Thread: Does it get mundane?

I am really enjoying straight razor shaving, and all things related, especially this site and what our posters have to offer. When I took up SR shaving in February, I daily looked for advice from you guys who were a few, or many steps ahead.

So, I return with this question. For how many of you has SR shaving become routine...to the status (or nearly) of your former means of shaving? I suspect I'll get skewed answers as those who have lost the zing are probably no longer hitting this site.

Best to all.

I still look forward to shaving with the straight razor every day. Don't know if it's just the razor or the combination of the brush, warm suds, stropping and all the great fragrances, but what used to be just a daily chore is now a high light of the day for me.

So many razors, so many hones, so many great fragrances and still so much to learn.............

Lynn

The one article that really changed my view on shaving is this one here by Sensei Kyle: The Zen of Straight Shaving - Straight Razor Place Wiki. Apart from the fact that there is still something new to discover every day ("I wouldn't have thought I could cut myself in this area..."), spending time on your own, focussed on one goal, is the opposite of mundane, at least for me.

I started shaving with a straight in 1980 and ... I still look forward to shaving every day (and sometimes twice).

I look forward to shaving everyday. Nothing mundane about it. The whole process of shaving for me has me wanting to shave versus thinking of it as drab. My lady loves a smooth shave and can't keep her hands off me when I shave and that really helps me seal the deal for the love and art of daily shaving with a straight or even a DE when I'm in a hurry or waiting for my razors to return from being honed and tested.

I've only been straight shaving for about 6 months and I have never felt this happy about stepping in front of the mirror to shave, ever.

Only ten months into straights and I look forward to each and every shave...

If it ever gets mundane, (I doubt it) I'll have another reason to buy yet another straight razor

I'm seven months into this and still enthralled. There is just too much involved for me to ever get bored. When I first started I thought that collecting and restoring razors was just something for retired old men. After one or two wins on ebay I quickly changed my mind on that. I now have the necessary basic tools to do jobs like hand sanding, polishing and re-pinning scales. I'm looking forward to the time when I can buy the tools, and have the space, to make my own scales.
I thought honing a razor was just a necessary chore and people who collected hones were somehow deficient, after all, it's just a lump of rock. But now I'm watching a number of antique hones on ebay as the clock slowly ticks down to the final moments of the auction. When I shave with a razor that I honed I have the satisfying thought that my honing skills (what little I have) have turned this razor from a jaggard letter opener into a precision shaving implement.
So I think that even if I live to be 120 years old, I will never get bored with this.
But on the other hand I can say with certainty is that my wife is well and truelly bored with my obsession for razors and razor related stuff.

There is something intrinsically rewarding about developing and then exercising a skill, it doesn't matter what it is. This is a growing casulty of our modern world, where one can almost muddle through without *any* particular skill... what will become of us then?

-Chief

Sometimes it sucks, because it takes up a fair bit of time. So I won't do it every morning (as I have a tendency to enjoy my bed too much and then need to fly to work ). But I've been progressing a lot in recent weeks on technique, shaving approach and therefore speed, so I hope to get that issue out of the way.

Other than that, I've got sort of a soap collection, so it's the whole thing of picking the soap of the day and such, plus all the other good things (scuttled lather with the big warm brush, micronuked towel, aftershaves) that make it a little ritual to look forward to. I guess the same reason I don't have a fully automatic espresso machine: The manual stuff is just part of the joy, and then of course the good cup of coffee that comes out.