Thread: The high price of buying a straight razor kit ????

Originally Posted by doc47

My only issue with the OP's position is that in my observation most beginners really need to experience different grinds to determine their preference (size and weight are other considerations as well). I feel the same way about brushes; a new user should have an opportunity expose themselves to badger, boar and synthetic to determine if a preference exists.

I disagree. When starting wet shaving, the less variables the better. I'm taking about a high quality (not necessarily expensive) set-up, of course.

Get one quality razor (or maybe two, but only in case you completely mess up your edge on the first one).

After six years of this, I still don't notice all that much difference between grinds (apart for near wedges), I doubt a beginner would notice at all or could ascribe certain results to the grind in question; I know I couldn't.

A strop with interchangeable hardware is ideal, otherwise a decent starter strop is the way to go.

The same for soaps/creams; one high quality product to get started (Castle Forbes springs to mind), rather than an array of mediocre (or worse, outright bad) products until you consistently get good shaves.

Then, by all means try out different kind of stuff, but having a good benchmark will likely prevent a lot of frustration. And it also prevents you from a load of stuff you don't need/like. Also in case you feel the whole wetshaving thing is not for you.

tl;dr: Get quality stuff (one of each), and stick with it until you're good at it.

Best regards,

Pieter

I like the concept of the OP's lifetime budget. Sadly, RAD, SCAD (soaps and creams) and HAD kicked in for me, and I've probably blown that budget just this year.

It reminds me of fly-tiers who plan to "save money" tying flies. You can spend hundreds, even thousands getting outfitted for that, but it's all fun. You can't take it with you!

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

I like the concept of the OP's lifetime budget. Sadly, RAD, SCAD (soaps and creams) and HAD kicked in for me, and I've probably blown that budget just this year.

It reminds me of fly-tiers who plan to "save money" tying flies. You can spend hundreds, even thousands getting outfitted for that, but it's all fun. You can't take it with you!

Well, fortunately I didn't get into straight razors to save money. I did it so I could get a comfortable shave and not have to deal with anymore razor burn and ingrown hair. That alone has been worth every penny I've spent on straights, which at the end of the day even with all the stones and straight razor related paraphernalia I've gathered over the past few years, is probably still less than I'd have spent on Gillette and their multiblade cartridge junk.