Thread: Surprised by his response

And here I was thinking that plain old isopropyl alcohol would be an effective sterilizer of a small surface area such as a straight edge razor. Hmph. Oh well, back to the hones...

Hello. I have been lurking these forums for some time, and now I have something to say.

As a Norwegian resident, I have been asked by several hairdressers to lears them how to use a straight, and due to "popular demand," I sat down with some of the more experienced piercers and tattoists of norway, to write down some guidelines for straight razor shaving in commercial enviroments.

In norway, there is no formal law against the use of a traditional straight, (yet.) However, since the straight razor is on the rise here, I assume it will soon be.

The reasons for using a shavette these days are closely related to the use of autoclaves in all enviroments where "cross-contamination" is a possibilty.

Not only are there several forms of diseases you can get, but due to overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and medicine, there are a great deal of bacteria who are now immune to common treatments.

Long story short, Piercers and tattoers are generally appalled with the low standards of hairdressers when it comes to healthcare precautions.
(especially with piercing guns, for making holes in the ears, which leads to infection way more than it should.)


THE POINT OF THIS POST:

I took two different approaches to this problem, and they were as follows

1: The shavette
Piercers and tattooers suggested this as the easy way out, and i agreed, with the exception of regular customers who brings their own equipment, or keeps it at shop.

Basically One man, one strop, one razor, shavette for everybody else.
(the old barber's i know of who are still active use this as a rule of thumb.)

2: The straight razor.
After testing out the gold dollars and finding them usable, although not exactly the cream of the crop, I responded to the suggestion of buying some 20-25 GD's and autoklaving, rotating razors within a shop, always having a sterile, nearly shave-ready one ready for stropping.

This is the result:

this was newwhen autoclaved, only honed and shaved with once for testing purposes

as you can see, it is in poor shape

it kept quite a good edge, but i assume the discoloration would cause material fatigue over time

as you can see, not only the handle suffers....

I cannot even begin to imagine what this would do to a nice vintage

an option would of course be to change the scales to metal, but to average Joe haircutter that would probably mean more work than it's worth....


Of course I am only playing Master of the Obvious right now, but I thought you would like the picture material for future reference.

tl;dr: I autoclaved a cheap razor and it looked like xxxxx, just as i was expecting

The problem with autoclaving straight razors is, as seen above, the scales.

What about interchangeable scales? If scales could be designed so that they easily came apart, allowing the blade to be autoclaved and then re-inserted into the scales, we'd have a system that worked better.

Another possibility would be, of course, steel scales.

Does not solve the contaminated strop problem, though.

What did they look like after you put them in the autoclave..........

Originally Posted by 1313wang

Hello. I have been lurking these forums for some time, and now I have something to say.

As a Norwegian resident, I have been asked by several hairdressers to lears them how to use a straight, and due to "popular demand," I sat down with some of the more experienced piercers and tattoists of norway, to write down some guidelines for straight razor shaving in commercial enviroments.

In norway, there is no formal law against the use of a traditional straight, (yet.) However, since the straight razor is on the rise here, I assume it will soon be.

The reasons for using a shavette these days are closely related to the use of autoclaves in all enviroments where "cross-contamination" is a possibilty.

Not only are there several forms of diseases you can get, but due to overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and medicine, there are a great deal of bacteria who are now immune to common treatments.

Long story short, Piercers and tattoers are generally appalled with the low standards of hairdressers when it comes to healthcare precautions.
(especially with piercing guns, for making holes in the ears, which leads to infection way more than it should.)


THE POINT OF THIS POST:

I took two different approaches to this problem, and they were as follows

1: The shavette
Piercers and tattooers suggested this as the easy way out, and i agreed, with the exception of regular customers who brings their own equipment, or keeps it at shop.

Basically One man, one strop, one razor, shavette for everybody else.
(the old barber's i know of who are still active use this as a rule of thumb.)

2: The straight razor.
After testing out the gold dollars and finding them usable, although not exactly the cream of the crop, I responded to the suggestion of buying some 20-25 GD's and autoklaving, rotating razors within a shop, always having a sterile, nearly shave-ready one ready for stropping.

This is the result:

this was newwhen autoclaved, only honed and shaved with once for testing purposes

as you can see, it is in poor shape

it kept quite a good edge, but i assume the discoloration would cause material fatigue over time

as you can see, not only the handle suffers....

I cannot even begin to imagine what this would do to a nice vintage

an option would of course be to change the scales to metal, but to average Joe haircutter that would probably mean more work than it's worth....


Of course I am only playing Master of the Obvious right now, but I thought you would like the picture material for future reference.

tl;dr: I autoclaved a cheap razor and it looked like xxxxx, just as i was expecting

It takes a minute…but…good one!

Originally Posted by Lynn

What did they look like after you put them in the autoclave..........

Originally Posted by 1313wang

Hello. I have been lurking these forums for some time, and now I have something to say.

As a Norwegian resident, I have been asked by several hairdressers to lears them how to use a straight, and due to "popular demand," I sat down with some of the more experienced piercers and tattoists of norway, to write down some guidelines for straight razor shaving in commercial enviroments.

In norway, there is no formal law against the use of a traditional straight, (yet.) However, since the straight razor is on the rise here, I assume it will soon be.

The reasons for using a shavette these days are closely related to the use of autoclaves in all enviroments where "cross-contamination" is a possibilty.

Not only are there several forms of diseases you can get, but due to overuse of antibiotics in agriculture and medicine, there are a great deal of bacteria who are now immune to common treatments.

Long story short, Piercers and tattoers are generally appalled with the low standards of hairdressers when it comes to healthcare precautions.
(especially with piercing guns, for making holes in the ears, which leads to infection way more than it should.)


THE POINT OF THIS POST:

I took two different approaches to this problem, and they were as follows

1: The shavette
Piercers and tattooers suggested this as the easy way out, and i agreed, with the exception of regular customers who brings their own equipment, or keeps it at shop.

Basically One man, one strop, one razor, shavette for everybody else.
(the old barber's i know of who are still active use this as a rule of thumb.)

2: The straight razor.
After testing out the gold dollars and finding them usable, although not exactly the cream of the crop, I responded to the suggestion of buying some 20-25 GD's and autoklaving, rotating razors within a shop, always having a sterile, nearly shave-ready one ready for stropping.

This is the result:

this was newwhen autoclaved, only honed and shaved with once for testing purposes

as you can see, it is in poor shape

it kept quite a good edge, but i assume the discoloration would cause material fatigue over time

as you can see, not only the handle suffers....

I cannot even begin to imagine what this would do to a nice vintage

an option would of course be to change the scales to metal, but to average Joe haircutter that would probably mean more work than it's worth....


Of course I am only playing Master of the Obvious right now, but I thought you would like the picture material for future reference.

tl;dr: I autoclaved a cheap razor and it looked like xxxxx, just as i was expecting

ha!................

Could always get rid of the scales altogether. As far as I know the only reason besides tradition for scales is portability, for a barber this is not very important there's no reason not to use a one piece, entirely metal razor such as the Japanese style which AFAIK was traditionally intended for barber use.

Would the Wapis with their stainless scales be autoclavable? I'd assume so (I think that was the reason for the heavy stainless scales in the first place).

Still, given the current litigation-happy environment (especially here in the states), I'm not surprised that most barbers are not willing to use straights.


Even things like the Shavettes and Feather AC system have nooks and crannies where germs could reside without 'proper' disinfection. A smart lawyer would have a field day with these things.


Not saying it's right, but you have to look at other people's perspectives as well.


I have a friend with an indoor swimming pool. He makes his buddies sign a disclaimer before he'll let them use it. Distressing, but smart.

Originally Posted by Ryan82

Honestly, I'm not surprised. There are many barbers out there, including some old timers who were around in the glory days, who think that straights are a fools game. We hear about them here quite often.

Disappointing? For sure, but not really surprising.

I got the same response from my barber.

He claimed he cut a person really bad one day during a shave and gave up shaving customers.


A sobering reminder for me, thats for sure.

for me it's easy.
i tell everybody they get shavette-treatment until they can provide their own razor and strop.

I do not however follow up on the last suggestion of the other people dealing with blood on a daily basis, vinyl glowes.

Shaving someone with a shavette is impersonal enough as it is already, and although gloves would make it a good deal safer for both parts contamination wise, it's just against the basic principle of what having a shave is all about.

relaxing and having someone treating you to a moment of zen