40 years of bad shaving with the latest and (hardly the) greatest. I think I had more trouble than most people with the cartridges and disposables. Monday would be my only close comfortable shave. Tuesday it would begin to irritate. Wednesday-Friday my face was chapped. I didn't shave on the weekends at all if I could help it so my face could heal.

I was also fascinated by the use of straight razors in movies.

Two years ago I reached the breaking point. I made a renewed commitment to electric razors, which my dad used, and the new razor head assembly gave good results for one week before beginning to deteriorate despite my best attempts to clean it. Then I went back to the Fusion. When they were invented about 15 or so years ago the strip stayed green for several weeks. Now the green was going away in two days. The green was the indication that it was time to change cartridges. I felt like a first class sucker.

I ordered a Parker 91R DE razor which was defective and I didn't know it. Then after two weeks I explained to the vendor what was happening and he interpreted it as defective. I got a 34C HD Merkur because it was his personal razor. So I got close comfortable shaves on a consistent basis for the first time in my life at Age 54.

The lure of straight razor shaving took root when I found this article on the internet: Is Straight Razor Shaving for You? - Yahoo! Voices - voices.yahoo.com. While on the learning curve I had the DE shaving to fall back on when necessary. I ordered the equipment and persevered for two years, when I finally nailed it. I'm still struggling with my stropping. But I'm loving it.