Thread: "Smooth shave" - What is it?

Sharp and smooth are two separate attributes. You can end up with one, both, or if you really mess up, neither.

Smoothness is rather pointless without sharpness, unless you are happy to do a four-pass shave that still isn't BBS.

Sharpness without smoothness is perhaps more tolerable. At least the irritation should go after an hour or so.

I agree with most of the post so far. To me, my razors are all sharp. Sharpness is a measure of the cutting edge, and how well it does it's job ie. cut hair. However, I usually don't refer to an edge as smooth. While I do realize that finer grit hones and pastes will provide a smoother edge on a razor, I usually reserve smoothness for describing my shave. If I have little to no irritation and no pulling throughout a shave I define that as smooth.

Originally Posted by majurey

Shaving off coticule -- sharp and exceptionally smooth. Zero irritation, and no sting with alum at all.

I was actually thinking about this before this thread popped up. I've been shaving since March, and on my 3rd razor. All razors came honed by various honemeisters here. I've rehoned two razors using BBW + Coticule (one from a complete bevel reset using glass). The third razor I have not messed with yet as I just got it last week. I've found that my coticule + water razors are not as sharp (even after 100+ laps, very light pressure), but a lot smoother with less irritation when I shave.

I had posted a thread in the honing section about how to creep up on the keeness prior to using the coticule, advice was to use something like a norton 8K, then finish with the coticule (I don't really want to use paste, although I'm sure that would do the trick, too).

Overall, I think there is a point where the razor is "sharp enough", and any sharper is diminishinig returns on the shaving experience-- whereas focusing on polishing/smoothing starts to matter more. Ideally you can find a rock that can do both!

-Chief

no irritation, not painful while shaving dduring or after. no burn when applying aftershave, thats the best tell. after a "smooth" shave u put on aftershave and theres no burn

A smooth shave:
Is when your facial hair see's how impressively sharp, shiny and beautiful your razor is and jumps off your face on its own.

Mac

Originally Posted by gssixgun

some of the Begall's .

Heh, funny you should mention them, I honed and shaved with one of those today and noted it's 'smoothness' in my ad.

I would agree with the initial definitions, I think sharpness is a prerequisit for smoothness though, a smooth razor that doesn't cut hair is probably as dull as a butter knife. Razors that pull obviously couldn't be smooth either.

When I say smooth shaving I mean it is near bbs without the effort of 3 passes and detail.

I consider sharp and smooth edges the same for straight razor. because if it isnt smooth it isnt properly sharp

but what is sharp? I look at each tool as having a certain level of shapness, somewhat defined by bevel parameters as well as its intended use.

Machete can be sharp / for a machete - there is no need taking it to 30k hone etc

Its easy. The best possible shave is one where if you were blindfolded and didn't know someone was about to shave you, you could never tell a razor was being run up or down your face. Now that's smooth.

It means what ever you want it to mean. Of course, it might mean something else to someone else. This is the problem with subjective terms like smooth, rough, good, bad, etc.

I like thebigspendurs definition.

Sharp, it means it cuts hair easily.
Smooth it's how does it feel on my face. It doesn't need to create irritation, if I feel the edge against my skin it's not quite smooth. The best is if I can't feel the razor at all, just the hair is being cut.

And yes sometimes a razor isn't terribly sharp, i.e. it doesn't cut the hair extremely close to the skin, but it feels very comfortable, while another razor can be sharper and produce a very close shave, yet it's not too comfortable.

To me smoothness is essential, I can tolerate less sharpness much easily.