Reflecting: How did we get here?

Since it is the first week in the new year i found myself reflecting back on many things including why i started wet shaving. Upon thinking of how and why i got started wetshaving i thought i would love to know what inspired my friends on SRP to start wet shaving too! Heres my story, start to finish. I hope to hear your story too! Happy New Year!

When i was a kid lets say 8-10 years of age i always wondere what it would be like to shave. I think all boys wonder this prior to the first time they actually need to shave and if many of you were like me as a kid i know i was getting in to shaving cream and wiping it off my face with my finger. When my fuzz started to turn to whiskers my father baught me a gillette disposable and put it in my christmas stocking with a can of barbasol. The next day after christmas i remember asking my dad to teach me how to shave. The 'talk' lasted all of 2 mins. My father sprayed some barbasol in his hand, took my hand and gave it to me and said "now out it on your face and take the razor and go at it untill the creams gone." "dont go at it too much or youll end up like swiss cheese." So i said thanks. shortly then after i grew a goatee, shaved about once a month and wore a goatee for the next 15 years.

During those 15 years of shaving with an old dull disposable my face hated the idea of having my whiskers removed in any fashion- except one.
*the barber*. when i would get a hair cut i would also get lined up in the back, i would also get a hot towel, hot lather a straight razor shave and some nice after shave. At that time i had never thought to shave with a straight razor. I would have gathered that such a thing would have been reserved for barber's use only. The beard growth continued to adorn my face.

One day, not even too long ago, i lost my job. I had been working at the same place for 8 years and i knew that i was about to be subject to finding another job and therfore interacting with the judging eye of john Q public. I knew i had to keep a good shave to go on interviews, and i had no more barbasol left. Being jobless i could not afford to go the barber and get shaven to get the clean look i was going after so i did what any other american man in his late 20's would do.... Go off to the drug store.

At the drug store i found the usual products, but one in particular caught my eye. It was a shaving brush next to a puck of williams mug shave soap. I figured what the heck, looks better then the stuff in a can! So i bought it, brought it home and tried to make a lather.

Now i didnt know this at the time, but i had no idea how to make a good lather, but i tried, and i let the mach3 with the old blade do its job. Now i cant say that this was a good shave, but it did stick out in my head. The shaving brush felt nice on my face and the shave soap was a nice change from the goop in a can. The next day my skjin was irratated as usual and then it occured to me..... If a barber can shave with a straight razor and people in the last century could shave with a straight razor than why cant I? So i looked in to straights. It was very expensive to get started but then i got to reading.

I found that Wetshaving is what i was yerning to do and that a DE can give a prettyy darm good shave over any old cartridge razor. So i picked on up with some blade and started to learn. What i learned is shaving prep, how to build a lather, how to NOT use so much pressure as you don need to and how the hair direction of growth on my face was an importent element of a great shave. Armed with a little bit of expieriance i splurged and baught a shave ready (thanks lynn) dovo 5/8 pearlex, strop and some srd soap. It had been more then a year and i now get supreme shaves. no irritation and bbs almost each and every time, thanks to forum and months, days and hours of lerking. i now have a bad case of RAD/SAD/BAD and do restorations, custom scales and brush resorations. I have also learned so much history on the sheffield blades i collect.

Sorry for the typos i just posted it wioth out proof reading. bc i have run out of time and my wife want me to do chore rather than sit on the lap top.

Happy new year!!!!

For me ever since I started shaving at 17 my face would be left irritated especially my neck and I would frequently get ingrown hairs. I tried everything the big companies had out for sensitive skin and all that and none of it made any difference. A couple of months ago at the age of 23 I was doing more reserch and found lots of people saying traditional wet shaving had helped them with the kind of problems I had been having, so I looked it up and went for a straight razor as it's pretty manly shaving with something you could cut your nose off with.
I'm now about 6 shaves in with a nice razor from Larry and my face is loving me for it, no ingrown hairs, no irritated neck and no more spots it's a revalation. I'm already in early stages of RAD and after I get the shaving down I would like to learn to hone.

Well, you see. My mum and my dad got together and had themselves a little fun, and nine months later the little miracle that is Mick was born. And the world became a better place for it. :)
Now to go back and read past the title of this thread.

Mick

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Originally Posted by MickR

Well, you see. My mum and my dad got together and had themselves a little fun, and nine months later the little miracle that is Mick was born. And the world became a better place for it. :)
Now to go back and read past the title of this thread.

Mick

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Damn boss, you got me on the one... hahahha :)

Ahhh, wetshaving! Well that I've been doing from day dot in shaving speak. Usually in the shower with a puck of body soap and a cart head razor, but these days over the sink with either a cut-throat or DE and the puck of body soap has been swapped out for shaving soap, as well the shower has been swapped out for a shaving brush...After I've had a shower :).


Mick

No nostalgia or sentimentality of years gone by with me I am afraid.
The simple truth is that I was sick and tired of reaching into my cupboard looking for a new cartridge to finish my daily head shave, only to find it empty for the millionth time.
Having to go out with a half-shaven head and face kinda got me looking for alternatives eventually, and straights seemed to be what I was looking for.
So, I bought a shavette and a Dovo and never looked back:)

I started out with the standard Trac II in the 70's. I quickly learned to hate shaving so I stopped and started using scissors to trim my beard. When I started going grey(beard long before hair) I was getting nagged at to look young again. So, I went back to good old TracII and proceeded the love hate relationship with my face. Then a few years ago Trac II started getting hard to find so I went to 3 blades. Gawd more clogging than before and I broke about 3 razors banging the snot out of them. Took it to the shower which helped with the blade cleaning but did nothing for the detail work. Lived with that small misery until Sept. last year. Saw a guy using a straight on You Tube and don't even remember how that happened but sure glad I did. No need to go any further with this story as I am sure you know how it ends. :<0)

Started straight razor shaving last spring simply for the fun of learning something new. Had been shaving for over 40 years with no real problems that would otherwise have lead me to straights. Found I liked straights and stayed with it. Still use DEs, SEs and disposables where and when it suits me.

Bob

I started shaving regularly about a year and a half ago with the bic disposable razors. On a quest to lose the irritation I read about using a single blade so started looking into DE razors, the thought of a straight never crossed my mind until I came across this site. Plucked up the courage and bought a shavette thinking it was good way to see if i like using a straight. Then about a year ago I found a straight that looked in good condition in an antique store. Bought it, got it honed up and I've had irritation free shaves since. And I can't see any reason why I'll ever go back to the shavette never mind multi blade pain inducers!

Many years ago my dad had a DE that I tried, used it and then new newfangled multiblade razors that came along the way. Finally this new invention called the internet came out and I saw a video of a straight razor shave. I went back to my dad and asked for his 2 DE razors he has (he was using those newfangled multiblades). He said by all means you can have them I don't use them. I have shaved with them for almost 6 months and then became curious about straight razors. I have now grown into 4 straights and 5 DE razors as well as a brush and non-canned shave cream and soap. I switch back and forth but find the straights even more enjoyable than the DE. Needless to say I won't go back, although my wife says I take to long in the bathroom now (the tables have turned). :)

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.

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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!

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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.)

I was sick of shaving - this disdain lead to worse and worse shaves as I worked harder and harder to shorten the process in an effort to not allow it to encumber my life.

Sick of shaving is an understatement. Stating I hated it would not be too strong.

Wife started putting out the signals. "Wow! Did you even shave today?"

The only thing that was challenging enough to enable me to want to shave well, was a DE and then in short order a straight. That challenge and the notion that it's rather bad-assed and not performed by the majority sold me.

The wife is well pleased - shaving now takes me forever comparatively speaking, but its become a pleasure.

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!

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!

Crap, didn't realize that was so long. Sorry.

It's interesting to read other peoples start up stories...

Me and a buddy were sitting around talking about how expensive the cartridge razors were. I went on a long winded sermon about how we're getting screwed by "The Man". And how if there were a way to never buy another cartridge razor again, I'd do it. I mean come on!!! It's thousands of dollars they're screwing me out of, just cause my face grows hair!! I could pay the 6 grand for permanent electrolysis and STILL save money over the course of my life!! I tend to get carried away sometimes. :p He informed me that he saw a straight razor for sale on Amazon or something. The wheels started turning... After he left, I started googling, and SRP was at the top of my search results. Two days later, after lots of reading, I ordered a kit from Whippeddog. Take that, "The Man"!!!

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Originally Posted by maddafinga

Crap, didn't realize that was so long. Sorry.

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I even read it .....I keep mine short cuz it would take me all friggn night to type that much. LOL

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.

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Originally Posted by maddafinga

Crap, didn't realize that was so long. Sorry.

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I am going to wait for the next chapter to come out. It's good so far.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by regularjoe

Me and a buddy were sitting around talking about how expensive the cartridge razors were. I went on a long winded sermon about how we're getting screwed by "The Man". And how if there were a way to never buy another cartridge razor again, I'd do it. I mean come on!!! It's thousands of dollars they're screwing me out of, just cause my face grows hair!! I could pay the 6 grand for permanent electrolysis and STILL save money over the course of my life!! I tend to get carried away sometimes. :p He informed me that he saw a straight razor for sale on Amazon or something. The wheels started turning... After he left, I started googling, and SRP was at the top of my search results. Two days later, after lots of reading, I ordered a kit from Whippeddog. Take that, "The Man"!!!

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Next thing you know you'll be growing your own food, making hammers, all kinds of stuff The Man will hate. :<0) You got guns don't ya ?

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Next thing you know you'll be growing your own food, making hammers, all kinds of stuff The Man will hate. :<0) You got guns don't ya ?

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HA! I do grow a little bit of food, do a little tool making(when I'm not making one out of myself), but I don't have any guns. I'm not confident enough to make my own bullets. :p

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Originally Posted by regularjoe

HA! I do grow a little bit of food, do a little tool making(when I'm not making one out of myself), but I don't have any guns. I'm not confident enough to make my own bullets. :p

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making tools is not that hard.


if you buy holesaws buy ones with an arber, that way when you snap/blunt the drill bit


you can gind out a new drillbit to fit (a lot cheaper than the proper drill bits)

or buy a makerbot and you can make your own parts


there is an articul online somewhere that they made some gun parts that lasted 6 shots. this is why a lot of replica gun models were removed because they could be reproduced with the right equipment because the blue-prints for the gun and the machine to make it out of plastic was available online