Thread: Nothing against the Barbers

I’ve been reading a lot of arguments lately that refer to barbers. The way the barber did it, the years of developed technique, if it worked for barbers shaving customer after customer etc.- these sorts of arguments.

I had my first barber shave, he used a replaceable blade. He did a good job, but I could tell he had trouble in the same places that give me trouble and the replaceable blade(brand?) was dulling by the second pass. The shave was not perfect.

What I hear in those arguments, whether they are for shaving technique, honing, stropping technique is romanticism. While I am sure there were artist among them, perfectionist, and true masters, by and large they were/are simply tradesman. As such the looked for methods that gave them the most return for their effort. And to do a job that was/is good enough.

As a dedicated hobbyist without regard for time and expense I can do a better job of it; a better shave, a longer lasting edge without reference to what barbers used to do. I don’t use a hanging strop. I use a paddle. I don’t strop at high speed because I see it is not needed. I don’t use a barber hone as I have much better hones-synthetic and natural.

Barber techniques work but they are not the end all be all of sharpen and shave. Imho.
My point... most of us are not barbers. We can improve quality beyond what the average barber provided many years ago.