Read this and tell me what you think.

Let's talk about single and double edged razors and the blades that they use.
alchemist
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Post by alchemist »

Joe Lerch wrote:Doesn't Jim's avatar complete the picture? Mr Macho appears in his hard hat. What could be more wimpy than holding a device to your face that is more suitable as a vibrator?

And his intellect is nothing short of astounding! In the face of legitimate criticsm he sends us a bunch of smily faces. I think we have the next nominee for the Supreme Court.
Joe, That is the funniest thing i have read all week!
Regards, Mahesh
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Pauldog
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Post by Pauldog »

It's possible that someone is pretending to be Jim Elliott to stir up "stuff" :evil: :twisted: :P :? :shock: on both sites.

Just a theory, which is mine, and what it is, too.
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Gramps
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Post by Gramps »

Paul,
You missed the original assault on Nathan... it has been edited and replaced by a 'smiley'.
This has gone on over 24 hrs now.....

much tooo long.

- Gramps
~~ Larry ~~
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rtaylor61
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Post by rtaylor61 »

Paul,

I believe that the Jim here was the real deal. He banned me after I signed up, even under a different name. Then he came back and personally attacked me, both publicly and in private. He has no idea the fun I have planned for him...

Randy

PS Can you use an electric razor while looking over your shoulder???
"I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." J. B. Books
JackieMartling

Post by JackieMartling »

Paul, that's Jim. First of all, he was pretty familiar with my participation on his board, although not familiar enough to get his facts right. But what confirms it is that he said he banned me from his site. I just tried to log in to his site to see if that is true, and it is. So it is him.
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rtaylor61
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Post by rtaylor61 »

Regardless of what has happened here, seems like Jim runs a pretty good site (even though he has banned me, I have re-joined with a little help from a friend). Why shouldn't electric users be as excited about their 'lectrics as we are about wet shaving. He came here, got off on the wrong foot, and things just went down hill. Too bad. Even though he attacked me and others personally, I believe that we can learn from everyone. I would have welcomed his opinions and insight. Had he chosen to be a gentlemen and conduct a discussion, this might have turned out very different. But that was his choice.

Randy
"I won't be wronged. I won't be insulted. I won't be laid a-hand on. I don't do these things to other people, and I require the same from them." J. B. Books
JackieMartling

Post by JackieMartling »

Randy, I agree with you. I think Electric Razor Rap is a good site for electric razor users. It's just too bad it is run by such a tool, and a self-important, power-hungry one at that. If he wanted to come in here and engage in a reasonable and fact-based discussion and defense of electric shaving, I would have been into that. Who knows, we might have learned something. It might have even helped me change my mind about him, following his removal of my for-sale post without giving me a reason. Alas, he has displayed himself to be more of a 'hole than a help, although he has helped me conclude that my decision to leave his site was the right one for me to make.
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Pauldog
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Post by Pauldog »

Oh, well.

We could even have had fun comparing the claims of the Trac II and the Norelco ("Lift and Cut") about cutting hair below skin level.

Maybe I should post some stuff there about that Hitachi 10-blade wonder. It is electric, after all.

And Jim's head might explode trying to figure out what to do when confronted with the electric M3 and Quattro Power versions. Or the Stahly windup razor, or the Gillette Oribitor 4000.

That happened in some old psychology experiments when they tried to get dogs to distinguish between ellipses and circles. They kept showing the dogs ellipses that were more and more like circles, and then the dogs freaked out.
growler
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Post by growler »

If he's so into promoting dry shaving, I say we take him up on his proselytization and do a little test. Let's strip him, tie him down and shave his half his body with a straight razor and no cream/gel/soap. The other half with an electric. Which side are you on, boys?
JackieMartling

Post by JackieMartling »

I'm on the side that doesn't want to see him naked.
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designwise1
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Post by designwise1 »

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Ditto!

I used a Braun for a very short while. Two different models. You know how it is when you're young and think every new toy has to be better than the old toy?

I kept cleaning it, bought "special" spray, pre-shave junk...

My dad's 3 old Gillette DEs from the 1960s worked better. MUCH better. I cannot get a decent shave with an electric or any disposable double edges I have tried.

Your mileage, as always, may vary.
JackieMartling

Post by JackieMartling »

designwise1 wrote:I kept cleaning it, bought "special" spray, pre-shave junk...
Ugh! Electric pre-shaves are the worst. How anyone in his right mind could actually think that is the height of shaving is beyond me. My dad used Williams 'Lectrc Shave in conjunction with his Norelco, and the house would stink for hours afterwards. Not only that, they feel gross as well.

My electric is a Panasonic wet/dry, and can be used with conventional shaving cream. Somehow it just seems a waste, though, to whip up a marvelous batch of Castle Forbes lavender (or Harris lavender, or Trumpers rose, or Coate's lime, or whatever), and then go plowing through it with this thing that sounds like a swarm of angry hornets. It's a good shaver, as far as electrics go, but I side with Gordon: they're no fun at all.
Deagram
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Post by Deagram »

JackieMartling wrote: My electric is a Panasonic wet/dry, and can be used with conventional shaving cream. Somehow it just seems a waste, though, to whip up a marvelous batch of Castle Forbes lavender (or Harris lavender, or Trumpers rose, or Coate's lime, or whatever), and then go plowing through it with this thing that sounds like a swarm of angry hornets. It's a good shaver, as far as electrics go, but I side with Gordon: they're no fun at all.
I too have a Panasonic Wet/Dry Electric razor.

Having not shaved for 3 days, I thought I would try the Panasonic with some D R Harris Almond Shaving Cream and my new silvertip brush. It was an intended to be just a "first pass", to be finished a few hours later with an adjustable Gillette DE (just arrrived).

It was very acceptable, although nowhere near as good as a DE. It did need a lot of rinsing, and the cream was maybe too slippery.
divotmax
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Post by divotmax »

Hi;

My first experience with an electric shaver was in the 1950's using my Dad's flat-head Remington. My Mother also used it to trim hedges. It had a cord, and when you used it with the bathroom window open, the neighborhood dogs would start to bark. As a precursor to Epilady, whatever whiskers it did not cut off, it would pull out by the roots. You had to keep the head very flat against the skin, because the square edges of the head would carve a nick in your face. There was no intent to shave "as close as a blade", only that it would be convenient and quick. There were two reason for the speed of the shave. First, one can only tolerate so much pain from the moving blades. Secondly, the friction of the blades against the screen would rapidly heat up the head and you could get a blister if you fiddled around too long. The cord not only provided power to the razor, but also kept you from backing away from the razor. There was no "microscreen" and the large gaps in the foil would allow a teenager's pimples to be nicely decapitated by the moving blade, that's why you shaved only on weekends for a date so your face could heal for the next several days. I was convinced that shaving with either an electric or with the foam in a can was just the penalty one had to pay for growing a beard. I often hoped that the manufacturers of the electric razor and foam cream would spend their life in hell having their beard removed with a blowtorch. It was obviously a conspiracy, as it is now, to withhold the benefits and comfort of wetshaving from the gullible masses and convince them that advanced technology can do better than a sharp blade and good soap, and not being so lazy to develop a good technique.

BobS
Hugo
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Post by Hugo »

Bob,
I don't know whether I should laugh or cry at your last post. A part of me wants to laugh until tears stream down my face and the other part of me wants to curl up on the bathroom floor in the fetal position and weep uncontrollably.
I agree that the makers of such an instrument should be in Hell eternally suffering for all the pain, discomfort, and decapitated pimples caused.
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I'm through with screaming and echoes nobody hears
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DavidB
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Post by DavidB »

My folks got my brother and me an electric razor in the mid-60's, because (in theory at least) it would be more gentle on our young beards than than a safety razor.

On my first experience with it, I had to go over the same spots (upper lip and chin) so many times that I wore myself raw, and didn't really get everything. Burned like a son-of-a-gun, and stayed red for quite a while. I never really took to the electric, but did use it for quick touch ups before dates, etc.

After that, the Techmatic razor came out, so we all went with that for a while, then onward and upward with each successive shaving 'innovation' from Gillette.

Now I've returned to the DE of my youth, and of my father and his father. It's like coming home!

Dave
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lazfran
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Post by lazfran »

I've been using an electric (until now) since I was 14. My dad got me a Norelco like his for my 14th. birthday (I'm 32 now). He still uses electrics and fat chance of getting him converted because he has really good results with it. He also does not have the patience for wetshaving. I switched to a Braun as an adult because the Norelco always hurt and did not give me a good shave. I could never understand the concept of the spinning blade. It's kind of like twisting the hair off of your face and to me that is exactly what it did. The Braun foil shaver has always given me good results since you can easily shave against the grain. The only problem was removing the occasional rogue horizontally growing hair. I also find electric shaving boring and time consuming, that is why I'm switching. Wet shaving is very enjoyable and I guess eventually, I will be an accomplished wet shaver. I think overall, the results vary with the person but I think each one has it's own benefit.
EL Alamein
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Post by EL Alamein »

I read the initial Post by Nathan. What is interesting is that if you look at the damage wrought by electrics on the skin at the microscopic level you'd definitely stay away from them.

When I was a teenager and started shaving with a straight razor a buddy of mine had this book with microscopic pictures of things. And one of the topics was shaving. It showed a blade shaven face and an electric shaven face. The electric face looked terrible: pieces of flesh gouged out, stumps of hair with clear breakage lines and whispy ends, little blood pools here and there. It resembled a freshly deforested area. By contrast the razor shaven face was clean and clear, you could see the clean cut tops of the whiskers flush with the skin. It was quite an eye opener. Needless to say I never went back to the electric (I had tried it once for a few months prior to straight shaving).

Chris
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FiReSTaRT
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Post by FiReSTaRT »

I started with cartriges and that gave me some BAD burns so I switched to electrics for about 10 years (both Braun and Philips systems). The only times I had irritation issues were hot and humid summer days when I'd sweat like a pig and the sweat would irritate my skin, but that was the same for any shaving method IME. Actually I've tried every shaving method other than fire and depilatory creams and here's my ranking of preference:
1) Straight -- Close, comfortable shaves with blades that I rescued from obscurity and maintain in a functional shape.
2) DE -- Close, comfortable shaves. Cheap blades. No sense of personal satisfaction though.
3) Electrics -- Worst shave quality but serviceable for a day of work. Even though I have sensitive skin, I never had any unusual comfort issues in comparison to other methods.
4) Cartriges -- Closer shave than electrics but I don't remember much else as I haven't tried one in 7-8 years. 2 days of irritation after every shave. My last cartrige shave left me with an ingrown that turned into a cyst that had to be surgically removed.

As for exfoliation, it was already mentioned that it's actually a desireable thing. People pay a lot of money for exfoliating creams, scrubs, masks and microderm abrasion. On that note the 2 pockmarks and the surgical scar are less prominent now and my skin looks healthier.
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mparker762
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Post by mparker762 »

I used a Braun 5105 for years and loved it, I got a BBS shave in only a few minutes. I replaced the foil and cutter block once a year, and it just kept going. After about 10 years the battery started going out, and it got hard to find foils and cutter blocks, so I ditched it and got a newer model. That one gave me lousy shaves, and died four months later when the battery ruptured and dripped acid all over the bathroom. So I switched to a Norelco, which gave me great shaves for a week until the blade dulled, at which point it started leaving stubble on my face and giving me blisters to boot. So I gave the norelco to my dad (who loves electrics in general, and especially the norelcos), switched to disposables, then to the DE.

I can understand why guys love electrics, I got absolutely great shaves out of my original braun. But the current models have compromised robustness and shaving quality for gadgetry and tommyknobs. I expect they'll be adding digital cameras and email functions to them soon.
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