Thread: Practice razor -safe

Shoki,
In your case, then, I would support erring on the side of caution. "Slow and thoughtful" is a good way to proceed. My own cuts came about because I wasn't paying attention. In each case, I stopped and asked myself what I did wrong so I would not make the same mistake again. Where gun owners must have muzzle control, straight shavers must have edge awareness. You must exercise this each and every time, but some of us have the unfortunate luxury of forgetting to exercise it. Each time I forget, though, my awareness and technique improve when I renew use.

Originally Posted by LawsonStone

I would just note that our forebears learned to shave by two resources that we do not have, which it is often wise to supply by various means.

First, most boys grew up watching their dad and/or brothers shaving. I remember sitting on the floor of my grand-dad's bathroom on cold mornings where the bathroom was the only warm room in the house, watching him whip his whiskers off with a straight. Boys growing up might watch thousands of shaves and have their memories full of images and conversations about the right way to do it.

Second, a very common toy given to little boys was a "play razor" set. Often this included soap, mug, and a "play" razor. I remember as a boy lathering up and then "shaving" with my toy razor. When the time came to use the real thing, I had "shaved" countless times with a non-lethal instrument.

Most of us lack these two vital life-learning resources. So that's why I appreciate so much this forum and the video's people post--it replaces #1 above. I also found a dulled razor very helpful. I have used my dulled Gold Dollar to let many of my students learn to strop before actually risking their new strop on a sharp blade. They have enjoyed using it also to practice their strokes and work up the nerve to try the real thing.

So…good idea. Some will crack on you for it. I have no idea why. Your practice razor fulfills the task that many a young boy learning to shave satisfied by more playful means.

Thank you for that wisdom and it gave me another idea in which I will start another thread similar to this concept, but with a different twist.

Gibbs,
Your picture doesn't look like you're old enough to need aspirin therapy. I do the low dose aspirin thing too and I know what you mean about bleeding. I like your idea for hand/eye coordination on the off side. When I first started with the straights I was very awkward with my left hand/left side. It's better now, but I really cut myself badly on the left side the first week and had to lay off the straights for a couple weeks to heal.
At any rate, I think that you will pick up the muscle coordination and certainly grease the synapses--like you said--just like dry shooting.

This is what you look like when you are old enough to take asprin... this is "my" avatar.


Makes me wonder about starting a thread in the major foum for folks to post pictures of themselves. They did this over at the Saiga-12 foums and it was kind of neat.

Well heck, you still look great. I like the pose too.

Gibbs, thanks for your post. I think it makes a lot of sense. Enough sense that I just tried my first "practice" shave with a dulled blade. I have a much different sense of what I'm in for with my first real straight razor shave, a sense I haven't gotten from videos or reading how-to's or reading posts. The traditional advice of limiting first shaves to the cheeks also makes a lot more sense to me now. There's a lot of awkwardness involved, I don't know how anyone could question the value of practicing this without the risk of cutting oneself. I thought it was a good idea based on reading some posts, first hand experience has confirmed it for me.

I personally jumped right in with both feet and started with a very sharp razor. Sure I nicked myself several times. But as time went by, the nicks became fewer and came farther apart. Now it only occurs once in about ten shaves.