Re: Reflecting: How did we get here?
For 1 I hated shaving. I would go days without shaving. For 2 I was looking for something to start collecting. I pictured straight razors because I figured I can collect them at the same time use them. Now even though I'm a newbie I can't wait to shave! I actually look forward to it. Just got my first scuttle and can't wait to use it tonight. Now I have a nice little collection that's usable and I'm happy all around!
Re: Reflecting: How did we get here?
I started shaving when I was thirteen, and hated it from day one. I started with the trac 2 and canned barbasol and it was nothing but irritation from the start. All through school I avoided shaving if at all possible, I tried everything type of foam or gel or rub on cream, even a brush and vdh, though I didn't know how to get a lather at the time. Tried and rejected and then tried every one.
When the three blades came out, I used them, skipped the 4 and hung on till the 5s came. No difference. Sometime in high school I started getting the ingrown hairs to boot. I generally only shaved about once a week if I could help it, though I did three full passes every time I did shave.
I've never worked a job where I've had to be clean shaven, so that was an advantage, I suppose. Though I tried to be clean shaven for going out to meet women on the weekends. :-D
As soon as I was 18 and moved out of my mother's house I grew the Van Dyke that I've always felt like I should have. But that led to another problem, the inability to get a decent clean line at the edges. That led me to an electric razor to line the edges and to shave once a week with, to augment my Friday evening blade shave. The electric was just horrific, so I soon gave that up.
I've always been a lover of knives and blades, and so have since I was little I had wanted a straight razor, like I saw in the movies. Especially so after having a barber line my neck after a haircut a few times in school. But I didn't think they had been made in a long time, and had no idea of how to get an old one. So it just remained an idea in the back of my mind, and I suffered through.
The last seven years or so, my routine has been a beard in the winter, long goatee in the summer. Shaving only as often as my girlfriend prompted me to. Followed by gallons of after shave and lotion to soothe the burn. Then a needle and tweezers the next day to get all the flat hairs that stayed against my skin and refused to be cut.
I hated it, but stuck with it as it was the best I'd been able to find. Pretty good prep actually, just a thick fast growing flat to my skin, no regular grain pattern, nightmare to shave with a cartridge.
Then last October my best friend for the last 30 years came to town for business and handed me a straight. His great uncle had been a barber and died years before, but two straights had been found in one of his boxes. So my friend brought me one of them.
It was rusty as hell, but I had the tools to clean it up, and did. Looking into figuring out how to sharpen it led me here.
Now I've got a handful of stones and fifteen or maybe more razors. And I love it, and I love shaving now too!
Re: Reflecting: How did we get here?
Crap, didn't realize that was so long. Sorry.
Re: Reflecting: How did we get here?
It's interesting to read other peoples start up stories...
Reflecting: How did we get here?
My little brother bought a DE to try and save money, I couldn't have him doing something more "manly" than me.
The result was turfing cartridge razors for a couple of straights from whipped dog.
That showed him!
Since then I've purchased a couple more razors and a set of hones. Haven't put a blade to stone yet but will soon.