Did anyone mentor you when you first started shaving?

Thoughts and input on anything related to wet shaving or men's grooming.
Hugo
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Post by Hugo »

JackieMartling wrote:Obviously he didn't teach everything he knows, or you wouldn't be giving him credit.


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bernards66
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Post by bernards66 »

No formal mentoring. As far back as I can remember ( 1951 ) my dad always used an electric, I never once saw him wet shave, although he must have when he was a young man. So, when I started shaving in 1964, I decided to be different, so off I went to the drug store, where I bought a brand new, long handled, Gillette Adjustable, which I then used for the next thirty years, until I stupidly lost it. My dad also had a complete collection of Playboys, going back to the late 50s, and in one of them, I remembered a lengthy article on men's grooming. I found the article, and that's where, fortunately for me, I picked up the basics; plenty of warm water, shave with the grain, short light strokes, cold water afterwards, probably avoid alcohol based aftershaves, etc. That article spared me a lot of grief, no doubt. Even though I used canned foam ( and worse ) for twenty years, the advice in that magazine piece, and the Gillette DE prevented me from ever having any serious shaving problems. My shaves may not have been that close ( nor did I care, at that time ), but never any razor burn, ingrowns, etc. I think that frequently watching my barber shave gents, when I was a kid, may have helped a little also, on an almost subliminal level.
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Post by Sinatra »

No mentoring here either, my father used the shaving foam that was on sale and the cheapest disposable razor. But my parents divorced when I was 14 and haven't seen my father since. When I started shaving when I was 13 (peach fuzz all over) and then everyday at 14 I knew I wanted something that was higher class. I always used Gillette or Edge Gels and a Sensor. I learned mostly to shave from articles I read I Maxim, hot water, go with the grain, relater and go against the grain if you can or across. Learned just about everything from here though!

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Post by JackieMartling »

Sinatra wrote:But my parents divorced when I was 14 and haven't seen my father since.
Man, that's too bad.


Nathan
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Post by Carl »

Robbie:

That´s funny, my grandfathet said the same thing to me. He almost got angry when i said i had shaved for the first time. It was my mother who convinsed me that i didn´t lock good in my teeny beard.
I understand why he thougt he was doing something good by trying to postpone my shavedebute though. I once watched him use a M3 and he was incredebly sloppy and even managed to cut himself. Althugh it´s thanks to grandfather i´m shaving myself with a DE. A year ago he stumbled over his old Gillette Adjutable and gave it to me. My mother said that she remembered from her childhood that he always had cuts and knicks in his face from that DE, and it suprised her that i never have cut myself seriously with it. Apparently grandfather shaved just as sloppy with the DE in his youtj, as he does with an M3 in his old says.
Rippy the razor says: "It´s down the block, not across the street. Might just as well do something right for once in your life".
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Post by acoldspoon »

Went to boarding school and pretty much taught myself. My step monster was pretty useless for stuff like this. Later in life, when I spent some time as a dorm parent at a boarding school, I had the opurtunity to teach a young man to shave. He hadn't had a man ever show him how, as he'd grown up in a home with no male role model. It is still one of my best shaving memories.
notthesharpest
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Post by notthesharpest »

Dad shaved with an electric - I did too. Didn't like it, and eventually bought a Gillette of some kind (Atra I guess). Learned how to use that through trial and error. Followed most of the parade of Gillettes that have appeared since the late '80s.

Then learned how to shave, here. :lol:
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ichabod
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Post by ichabod »

Nobody taught me to shave. I was pretty fuzz free as an adolescent, but I do remember one time trying to tidy up the ends of where sideburns would have been, and drawing blood. I did it completely dry, probably with a borrowed razor from my dad. And I think I was mostly hacking at actual head hair rather than face stubble.

This site has provided me with more information and tips than anything else.

I remember watching my dad shave, with vague recollections of a TTO butterfly razor, and a shaving soap stick with a red piece on one end. I assume it was a Gillette. A little later on he had Gillette Techmatics for a while, which I only remembered recently while surfing around looking at razors somewhere.

I have a 4 year old son who will probably know way too much about wet shaving way before he needs too, simply by osmosis.
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texasPI
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Post by texasPI »

Well I pretty much taught myself. My father had had already passed away by the time I needed to shave. Trial and error and razor burn city. I now mentor my younger brother who is 19. What a mistake! He now has an appetitie for the "good stuff" just so long as I'm the one buying it for him. :roll:

Oh well the lucky devil. He has the best big brother! :lol:

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mantic
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Post by mantic »

Dang...this thread is positively depressing. :cry: Chalk me up as another electric user. My father used a two-rotor Norelco and would let me borrow it a couple times when I need to shave the peachfuzz when I was about 12-13. Then I got a triple-rotor Norelco for a birthday present (14?). That razor (and its decendents) was all I used for the next 30+ years, with the exception of about a two-week period in college when I tried an Atra (it had just come out and we got a "student goody bag" full of free samples of stuff, including an Atra and some Edge gel). I had no idea what I was doing and gave it up soon after).

Of course, my experience two years ago at AOS is well-documented here and elsewhere, so I guess I had about 750 mentors then. :D
Last edited by mantic on Wed Feb 08, 2006 8:28 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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mantic
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Post by mantic »

On a related topic though...my wetshaving advocacy has led *me* to be the mentor to six other people at my workplace, so I guess its one of those Karma things. 8)

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Post by Joey »

Ichabod wrote:I have a 4 year old son who will probably know way too much about wet shaving way before he needs too, simply by osmosis.
That's funny because my 4 year old daughter probably knows more about wet shaving than most men. She'll just sit there and watch me lather up, shave, etc like she's absorbing everything I'm doing.

As for the topic at hand, my parent's divorced when I was young and while I would see my dad from time to time, he was never one for teaching someeone else how to do something. He would rather just do it for you, then take the time to show you how to do it. He also is one of those guys who can take an M3 to his face in every direction with Edge gel and get a perfect shave with zero irritation. Apparently, I didn't inherit his skin. I experimented with many different drugstore razors, gels, electrics, etc having no idea what else was out there. Thanks to the internet, I found out about DE razors, brushes, etc and my shaving has been taken to new heights.
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