Thread: When and Why did you start using a Straight Razor..?

When and what got you interested in shaving with a straight razor? For me, it was back around 1984 I was contracting at the time and working on an old Victorian mansion. I had found an old shaving mirror when I was working inside and it got me intrigued. The week after, I stopped at a barber supply and picked up a brand-new straight razor, I've been using one ever since then... Here is a photo of me back then replacing some clapborad on that ol' Mansion...

About four months ago my wife wanted to buy a present for a friend, so after some research, I picked out an Edwin Jagger razor for him on Amazon and asked her to get me one, too. After about a month of that, I got curious about straights, mostly because as a violin maker I use sharp things all the time and don't worry about cuts, so I thought it would be a fun thing to try. Initially I found it so frustrating doing a good job that I wasn't going to give up, then about two weeks ago it suddenly all came together, and I decided there was no reason at all to move back to safety razors. So here I am.

An old friend of mine told me about all this about three months and so. I was perfectly happy about the way I shaved BEFORE (the price of the blade cartridges made me cringe, though), so I first dismissed him and told him his new old way of shaving was irrelevant to me. He just stopped insisting, and then, I just got curious. I found this forum and many others and started reading, and the fever got me. I went straight razor hunting in a flea market and went back with a 10$ Solingen blade. Even before I ever got a blade on my left cheek, I was hooked. I temporarily became a used vintage blade junkie.

At the risk of repeating myself, I knew I had to wait for a shave ready blade, so I ordered a Whipped Dog kit to be sure (I read about WD here). The weekend following the arrival of the package, on the saturday morning, my girlfriend went out. I tried my first shave, and tried a complete one (before I ever read the beginner's thread). It was a massacre. Bruised and burned, nicked all over, painful to the utmost. I made every single beginner's error in this first shave. I persisted, read, tried, adjusted, installed a shaving station in my room. And then, I began getting acceptable results.

I still don't obtain the best results in a reproductible fashion, but I'm tackling the factors one by one, and I know I'm going to last in "the sport".

If it's any comfort, my wife has stopped asking me to stop hurting myself. Either I'm getting better, or she now thinks of me as permanently damaged.

A Phillip Dobson kamisori is the one that first caught my eye, and it's been fun ever since. Truth be told though, I haven't used the kamisori much since moving over to the western straights. I guess I'm not confident enough in my kamisori technique. Get nicks galore with that blade!

I started about a month or so ago.
I don't know why I started but I LOVE it and will NEVER go back to buying a razor again!
(EXCEPT any Straight Razor I SEE...LOL)

Let me start by saying it all swmbo's fault...
started shaving when I was 14.5 after my mom vetoed my sideburns. hated it, tried an electric and hated it even more. shaved with a Gillette sensor (all the rage, it had THREE blades!) as sporadically as I could get away with until I had enough, and at about 17 grew a full beard and lived happily ever after with it for 15 years, during which grooming meant trimming my beard once a month or two whether it needed it or not.

when I started dating swmbo she said she prefers me to be clean shaven, as her very sensitive skin gets irritated. I said that the beard was here first and that we'll open it to discussion in 6 months (just to make sure we're serious enough to cost me my beard)... on 6 months and a day swmbo opens the discussions by saying "it's been 6 months, you said you'll shave it off!" and any attempt to keep my face fur was doomed to fail. so we compromised on me keeping a goatee and I went and bought a mach something with FIVE blades. and I hated it...
so I spent 2 more years scraping my face off, trying to understand how they claim the fusion will last me a month when I can't get 2 weeks out of it, and I decided that with the prices I'm paying for blades maybe I should check electrics again (they're bound to learn SOMETHING new in 20 years since I last tried) so I surfed, looking for which new electric I should get, and stumbled onto both SRP and b&b. so not only did I discover tons of people with similar problems, it hit me that I remember my parents kept my grandfather's DE as a keepsake! a week later I dropped by my parents, found out that it's been sitting on my father's bath shelf the past 18 years, and that I'm now the proud owner of an heirloom 64 Gillette slim. lurked here for a while, reading all I can on technique, and soon enough decided that if the switch from multi blade to de was so much better, switching to a straight must be even better than that. so now my DE is my travel razor, though it still holds a place of honor in my razor collection. gone str8 almost 2 years now, and looks like will be at it for life.

grizli

I lost my electric charger/cleaning unit during a move from Armidale to Canberra and it was about that time where I had to replace the head as well. It worked out it was going to cost me $400 to get back up and running, ridiculous! especially for a shave that didn't really get as close as I wanted.

So I switched to disposables in protest and to buy me some time until I decide what to do, luckily found a really sharp set (Coles Rapid 3, $2.50). It gave me the closest shave I'd ever had, and a few nicks from being careless too. It taught me to respect my face and I will be rewarded, since then in a combination of the pursuit of the bbs and a protest to never waste money for shaving again I started researching straight razor shaving for a few months and watched endless YouTube videos. With the promise of a shave so close I wouldn't have to shave again for 3 days I ordered a starter set with the cash I was going to outlay on the electric. My strop was a few weeks late on backorder so it gave me plenty of time to fine tune my lathering skills. I also stone sharpen my own kitchen knives so I was pretty comfortable with looking after my steel.

I'm still learning but I love it. I love the fact that these things are built to last and i look forward to teaching my kids about it someday. " Son, this the the straight razor I started learning with..."

Tomorrow will be one year from putting down my Mach 5 Fusion (or whatever it was). I started because the girl I was dating at the time had sensitive skin and although I shaved every morning, my stubble would be back by 4pm. So needless to say, if I saw her directly after work, there was no lovin' to be had for me. Wile doing some research, I came across this website and got really curious.

I ordered my first razor from the classifieds here, but couldn't wait. The next day, I went out and purchased a shave ready Dovo from a local shave shop. As soon as I got home, I proceeded to rip up my face like I was holding a wolverine by the tail. Not being one to quit, I showed everyday w ith that Dovo until my razor came from the member here. Within a month I had added a W&B, a Boker and Dubl Duck. I'm now up to 30 straight razors (and actively bidding on a few more).

Not being one to do anything half way, I recently set out to learn to shave with a DE. In the last week I've added two DE's to go with the one I bought in October.

RAD!!!!!!

Along the way I've also learned to hone my own razors and own a full set of Naniwa stones and am contemplating either some natural stones or some Nortons. Wait, I'm starting to feel the first symptoms of HAD!

By the way the girlfriend went the way of the Fusion Mach 5, but the straights are here to stay.

For me it was a desire for a barber shave. It was nostalgia I suppose, old movies and the such. I never got around to it until many years later. I can't remember what renewed by interest, it might have been because I had a full beard at the time and thought it would be fun to walk into a barber shop bearded and walk out clean shaven. So I started researching barbers who do shaves in Edmonton, which yielded some vendor links and I discovered that you could actually buy straight razors and the associated gear. I had no idea at the time that there were guys who shaved themselves with the things, which really piqued my interest. One of the vendors had a link to SRP, and then the doors were blown wide open - a whole community of straight razor enthusiasts from across the world. Shortly after I finally had the barber shave I was waiting for all those years, and while it was nice I walked out with severe irritation and a handful of weepers. Surely I could do better. So I lurked at SRP and learned all I could before finally joining and buying my first setup. That was 2008 and I haven't looked back.