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Back again after several years

Hello Everybody,

I am returning to this forum after a long absence - this profile has been inactive so long, even the archives have forgotten about it !

A long long time ago, my disillusionment with the multiblade cartridge industry caused me to look at other options.
I started my journey with straight razors, I joined B&B and that other forum that is no more (no names mentioned), and I acquired a good deal of razors and other equipment.
Then some life happened, and here we are in 2021 and I have yet to master the art of straight razor shaving.

My desire to ditch disposable cartridges is still strong and I am looking at taking up DE shaving while I continue to develop my honing and stropping when I have a spare moment or two (i.e not any time soon).

Obviously, the whole point of this exercise is to save money, but I think I may have a hard time convincing SWMBO that I need more razors.
Especially since I have a nice collection of straight razors, hones and strops that are seldom used.

With this in mind, I ask your patience if I start another <this razor> vs <that razor> thread when we all know that it's all YMMV and you really have to buy and try to find out what works best for you.

Thanking you in advance for all of the good advice that I have already got from trawling through many many posts, and for the good advice I will be getting in the future.

Regards,
Ian.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Welcome back @StellaNova. May I suggest that you forget about DE razor saving and just go directly to straight razor shaving. That's what I did and I'm much happier for it.

Send one of your SR's out to be professionally honed by someone who is recommended on B&B. Knowing your location would help here.

While your SR is away being honed, set yourself up with a set of diamond pasted balsa strops. How to can be found here


With a properly honed SR and maintaining the the edge on diamond pasted balsa strops, baring physical damage, you should never have to hone the SR on a whetstone. Of course you may want to learn honing later.
 
Welcome back @StellaNova. May I suggest that you forget about DE razor saving and just go directly to straight razor shaving. That's what I did and I'm much happier for it.

Send one of your SR's out to be professionally honed by someone who is recommended on B&B. Knowing your location would help here.

While your SR is away being honed, set yourself up with a set of diamond pasted balsa strops. How to can be found here


With a properly honed SR and maintaining the the edge on diamond pasted balsa strops, baring physical damage, you should never have to hone the SR on a whetstone. Of course you may want to learn honing later.
Thank you for your encouragement!

At this point though, straight razor shaving is still an adrenaline sport for me.
Most mornings I don't have time to take the necessary care, hence me looking into the DE route.
I can see that DE shaving can also require similar levels of care and concentration as straight razor shaving though, and I will be leaning towards more forgiving/mild shavers for now.

I do have some straight razors that were honed by a member of that other forum that is no more. This was done several years ago, and I guess the edges may need a bit of touching up.
I will check the link you sent regarding the pasted balsa strops.
One challenge with me sending items out for honing or other work is that I am in a fairly remote area in the world with respect to many other on this forum, South Africa, where there is not a lot of interest in this kind of thing, or at least not the last time I checked. It would be prohibitively expensive to and risky to send items around the world, and that's why I am keen to learn to do it myself. Besides, I am a DIY kind of guy :)

I have access to an address in the USA and I am able to buy almost anything and have it safely sent to me, but sending things in the opposite direction is something that I avoid unless it is to return a defective item of sufficient value.

Having said all that, I am definitely going to be practicing my straight razor shaving, but I would like to have something that I can fall back on when in a hurry (Most days lately) or when traveling that is not a disposable cartridge. Then again I have been considering the idea of traveling with a straight razor and strop...

You have inspired me!
 

Rhody

I'm a Lumberjack.
Welcome. I’ll suggest the razor rock lupo razor. stainless steel. Affordable and a fantastic shave. I’ve been using the dual comb. You can just buy the head if you have a handle around too.
 

rbscebu

Girls call me Makaluod
Thank you for your encouragement!

At this point though, straight razor shaving is still an adrenaline sport for me.
Most mornings I don't have time to take the necessary care, hence me looking into the DE route.
I can see that DE shaving can also require similar levels of care and concentration as straight razor shaving though, and I will be leaning towards more forgiving/mild shavers for now.

I do have some straight razors that were honed by a member of that other forum that is no more. This was done several years ago, and I guess the edges may need a bit of touching up.
I will check the link you sent regarding the pasted balsa strops.
One challenge with me sending items out for honing or other work is that I am in a fairly remote area in the world with respect to many other on this forum, South Africa, where there is not a lot of interest in this kind of thing, or at least not the last time I checked. It would be prohibitively expensive to and risky to send items around the world, and that's why I am keen to learn to do it myself. Besides, I am a DIY kind of guy :)

I have access to an address in the USA and I am able to buy almost anything and have it safely sent to me, but sending things in the opposite direction is something that I avoid unless it is to return a defective item of sufficient value.

Having said all that, I am definitely going to be practicing my straight razor shaving, but I would like to have something that I can fall back on when in a hurry (Most days lately) or when traveling that is not a disposable cartridge. Then again I have been considering the idea of traveling with a straight razor and strop...

You have inspired me!
I can appreciate how you must feel about SR shaving and our Wallabies beating your Springboks, not once but twice, last month 😁.

When you want to look into getting started in the gentlemanly art of SR shaving, pop on over to the straight razor section of B&B.
 
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