Only MODERN single-edge slantThought I'd start the month by lighting off a shave with the only single-edge slant out there.
I was hoping to get a sense of what you meant during this month when people are shaving and showing their slants. But, it seems like most of us own the same set of slants (I think basically proving your point about the shallowness of the modern pool)! What sorts of features would you say define the different sorts of helical slants from each other?to my somewhat critical eye many of the slants on the modern market are rather bland in the sense that they all seem to derive their genetics from the Merkur 37. Not to diss the 37, but getting the same excellent razor over and over tends to make the pool look a little shallow.
I was hoping to get a sense of what you meant during this month when people are shaving and showing their slants. But, it seems like most of us own the same set of slants (I think basically proving your point about the shallowness of the modern pool)!
What sorts of features would you say define the different sorts of helical slants from each other?
I did have the impulse to say, "My work here is done." But no. My work here is just starting.
As a shaver who more and more concentrates on slants, the first thing I have to acknowledge is the incredible amount of knowledge that has grown up over the years on this forum. I've been digging ever deeper into it. Some things are very well "hidden" in the sense that you won't find them with a fairly general search -- but a general search won't turn up the keywords that lead you to the gems, so it's rather a Catch-22.
The second factor is that we have layers of niches: Wet shaving is possibly a more popular activity now than pre-pandemic, but it is still a niche market compared to "carts-and-goo." (Which are themselves a niche of the overall shaving market if we include various electric shavers, but we have to draw a starting line somewhere...) On the one hand even a quick glance at the main forums page will tell you that DE wetshaving is by far the biggest demographic in that niche.
That rather general category breaks down into more niches where hobbyists gather: Gillette or other specific brands, vintage, modern, lathercatcher and slant with sometimes further differentiation into OC and SB preferences. So slant razors are a niche of a niche of a niche of a niche. Those of us who also shave Gem or other ASR SE are in a similar situation, though maybe Gem is even "niche-ier" than slants.
That leads to an economic reality. In our current razor market nobody's making much money making slants. That also means not many companies are willing to spend anything on developing one -- even if what they're developing is an updated version of a classic design. So they can take a design that is already proven in the market and issue their own take on it, or else they can aim for something that they hope will capture a piece of the market that has heretofore stayed away from trying slants.
If you're in the mood for some amusement, scroll through a few years' worth of posts about various slant razors. People who seem to be unfamiliar with the concept use terms like "evil," "scary," "vicious" and others. There's no shortage on teh Interwebz of pictures of lathered-up guys looking fearfully at a slant razor. In the theatre world there is no bad publicity; bad reviews are still publicity. But there's a perception that slants are somehow scary aggressive and guaranteed to do an excellent job of peeling one's face or head like a potato. That's driven I think by makers who want to create the most aggressive razor possible and see the slant platform as one way to do that.
I suppose that's fine, but I'd like a bit more diversity in the market. Not everyone likes an aggressive razor; not everyone likes a mild one. So we come back to niches. The most successful modern designs (read "what you can buy today") almost all copy older designs that have already been worked out by the engineers. It's interesting to know the intellectual heritage of them, but many of them seem to be derived from just a few razors. Buy one Merkur 37C for about $50 and you've pretty much also bought a number of other razors that are more or less explicit copies of it. There is a middle ground. RazoRock's Wunderbar slant is justly famous, showing Mulcuto roots but also a large investment in updating the design and using modern manufacturing processes.
An excellent and timely question! I'm tempted to answer -- only partly in jest -- "price."
Higher price can (though may not) equate to more thought put into the design process, better quality materials, or advanced manufacturing practices. I believe that one of the original intents behind the helical slant idea was to add additional stiffness to the blade, thus reducing chatter and skipping.
Gillette's (and others) idea to sell razors at a loss in order to get shavers to buy blades -- then to sell them better razors designed for the blades -- was a good one from the marketing perspective but left us with the legacy that paying "too much" for a razor is a bad thing. The market in higher-quality razors is a hard one in which to get a start, and is to some extent marked by the need to have continual innovation as a means to encourage what is really a niche group of buyers to keep buying the next latest and greatest.
In general the features that tend to define many modern slants for me are either the homage to a previous design, a desire to bring a quality product to market at a lower price, or else a designer is so in love with the concept that they will voluntarily put a lot of time and effort into designing and testing a truly innovative design knowing that it may be essentially unsellable in quantity. Only because I am familiar with some of the story, I can point to Above the Tie as one example.
The ATT G1 (although not a slant) was designed to very closely mimic the Gem 1912-pattern razor's mild and congenial quality. A design tour de force but it appeared not to be a critical success for a couple of reasons. I have one. Actually, I have three. I have come to appreciate that razor -- but there are relatively few people who would buy even one of them at list price. Not to look TOO much like the "economical" shavers who pointed out that they used to get 1912s for free with other razors so why pay THAT for one that's just like it, but the best possible design goes nowhere if people don't buy it. Thus the G1 is no longer made, and there was no "G2" with an open comb.
On the other hand, one of the most innovative slants in production is the ATT S series: S1 and S2. That design is getting on 10 years old now, and still attracting new converts and enthusiasts. The S2 is my perfect razor. Smooth, efficient, mild enough to feel "safe" and aggressive enough to leave a BBS behind every single time.
I'm very interested to see how ATT's X1 Artist Club SE slant does. It's designed to be milder than some AC razors. I'm hopeful that it will be enough of a success to prompt an "X2" open comb version with the same blade gap. Time will tell. What I really mean by underscoring this company is that they're one of the companies out there innovating, which costs money. Innovation is what drives evolution. We can't keep simply re-labeling the ideas of the past, or letting someone else pay for the development work and copying what they produce.
Two of the most wildly successful of the modern slants are the FOCS and its brother. They're offered at a price point that attracts a lot of entry buyers as well as more experienced buyers who appreciate the design. They also have their quirky aspects, like an uncommon but not unique stud threading -- but it's a razor that will give almost anyone a pretty good or better shave at a price that doesn't encourage too much worry over meeting the rent this month.
Personally I tend toward the quirky. There are some pretty quirky designs for razors, some of which are really amazing and others that are amazingly weird and not too effective. I have a strong attraction to "heavily helical" slants: the Fasan Double Slant, the PAA "Monster" slants (a very economical choice!) and the fabled Merkur "Super Slant." I've also appreciated tilted slants -- in fact Monday's shave will be the iKon Shavecraft 102, a very, very good tilted slant. Finally, I also have a "thing" about supporting designers who redefine the boundaries, hence the ATT S and X razors are also strong favourites.
See what happens when you put a nickel in me about something I've spent some time thinking about? Thanks for asking! I hope it was helpful.
O.H.