Thread: Does your shave last longer with a straight than with other methods?

Originally Posted by decraew

I've never did this type of experiment - as far as I'm concerned there's way too many variables involved, and I do not have a decent laboratory.

(At a tangent, it always amazes me that one of the SR shaving brethren can take a new product, test it once or twice, and is immediately able to say how good or bad it is, as I said: too many variables).

But it does not seem very logical to me that there would be a marked difference in how long your skin stays smooth.
Even if it's correct that with a straight you go below the skin and therefore you cut off more beard hair, what is cut off additionally should be very very small and unless there's a difference in speed of beard hair growth depending on what you use for a razor, it doesn't make sence that the difference would be noticeable.

I think it's more likely a difference due to technique.

So much of shaving takes place at the microscopic level that people can believe pretty much whatever they want. That's why so many people rave about Gold Dollars.

I think all one who is really curious has to do is press a razor to the skin and see how deeply it presses into the skin without cutting skin... And then putting aside their preconceived notions and focus more on WHAT is right than the all-important issue of WHO is right..... And then one might see that a safety razor does not behave in the same fashion. It is, by design, intended to float along the surface of the skin and the depth is VERY limited mechanically.

This is why it isn't unreasonable to assume that the fixed angle of the blade and depth pressure of a safety razor just MIGHT NOT be the perfect setting for all skin, all beards, all people, all directions, all the time.

Spokeshaves vs hand planes. Hand engraving vs machine engraving. Same/same? People either get it or they don't and it's not so important as to be worth more argumentation.

I'd like to thank everyone that respectfully and logically cleared up all my misconceptions about this with their well-reasoned explanations.

But Robert, do you seriously propose that the combination of the following two things makes sense? 1. Squeegee microchips so tiny you need a high powered microscope to visualise them. 2. Big, big razors wielded by hands of mere mortals with a protective layer of foam between them and the skin?

I am a Christian, and prone, in general, to believe in miracles. But this proposition of yours, while new and potentially exciting, is more than I am willing to believe. For reasons of physics. And material science. And ten years of experience.

I propose that you'd rather assert that you are right and I am silly than actually think about what I actually said. And that's your prerogative, so it's all good.

That's why man created safety razors. Because no hand can match the precision of a machine. That's why all the best race car drivers choose automatic transmissions.

Christian humility is an awesome thing to behold. [/sarcasm]

Ten years of experience. Oh my! Welcome to the straight razor shaving world, Newbie. . I was a member of this forum years before you even thought about shaving with a straight razor, so the logical fallacy appeal to (self) authority falls a little flat.

I still remember the same sort of endless pissing contests on SRP when it was nothing but a fledgling yahoo user group. (Hats off to Lynn!) Damn, I feel old.

If I may, gentlemen.
Let us all try to keep this civil and focus on the matter at hand, not the persons debating it.

Originally Posted by RobinK

The razor must be Joel's Chronik.

To answer your actual question, a vintage single edge will give you the closest and longest lasting shave. Failing that, a double edge razor will do.

You know, I tend to agree with you about the single edge (although the vintage stipulation is somewhat puzzling). Why do you think a single edge (as opposed to the double edge) gives the closest longest lasting shaves? What are the key elements and science behind it? Or is it just your gut feeling(?), which is OK, too.

Seems we both believe the same thing about what shaves closest, so we must only be quibbling about why, so tell us your theory about why a single edge razor shaves closer than a double edge or any other safety razor. . You have obviously given it much thought, so I was hoping you could share what you learned.

I imagine it could stay civil if it weren't for only one so called mans inevitable persistent ravings of his so called intelligence in all matters and to blatantly attack anyone who says otherwise or is from America, ( like Germans are the end all) I for one would love to see a whole week go by with out that kind of sarcasm and hate.

Now for the post, I don't know if it is true one way or the other, but I enjoy the shaves better and I do get a great shave from the straight, but I will say this after 40+ years with a DE my Fatboy on 9 with a feather blade will deliver a great shave also. I shave everyday so I,m not sure if it lasts longer, plus. Believe most of what Birnardo said, I think we process our shaves with more care and detail using our vast amount of information now available.

I apologize to anyone who takes offense at my start of this post, it needs to be said , unchecked aggression , is what started a war in the mid 1900,s. Tc

There's another point here I think, and to me it's not about the closeness of the straight razor shave but the magnitude of the differential between that shave and shaves achieved via other implements.

If indeed such a differential exists, then to me it becomes about the magnitude. Are people saying your shave lasts longer by a day? Two days? Half a day?

To be frank, for me anything less than a day's differential is, from a practical point of view, pointless, and therefore for all intents and purposes not a differential at all - I only shave once a day, so who really cares if my straight razor shave lasts 4 hours longer than my mach 3 shave?

Now you may say "Well hold on there one cotton-pickin' minute Jimbo, 4 hours can make a heck of a lot of difference!" And I would say yes, that's true, but it's not the stubble that gives you away it's that they can see your adams apple. (That's a small joke... )

No, but seriously, the magnitude of the difference between a straight razor shave versus a non straight razor shave: I could buy the argument if this differential were small-ish, or even perhaps moderate-ish. But I'm not so sure about it if you start talking in the order of magnitude of a day or more - seems too big to me. Certainly it doesn't tally with my own shaving experience of the past 30 years (of which 20 were with disposable mach3 type razors, and the last 10 with straights).

So, in summary: I'm not saying I don't think straights give a better shave. However, I don't think they give such a better shave that it is of any practical importance: If you are a once a day shaver with a bic, I think you will continue be a once a day shaver if you start using straights. Your 5 o'clock shadow might be a bit less, but that's about it.

James.

Originally Posted by Jimbo

No, but seriously, the magnitude of the difference between a straight razor shave versus a non straight razor shave: I could buy the argument if this differential were small-ish, or even perhaps moderate-ish.

That shouldn't be hard to estimate.
A day is 24 hours, and to first approximation I'd say linear hair growth is pretty reasonable assumption.
So, you take a look at the hair length when you shave - that's over 24 hours since your yesterday's shave - and you have a good estimate for the growth rate.
Suppose, the median daily shaving man would shave at 7am. By 5pm there have been 10 hours, so the "5 o'clock shadow" phenomenon refers to 40% of the daily hair growth. I suppose the "5 o'clock" part is mostly for cultural reasons (end of the work day, cocktail hour, etc. being immensely important mark psychologically), but I would say it's reasonable to assume that '2pm shadow' would've been significant enough to merit distinction.
The 3h interval between 2pm and 5pm corresponds to 12% of the daily growth or to 30% of the 'noticeable 5 o'clock shadow'.

Of course, this is the long and convoluted way to say that since the day has 24 hours, if you can cut 10% more of the amount that the hair grows in a day you would add 24h*10%=2.4h to 'how long your shave lasts (however you want to define that)'. Those 2.4 hours are around 25% of the typical workday, so in certain way they are very significant (e.g. looking better at a late afternoon meeting) and insignificant in others (being able to skip a day of shaving).
The question is still - can you cut 10% more hair if you use different shaving method - and just looking at the lather on your razor when you shave you can see how much 100% is (clearly it varies from person to person, on different parts of the face, and it usually varies for the same person depending on the season).

Yes Gugi, I agree. I can't see why you wouldn't assume a constant hair growth rate, so linear overall growth is reasonable to me too. Unless something happens during sleep, but even then a piecewise linear daily growth curve would probably suffice.

In that daily growth curve, if we redefine 7am say as the "0" hour, then the argument seems to me to be about intercept, with parallel curves for the various shaving implements (assuming growth is only related to time and not to the initial length of the freshly-shaved beard).

However, the actual growth rate of a beard will determine the total daily growth of course - someone with a growth rate of 5 whatsits/hour will end up with 24*5 (120) whatsits of hair growth in a day, whereas someone whose growth rate is 3 whatsits/hour will only end up with 24*3 (72).

Now I'd argue that shaving implement will not change a person's growth rate. That may be controversial - I'm prepared to weather that storm if and when it arises. Scholarly debate is, after all, healthy and to be expected in areas such as this. I would argue, however, that shaving implement (as I mentioned before) impacts on the intercept for example thusly:


(red line is a bic shave, blue line is a mach 3 shave, black line is a straight razor shave)

Now as we can see from the figure, if we choose a level of growth that we deem "acceptable", let's say 20 on the y-axis, extend horizontally across to where it hits the 3 lines, it should be clear that we can read off how many hours post 7am it takes to get to that level of growth for the three implements.

Now imagine the slopes were steeper (faster growth rate). You can see, I hope, that the differences in time to reach the acceptable growth level reduce between the various shavers. If you flattened the slope of the line, the differences in time would increase. In fact, a little math/algebra shows that the time difference between two shaving techniques to reach a pre-determined growth is:

|(Initial length of stubble of razor type 1 - Initial length of stubble of razor type 2)|/(stubble growth rate)

And it doesn't take a Sicilian to see that as you increase the denominator the time difference becomes negligible. In other words, the faster your beard grows the smaller the impact of your shaving implement.

On the other hand, if your beard grows slowly then you will notice a marked impact of the shaving implement.

So as we can see, math has saved the day again. We have clearly proven that everyone is right. Those who are saying they notice a difference in their beard growth are saying so because their beards grow slowly. Those, like myself, who don't think there's much difference, are also correct because clearly their beards grow quickly.

QED.

Professor Jimbo.

And here i thought it was just the angels with laser beams strapped on their heads, dancing on my razor's edge.