Originally Posted by
bharner
If you want to do it for fun and the experience and knowledge you will gain, go for it. Otherwise, it's probably best to suck it up and buy some good soap. Even the expensive stuff. I haven't managed to talk my wife in to letting me buy Obie's favorite but come winter time when I start skiing again I'll buy myself some. I may have convinced my wife that shaving with a straight (Vintage and Poor Man's Strop) was going to cost less than 6 months worth of disposable blades. That was about 6 months ago. Now I have a shelf with 7 soaps, 2 brushes, 4 razors, 2 strops (plus balsa for CrOx) 4 after shaves and 2 after shave balms and will soon have a barber's hone in the mail. I won't even mention the 5 razors that are in a drawer waiting for me to clean them up and try my hand at building some scales for them...
Where was I??? Oh yeah, while you can save money by straight/DE shaving it's more pleasurable not to ;). My most expensive cream cost about $25 after shipping. The rest cost $10 or less. So far the only thing I've managed to use up is the small tube of Proraso that I started with. Most of the others get used 1-2x a week (I have a couple for travel only) and after 6 months there's barely a dent in them. Right now I'm saving up for a set of Norton's and some MWF in the cool container that makes it so expensive. And, quite honestly, I'm kind of having fun waiting and saving for the MWF after hearing so much about it. After that, it's on the the pricey stuff. If I'm going to be doing this for a long time I can at least enjoy myself.
Well crap. I got lost. Anyhoo, if you make your own, keep us posted and let us know how it comes out.