Thread: Shaving back in the day...

A lot of what we use isn't all that new. Swaty barber hones were around in the early 1900s. I'm sure coticules and Arkansas stones have been around a while as well. A lot of the old sales ads have hones of various materials and size options, many aren't unfamiliar to us today. They may not have had pastes, and I'm sure skill with the utensils on hand varied from person to person, but I bet some folks way back when made wicked edges.

I'm sure to folks back then it was 'simply shaving' because they had more good shaves (even by our hobbyist standards) in their second year shaving alone than I had in my first 10. In another 5 years when I've settled on a preferred finishing system and there's not much new for me to experiment and play with, it'll probably be 'just shaving' to me too.

Beards were very popular before the invention of the safety razor.

Originally Posted by easyace

Beards were very popular before the invention of the safety razor.

Yes, but look at all the bare chins with mutton-chops?! They knew how to shave.
~Richard

I remember watching my grandfather shave his beard that was like a steel brush. He took hot water off the stove, mixed his soap with a homemade brush, probably horsehair, stropped his razor, put on the soap and did one atg with long sweeping strokes. Then against the grain the same way. 5-10 minutes and he was done. Amazing to a little kid. I appreciate it more now that I use a straight razor.

Naowadays everything has to be fast and easy. Back then people accepted things took time. Like learning how to shave, strop and hone. Many would go to a barber every so often. The more dexterous learnt how to do it themselves. Many men would only shave once a week. A patient of mine told me his father who was a barber used to be open on Sundays to shave men who wanted to go to church clean-shaven.
My mother's uncle had his razor honed by a barber like many in the early 1900's used to do according to a Dutch barber's manual. He only had a loom strop and 2 Heljestrand razors. Most Dutch man shaved with German razors, Solingen being not that far away. He used to travel to Sweden a lot for his work and bought his razors there.