Thread: Reflecting: How did we get here?

Whoever thought back in my gangster days in N.Y C carrying a straight in my boot I'd be shaving with one? Yes, truth is stranger than fiction. But here I am all these years later.

Just stumbling upon a site selling them around 10 years ago was all it took.

I started looking into DE's 3 years ago, and cost was the driving force. Struggled learning to use it, and then found this site somehow, and the problem was solved. It didn't take long until I wanted a straight, and that was out of curiosity, from being on here. My first razor was a Boker Red injun I picked up at an antique shop. I cleaned it up, sanitized it, honed it on a 4/8 Norton after reading up on honing. It must have had a a decent bevel on it still, because I got it sharp ...enough. Talked to a local barber, he gave me a Franz swatty barber hone, I bought a strop, watched lots of vids. I still can't set a bevel have all the stones I need, it just isn't clicking. So me being cheap, got me here, little did I know this would become a hobby, and an expensive one!

had been shaving about once every couple weeks till about 17/18.

was looking online to try to find some cheap gillete catridges.

but i came across barberblades.co.uk


they had a set of wilkinson sword brush+soap shavvete + stepic matches and 40 blades for £15

i thought bargin and decided to try it.


after month of youtube vids and nursing wounds i found badger and blade, which led me to other products


then eventually to here and tsr


4 straights + de + 7 soaps later im enjoying shaving and its no longer a chore.

Originally Posted by Trimmy72

I started looking into DE's 3 years ago, and cost was the driving force. Struggled learning to use it, and then found this site somehow, and the problem was solved. It didn't take long until I wanted a straight, and that was out of curiosity, from being on here. My first razor was a Boker Red injun I picked up at an antique shop. I cleaned it up, sanitized it, honed it on a 4/8 Norton after reading up on honing. It must have had a a decent bevel on it still, because I got it sharp ...enough. Talked to a local barber, he gave me a Franz swatty barber hone, I bought a strop, watched lots of vids. I still can't set a bevel have all the stones I need, it just isn't clicking. So me being cheap, got me here, little did I know this would become a hobby, and an expensive one!

if you think straights are expensive take up an instrument.

my piccolo low end yamaha is £400

next flute upgrade is going to cost over a grand more like 2+


then there is the music because you cant really buy it off the internet (think of buying razors of ebay with no pictures/discriptions and just a title)
you usually end up spending £100 every visit


lessons are expensive as well if you do decide to aim high. at least £20-30 for 30mins. cant cover everything in that time either

Back in 1990 or so I was looking through a
1900 Reproduction Sears and Roebuck catalog.
When I came to the razors my first thought was
WOW these things are so cool...unfortunately
I had no idea where I could come up with one.

The desire really never left me so one day in
January 2006 I began a search on the Internet
and was fortunate to find this site. Within a day
or two I bought a razor off of Lynn - a 5/8 Genco
SP ( Fluid Steel ) and the rest is history as they say.

Thus far it's been a very enjoyable experience I only
wish I would/could have started it sooner.


Terry

I was watching some model train videos on you- tube....and on the side bar there was a video of a straight razor shave at the Waldorf Hotel..so I watched it and then called my 76 Year old Uncle to see if he had any of my Grandfathers straights because he was a Barber in late 1920's.....and the rest is history.

I've told this story before on the forum since recently joining, but here goes again:

Back in the 60s when I first started shaving I had gotten myself a SR thinking I would be able to shave myself like I had seen Clark Gable do in a movie where he asks the barber if he can borrow his fixings, then lathers up, and shaves himself, wiping the lather off the blade onto a sheet of paper.

Well, it didn't work out quite like I planned and after dealing with sharpening, stropping, and everything else my dad recognized my frustration and introduced me to the DE. This was before canned foam was as popular as it is today, so a brush and soap in a cup where already in my kit, and stayed in use.

I shaved with a DE for close to 35 years before switching to a disposable, because the DE blades were getting harder and harder to find and more and more expensive when you did find them. Somewhere during that time the triple-head electric razor became real popular and I tried one out but all it did was give me face burn.

In my over 40 years of shaving I've shaved just about every day except during the times I've had a beard, which was before it turned gray and my wife started complaining. The beard would be something I would grow out every other 6 months or so. Even then I would still daily shave under my neck and along my cheek-line to give the bread a nice sharp edge all around.

During my lifetime I’ve even had barber SR shaves but always hated all the post shave lotions they used. It must have been the places I went to because I always felt like there were fumes coming off my face, and my eyes would water until I got home and washed my face.

Sometime about 5 years ago my job/position changed to where I the didn't need me to come in the office, at all. The first result was that I stopped shaving (I also stopped getting out of bed – but that’s another story). Then my wife started complaining so I shaved during the week (I also got out of bed every morning), but not on the weekends unless we had something to do. Then my job/position changed again to where they wanted me to work virtually 3 days a week and in the office 2 days. At that point I only shaved on mornings that I had to go to the office and the weekend nights where my wife and I went out for diner.

I had gotten to the point where, right out of the shower, I would spray on the canned foam and make a series of downstrokes followed by opposite upstrokes with a plastic 3 blade disposable, keeping the shave to no more than 50 (25 each way) strokes max. And call it quits.

Truth was, most times I gave myself a crappy shave. I had also stopped changing the blades. For a while I even stopped using the foam and just shaved dry. My face was getting rough and not looking too good.

Then I saw SRs being used on the internet – now, like 3 weeks later, I am back to using both my old DE(s) and SR while performing a full-on pre and post shave routine.

I’m even shaving on days when I don’t have to go into the office or have anything to do on the weekend that would require that I be clean shaven.

This morning’s shave (a Saturday) was the best one I have performed in many years. My skin looks better than it has in years, and my wife actually commented on how smooth my face felt.

When I first started shaving it was with an electric—my dad had been an electric shaver, hence that's what was passed on to me. I don't recall that lasting particularly long, however, as, after reading up on the benefits and whatnot of wet-shaving, my dad switched to using a DE and, upon discovering what a better, more comfortable shave it gave, he encouraged (read: instructed) me to try it too.

So my wet-shaving career started out with a Gilette 3-bladed cartridge razor, teamed with a badger brush and GFT (brand, not specifically fragrance—I would guess that it was probably violet flavour) cream. This gave me a good foundation on which to learn to wet-shave and once I became reasonably competent, I swapped the Gilette for a Merkur Futur safety razor.

I'd been shaving with that kind of set-up pretty much ever since, though once I could, I grew a beard and shaving became more sporadic, depending on what beard style I was sporting at any given time (I don't stick with the same beard for long, though last year I grew a handlebar moustache for a good few months and then grew out a goatee for about six months, until I got a new job and thought it best to trim it—I have a pic taken with Photo Booth with that beard, somewhere—and I'd do it again if only I had the perseverance to get though the messy, looking-like-crap stage without trimming it down).

More recently I kind of just found shaving to be a bit of a chore. If I didn't have to, I wouldn't bother. I'd been interested in using a straight razor for a couple of years but whenever I'd suggested the idea to my parents, my mum was all like "Don't be stupid, you're not using one of those," and my dad was more like "I wouldn't, they're far too dangerous," and that was it, really; SR shaving was a bit of a novelty at the back of my mind, that I thought I'd never do.

I don't know what prompted me but about six months ago, maybe around June / July time, I decided that I wanted to see what it was all about. I searched about a bit but was uncertain of spending all that money without knowing if I was even going to get on with it, so I picked up a Shavette and actually haven't looked back since.

I spent a couple of months learning my technique with with that (which, interestingly, contrary to what everyone seems to say, I hardly cut myself at all—there was none of the cutting my face to shreds and great gouts of blood that a lot of guys seem to warn newcomers of and I think that I cut myself more with a DE than I ever have done with any kind of straight), and then, having decided it was something I wanted to stick with, I got a proper straight razor and a strop for my birthday at the end of September.

I added another razor and a couple of hones to that, just before Christmas and now I can't stop spending! Shaving is no longer a chore, either, and sometimes I shave even if I don't need to. I've definitely got into experimenting with various techniques, as well, and trying out new things that I wouldn't have done or used before.

I've attempted to get may dad to use a straight too, and he went as far as to get himself a Shavette about the same time as I did, but he rarely uses it (citing lack of time as the reason). He's also used my Dovo Flowing once but said that he found that it was tugging at his beard and maybe wasn't very sharp...I used it, though, and it shaved fine—I think it was just user-error! He hasn't asked to try it again...we'll see, though.

Anyway, I've been typing for a long time, now. That was my story and I don't think I'll be going back to any other type of shaving in the foreseeable future.

For me it was wet shaving since the beginning. My father has been a wet shaver since I remember, so he obviously passed it over to me

He never used DEs or SRs, he always used disposable gillettes or cartridges. When I started shaving I started with disposable gillette myself, then switched to cartridges. Than I switched to electric for a couple of years (initially a BRAUN followed by a philips), then I went back to cartridges but found them quite uncomfortable, as their quality degraded over the years. At that point I tried a DE and in about an year I discovered SRP. In the meantime I had switched to a Merkur Futur, that is still with me. In 2007 I started using a straight, a Dovo stainless, 5/8 stainless, honed by Lynn and used a mix of SR and DE for almost 2 years. Then it happened, I dropped my dovo and ruined the blade and never managed to restore it until a few months ago. Every time I tried to hone my SR I ended up with dull edges or scratchy blades... until I realized, or better, until I discovered that I needed to lap my nortons.... (yeah, I know, I should have read the forum better...)
Lapped the stones, reset the bevel, honed the blade and started using the SR again.
It took me 2-3 weeks before I regained the skills lost in the last 2 years, but I'm now back to SR and SR only!

I actually just bought two new stones, a naniwa 1k and a naniwa 12k and 3 new (well, old actually) razors; two of them from classifieds and one W&B from ebay.

Now it's my brother turn, he starting with SR shortly (as soon as he receiver the SR that I got for him from the bay)

Back in the late 80's I was in the Navy and picked up a DE somewhere (dont remember where) and started using it. It wasn't until sometime in the 90's that I found a box at walmart ,I think, with mug, soap and brush (Burma Shave) and started using it, been using shaving soap and brush ever since, still have the original mug. In 2003 I went to Barber College and have been shaving with a Straight Razor since then. I do have other DE and Injector razors that I use on occasion, but use mainly the straight. ( I also still have a love for Burma Shave shaving soap, don't know why with all the great stuff out there.)