Shaving back in the day...

I realize that no one here is old enough to have personal experience with this question but I wonder if back in the day before safety razors were around what the straight razor learning process was like?

Today we hear that it takes a minimum of 100 shaves before you are decent and that it's OK to use a safety razor to touch up while learning.

Did the average guy just learning to shave just have lousy shaves for a long time or did they just go to the barber shop for shaves along the way?

In our lifetimes shaving has never been hard even if you started out with a DE. Straights are a different beast.

Maybe that's why there were so many beards when straight razors were the only game in town?

Might've been a little bit easier, since I imagine any adolescent looking to learn to shave would've had their father right there teaching them. It's a slightly different game when you're trying to teach yourself in your late 20's or older from an old barber's guide and some things you picked up from a buncha guys on the internet.

I imagine if they started learning when I did, by the time they were 18 most were proficient enough to get the job done with minimal fuss. They probably forgot for the most part how much learning to handle a straight sucked by the time they got to my age.

I guarantee you this though. I'll never forget the decade plus of bad shaves I got from disposables.

In the 1800 and 1900s, unless you were wealthy, most men were probably lucky to be able to afford a single razor, not the dozens many of us acquire today.

Men might have a dedicated razor strop, but I suspect many men stropped their razors on their belt, horse saddle, pants leg, or chaps. They may have had to visit the barber to have their razor refreshed on a barber's hone and strop. For more serious sharpening, they would have to wait for the traveling sharpening man to come by and sharpen their knives, axes, scissors and razors. The sharpening stones used were likely to be whatever stone was available locally, perhaps a smooth stone from a stream with one side flattened. Today, we can purchase a variety of synthetic waterstones, diamond hones and ceramics and natural sharpening stones from Germany, Belgium, Wales, Japan, South Africa, Brazil, Italy, Arkansas, Vermont, etc. I cannot imaging having to rely on a single stone for all my sharpening needs.

They may have had some pigments like ochre they could use for polishing, but they certainly did not have graded synthetic diamond or CBN sprays we have today. Thus, the blades we shave with today probably have a much keener and smoother edge than those of years past. It is remarkable that we can get such good edges on blades that were manufactured well over 100 years ago. I suspect we may get better edges than the original owners ever achieved.

The advantage that they had back then was the shared experience among males, a right of passage from boyhood to manhood. I can remember how excited I was when, as a boy/young man, I finally had enough peach fuzz on my cheeks that I was allowed to pick up a DE razor with a sharp blade in it rather than the empty razor I had been allowed to play with previously. I wish my father had shown me how to use a straight razor instead; as far as I know, he never owned one. I am now making up for decades of time.

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Originally Posted by RayClem

I finally had enough peach fuzz on my cheeks

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I think that is the answer that wins the internet today

My learning curve was pretty darn easy with a SR I started when I was 21 so I did not have near the beard I have now

I also did not have access to a SR shaving site to draw me into the "Hobby" so it was simply Shaving and Maintaining the edge as I was taught from my barber.. Did that for nearly 26 years with one stone two razors one strop and a Ever-ready brush

There is a big difference between "Simply Shaving" which honestly we don't hear or see much from those people on these sites.. Shavers come here, learn what they need to and move on with their lives we hear from them on the Forum when they have a question..
The rest of us that post on here are Hobbyists / Sport Shavers and what we do is not simply shaving..

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Originally Posted by gssixgun

I think that is the answer that wins the internet today.....

The rest of us that post on here are Hobbyists / Sport Shavers and what we do is not simply shaving..

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I wish that what I have on my face was still peach fuzz. It is amazing at how much coarser the beard gets as we age.

You are absolutely right about the membership of SRP. Those of us who frequent it do so because shaving has become a hobby, or, for some, a career.
There is nothing wrong with that.

Back in those days traditional families were the rule and even if you didn't have a father present there was always an older brother or an uncle or friend who could teach you.

Grandpa had been a barber when he was young so gave my dad a Century shavette when he started shaving. Dad then gave it to me when I started. However to them shaving was just shaving. Recently I started seeing some of the wet shaving sites and became interested and just got my first true straight razor from a member here on the site a couple weeks ago. My dad finds it funny that something he took for granted I'm now seeing as an exciting new hobby and obsession. He hasn't wet shaved since I was a kid but I'm trying to get him back into it.

I imagine there was a time when most guys were shaved by a barber once or twice a week, and didn't shave themselves. This was probably only true in the more urban areas. Folks in the more rustic areas had to do it themselves, or simply grew a beard.

As you were...thought this was a thread about back shaving with a straight.

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Originally Posted by MedicineMan

As you were...thought this was a thread about back shaving with a straight.

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:roflmao that would take talent

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.

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Originally Posted by easyace

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

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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.