor

Lay the razor as nearly flat as possible and cut in a sloping direction. Do not scrape or hold razor at an angle; this will spoil the edge, irritate the skin and cause the best razor to fail. It is highly beneficial to wash the face with warm water and soap before shaving, and time spent in softening the beard adds materially to the comfort of the operation. To keep a razor in good condition, it should be stropped before and after each shave and honed every four or five weeks. Do not overhone, a few strokes only are necessary. If a good quality hone and strop are used and proper care taken of the razor, it should give excellent service for many years.

Perhaps people were just smarter back then? Somehow, they could get away with short, to-the-point instructions, and the customers just "got it."

- Scott

Those directions are exactly correct. I'm not sure what the fuss is about ????
If you look in our files you'll see the same thing in the permanent archives on "How to shave" . . .

what the commercial entities were fighting back in the day were guys that were using 30, 40, 50 degree angles and complaining about irritation.

This was just an attempt to let people know that too much angle caused pressure, irritation and a need to hone a lot. This was the common falacy of the day, and remains a falacy in our midst too.

Back then, all you did was shave so you looked clean cut and irritation free.

You'll find some great shaves if you lower the angle to 10 for the first pass and go up to 20 for the second, but you may find a little less closeness.

1922 Maher and Grosh, How to shave:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/compo...d,19/Itemid,3/

The instructions printed on the coffin of my Kropp also instruct the user to lay the blade flat and begin. I don't have it with me to read right now to compare with the Sears instructions, but they are very similar.

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

1922 Maher and Grosh, How to shave:

http://straightrazorpalace.com/compo...d,19/Itemid,3/

I find the end of that document very interesting, the part that says:

". . . plenty of water, to soften the beard, and lots of wet lather rubbed into the skin are of far more importance than the quality of the razor."

I only started shaving with a straight last Saturday. I'm still not very good at it, and this morning I decided to take a break and use the old Mach 3. But I still did the same prep I do for a straight shave, and got the best shave I've ever had. I'm looking forward to being able to get a shave that nice from the straight, but it goes to show the importance of proper prep.