I beg to differ.
For once, it is an extremely luxurious and satisfying experience being pampered for 20-30 minutes while enjoying a professional shave, including hot towels and the works.
Secondly, it gives a straight shaver the perfect opportunity to measure one’s own skills against a professional barber who does this for a living (if you can find one).
Rather than using the comparison of going to a dentist to have one’s teeth brushed, this straight shaver would rather equate this with going to a fine dining restaurant and compare the chef’s creations with one’s own skills in the kitchen, with the opportunity to find some inspiration that one might want to try at home.
For me, the net result is that I now have come to the point where a professional shave rarely measures up to what I can achieve at home, even though I still do take pleasure in the old-fashioned experience, atmosphere and luxury of combining a haircut and shave in a Southern European barber shop.
Like this one: http://portovore.com/salao-veneza/
(In fact, I just had a haircut yesterday, so that my hair is long enough to do just that when I go to Portugal next month.:))
But to each his own....
B