The straight razor shave, my attempt at civilized grooming
I have this interest in anything "old school". The idea of trying things the way the used to be, instead of the modern buy-n-toss mentality, is something I regularly ponder.
Most recently during a business trip to San Francisco, my business partner Shawn went to a barber for a straight razor shave. He said it was scary as hell at first, but the shave was so damn clean he’d started to consider switching himself. I had to agree. Man did it look smooth, not to mention the badassery of it all!
After a couple weeks at home, my facial hair had grown and I’d been too lazy to shave it. When that day came, my typical Schick razor kept catching on hair and took several passes just to get close enough.
“Humph, screw this!” I thought...
That's right. I bought my first straight edge razor that has beautiful olive wood scales, complete with some manly smelling shaving cream and a proper leather strop. I was stoked! I felt like I was being promoted from high school whisker trimming to a gentlemens club of proper grooming.
Right after getting home, I sat myself on the couch and watched YouTube video after YouTube video until I felt I had a decent understanding of how to do this.
Although it took close to 45 minutes, and dangerously shaky hands, my first shave turned out great! I didn’t have any major cuts, only a couple small knicks where I had some in-grown hairs from my previous crappy razor. I did miss a couple spots and I don’t think the angle was quite right to get a close enough shave, but at least there was no blood. Getting around my goatee was a little tricky too.
For the first time, I was excited to shave tomorrow!
On a closing thought, I had read a couple people recommend starting with a balloon, adding cream and shaving that. The idea was to be gentle enough to shave the balloon without popping it. I think in practice, this idea is great. However, having a balloon pop with an already shaky newcomer holding a razor sharp blade is probably not the best idea.
If I can suggest anything, its skip the balloon and just shave your face. Thats what you’ll be doing in the end anyway. Take your time and go slooooooow. This allows you to work on the stroke technique and become more comfortable with the whole situation. Lastly, watch a bunch of YouTube vids. They helped me a lot.
