What led you to this?

Thoughts and input on anything related to wet shaving or men's grooming.
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Big Swifty
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What led you to this?

Post by Big Swifty »

Hello gents
Just a little thought as to what brought you guys to the wonderful world to traditional wet shaving. I know there must be guys who grew up with it and never left or those like me who grew up with Trac 2 then sensor and Mach 3 or Schick or whatever. When I was in High school I used Barbesol goo and edge gel and thought that was just it because there was not much more available to me at the local stores. Enter the Internet age... About 8 years ago or so I was in the Forum shops with my daughters and I stumbled upon a Art of Shaving store. There I saw lots of goodies but I was most interested in the neat looking shave brushes on the wall, to me they were simply "old fashioned" and to be quite honest I thought they were quite expensive. So later that day at home I went online to do some "research" on shaving brushes which led me to this site and various vendors of traditional gear. The hook was set and the rest is history and today I have a shave den with products from around the world that would not have been possible in an age without the interwebs. I do love this site and love reading everyones imput on techniques and opinions on products and general banter...thank you SMF
Whats your introductory story? 8)
~Steve

~proponent of a strong salvation army, born again Calvinist, cunning linguist, flaming heterosexual

"Life is too short to drink shitty beer"
ShadowsDad
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by ShadowsDad »

I'd considered shaving with a cartridge to be a chore that I disliked doing. The cartridges would clog because of the basic design and I was never happy with them. I couldn't fault the shave when I went with the grain, but going against the grain for an ultra close shave gave me ingrowns though. I went to buy more cartridges and got pissed off because of the price and the terrible way that they worked. That gave me incentive to research shaving on the 'net, the rest is history.

(I need to proofread next time, but I get in a hurry.)
Last edited by ShadowsDad on Sun Aug 23, 2015 1:02 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Brian

Maker of Kramperts Finest Bay Rum and Frostbite
Or find it here: Italian Barber, West Coast Shaving, Barclay Crocker, The Old Town Shaving Company at Stats, Maggard Razors; Leavitt & Peirce, Harvard Square
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Ouchmychin
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Ouchmychin »

I have been wet shaving for 69 years. Used everything even electric. I use both a collection of DE razors; a Schick injector; and a collection of throw away razors; and vibrator disposables in my rotation . I find each has its personality. I am really glad when a razor or blade give me an outstanding shave.
Ouchmychin (Pete)
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Squire
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Squire »

When I started shaving a DE or open razor were my only options and the fact I still use them half a century later is a testimony to stubbornness as much as anything else.
Regards,
Squire
CMur12
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by CMur12 »

When I started shaving, the choice was between a Gillette DE and a Schick Injector. My dad shaved with a Gillette and Rise foam. My mom thought that a Schick Injector and Noxzema foam in a can would be the best way for me to go, so that's how I started.

I used the Schick for about five years, until I grew a beard and quit shaving altogether. After about five years with the beard, I bought a Gillette Slim Adjustable and started shaving my neck. That, along with a little shaping of the beard at the cheeks, is what I have done ever since then.

I eventually migrated to a Gillette Atra and a Schick Tracer, and I did fine as long as I held it to cartridges with only twin blades. I tried the Mach 3 several times, but it always felt like it was going to catch and tear the skin, so I never got through a complete shave with it. I never tried anything else with three or more blades in the head. I even did electric shaves for awhile.

I think it was while shopping in certain knife and cutlery stores online that I found some with Merkur DE razors, and I was intrigued that one could still get such razors. I was lured by nostalgia, searched further, and found myself here at SMF.

I might add that I had used a brush with shaving soap and cream before, but I was never good at it, as I had no idea what lather from these media was supposed to be like. It was on the forum and through Internet tutorials (such as those by Mantic) that I learned how to do all of this with skill.

- Murray
brothers
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by brothers »

My pre-SMF razor acquistions were a Slim, a Krona, and electrics. Before that I used my dad's '39 Tech fat handle with triangle holes. I still have all of those. I also have many others, but at the present time I'm using straight razors, Mongoose, Gillette short handle Super Adjustable and an 80 year old English Darwin Deluxe stainless razor.
About 7 or 8 years ago my grown daughter told me I should check out an internet website for shaving - SMF. So I checked it out.
Gary

SOTD 99%: Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, soaps & creams, synthetic / badger brushes, Colonial General razor, Kai & Schick blades, straight razors any time, Superior 70 aftershave splash + menthol + 444
pausted
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by pausted »

My earliest days of shaving were with a Gillette SS and Gilette blades. Then I moved on to a Schick Injector. Like so many others, I then began using twin blade shavers, Trac 2 and Gillette disposables. All this time was with Barbasol or Foamy in the can. Eight or so years ago I stumbled upon the forums and bought my first DE in years, an EJDE89L. A VDH brush and some VDH soap were added to the collection. Of course, now I have nine brushes, about ten razors, twenty five or so soaps and creams and about fifteen aftershaves and colognes. Wow! I'm saving so much money! I'm getting the best shaves of my life and I'm loving it.
Best regards,

Basil
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Big Swifty
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Big Swifty »

pausted wrote: I'm getting the best shaves of my life and I'm loving it.
I believe this is truly what its all about =D>
~Steve

~proponent of a strong salvation army, born again Calvinist, cunning linguist, flaming heterosexual

"Life is too short to drink shitty beer"
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Marcall
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Marcall »

I started with a Gillete Atra in 1986 I think it was. Then went to (i think) the sensor and the last one was the mach 3. I quit using that around 1999 maybe and went to a Braun electric and used that until 2011. Out of the blue there was a thread about DE razors on a Guitar forum I belonged to at the time, it looked interesting with all the gear. Being on a guitar forum I knew all about GAS and hey shaving stuff was another opportunity to aqyuire gear :P I ordered up an Edwinn Jagger DE89 (or is it the 86, can't remember) along with about three soaps and I was hooked my first shave, bought a couple more soaps and some witch hazel over the next year. The following year or two the GAS tapered off and plateaued. About three months ago I got hit HARD by the gas and it hasn't let up, I feel like a kid on Christmas every day now and shaving has gone full OCD now :D Sometimes I just walk into the bathroom to smell a soap and I even think of what soap I want use the next day in the middle of my current shave, what a problem to huve huh :mrgreen:
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jww
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by jww »

I followed my dad's example and picked up a Schick adjustable injector. Used that for quite a few years, with a few different soaps --- mostly a product known as Kanøn, a "danish" brand product from P&G, I think. I owned a boar brush that I purchased at a local drug store and found it worked quite well for me. In my mid-to-late 20s, I went to an electric as blades for the Schick became virtually impossible to readily source. Did that for far too long (6 or 7 years, as I recall), and went back to brush, cream from The Body Shop and a Schick personna cartridge. Then, I came upon this site, and became fascinated in going back to before my shaving roots began. I acquired a couple of Gillette vintage razors from our selling and trading forum for a song, and started to slowly build my soap and cream stock over time, starting with locally available products. Eventually, I picked up my first badger brush in the Rose & Co. Apothecary in Howarth, Yorkshire, as well as some MWF a year later. Over time I have built up a small supply of go-to creams and soaps, experimenting once in a while with something new.

Using vintage tools with classic products has been nothing short of an enjoyable experience for me.
Wendell

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Big Swifty
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Big Swifty »

Marcall wrote: :D Sometimes I just walk into the bathroom to smell a soap :
This is funny as I believe all of us are guilty of this little pleasure from time to time
~Steve

~proponent of a strong salvation army, born again Calvinist, cunning linguist, flaming heterosexual

"Life is too short to drink shitty beer"
BeatlesFan
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by BeatlesFan »

I started shaving just as Gillette Trac II was hitting the market. My dad naturally taught me to use a DE, but the Trac II was all the rage and so I more or less started out using both a Gillette DE (a black handled SS) and a Trac II. Fairly quickly I noted that the Trac II caused problems for me with ingrown hairs, whereas (by contrast) the DE didn't. Hmm. Interesting, I thought. I wanted to learn more, so I spoke at length with my local barber, and he gave me some barber manuals and other reading materials about wet shaving (this was the 1970's, pre-internet so that seemed like the best place to start researching). From those sources, I learned a huge amount about beard prep, lather, grain direction and lots of other shaving fundamentals. Over the years, as each successive wave of improved cartridge came out, I road-tested it against the DE; the cartridges always lost out to the DE on irritation grounds (until the Schick Hydro, which, for me, stands alone among carts as a truly good razor). I also sometimes got fed up and switched to shaving with a Braun, which was OK I guess, but never as good a method, IMO. I always came back to the good ole DE razor.

Much later, through internet noodling, I discovered some wet shaving sites, which eventually led me to SMF. What I found is, even for someone with long experience of wet shaving and DE shaving, for the first time the internet was providing a truly extensive clearinghouse for information about top-shelf products, shaving tips and techniques, etc. I just don't think the whole "body of knowledge" was accessible before SMF (and a few others like it).

To sum it up, my own personal story was one of really never having "drunk the Kool Aid" about cartridges, and therefore having had a long history of DE and wet-shaving. Nevertheless, thanks to SMF, I've vastly expanded my knowledge-base on a range of issues from soaps and creams to blades and razors, as well as technique. As I've said a number of times on here . . . THIS is the golden age of shaving, folks!
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Hawkeye5
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Hawkeye5 »

I know this is an older thread, but there still must be some good stories that can be told.

I started with Gillette DEs in high school (I graduated in 1965) and eventually used a Schick injector and canned goo through two years of college, back to a Gillette DE while in the army. About the time I came out of the army, married and returned to college on the GI Bill the Trac II came along. I used a cartridge and canned goo for many years after that, except I did get some Old Spice soap and a cheap boar brush sometime in the late 70's early 80's when you could still purchase Old Spice shaving soap at a drug store.

Somewhere I think around the latter part of 2006 I read an article in Reader's Digest (of all places) by Cory Greenberg on wet shaving (simply a rehash of a Today Show segment and the video is still out there). I didn't realize that DE razors were still available (not that I had paid any attention) and decided to go back and give it a try. From forums and Cory's blog I learned there was so much I didn't know the first time: Multiple passes? I was always one and done. Badger brushes? I had only used cheap boar. English triple milled soap? Williams and Old Spice, or anything else from the local drug store was all I knew about. Shave cream? What! Cream not out of a can!

So I guess you could say that I never really stopped wet shaving as I learned it originally, it is just that what I learned originally was so deficient. Of course with all this new knowledge I went totally hog wild trying razors, brushes, soaps, creams, venturing into straight razors, and just generally having a ball all the while being thought of as somewhat eccentric by family and friends . Pretty much that is still where I find myself except I've cut back my excesses having found what I like. I still experiment, most recently with ATT razors. I had to try them as they are made here in Tennessee you understand, but I have a horde of blades (Swedes, Personna 74, Gillette Spoiler) so that is settled and I have my favored soaps (Wool Fat and Arko sticks) and creams (Xpec and Castle Forbes). I don't have as many variables as I once did and I think my shaves have improved as a result. And I still really enjoy the ritual involved in a good hot towel prep straight razor shave, although right now most mornings involve lathering in the shower with Arko I look forward to retirement later this year when I can spend more time enjoying my shave.
John
nicodemus38

Re: What led you to this?

Post by nicodemus38 »

enjoyment and quality of shave. that's what brings 99% of us here. There IS saving of money in this love affair.

Really there is..

the cheapest electric razor I have purchased cost 36.35 plus sales tax during a clearance//discontinued model sale. And the cheapest replacement head for it cost 42.50 plus tax on the same sale.

And to get a consistent shave, the head needed to be replaced every 6 months. Do the math fellas....

The best electric shave ive ever gotten.. is of lower quality then the worst shave with Gillette DE razor. Even worse then the worst shave I got with a VDH wieshi.
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mustang_john
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by mustang_john »

My dad died before i started shaving, and long before the internet. So i tried to wet shave with the multi blades of the time, late 1980s and the disposable type. I looked like a train crash each time, so gave up and went electric. Mostly using Phillishave, then getting pissed at the downward spiral in build quality and swtiching back to Braun.

All the while occaisionaly trying to wet shave with disasterous results, until about 18months stumbled upon this forum. Did loads of reasearch on the web and took the plunge.

A year and a half later, I am doing ok, no longer see the shave as the daily scrape, and enjoy the "me" time in the bathroom. Even more so now i am the proud owner of a Wilkinson "Sticky"

Still use the Braun every now and then if I miss a spot, or need to clean up quick. But the main stay is my wet shave, and odd as i may seem to the non educated, I now actually enjoy it too .

John
Barry
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Re: What led you to this?

Post by Barry »

I used creams and soaps from time to time but never a DE and only a cartridge razor. I probably reverted back to canned goo from time to time as well.

In all honesty a "certain person" appeared on TV back in 2004 or 2005 and he renewed my interest in quality products.
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