Curious about what setup you first used in wet shaving...

[Stoner Shaver]

Shaved with carts for 30 years and never particularly liked shaving.
Started DE shaving 12/26/2015 (after a few months of research and hinting) with this Christmas haul from my wife!

Razor: 1949 Gillette Super Speed
Blade: Astra SP
Cream: Art of Shaving unscented
After shave: Art of Shaving unscented
Brush: Doug Korn custom D7 with 28mm Silvertip badger knot
Bowl: Georgetown Pottery G12 scuttle

Still love the razor (mint condition and sentimental), not in my normal rotation
Prefer Gillette Rubie and Nacet, but still use these occasionally, along with a few others
Prefer Proraso white with a few extra drops of glycerine
Still love and use the brush
Still love and use the scuttle

 

[shaversnapper]

Carts until 5 years ago, started DE with:
Parker TTO (can’t remember the model, gave that one to a friend)
Vanderhagen glycerin soap (the pinkish clear stuff)
Vanderhagen boar brush (trash)
Blade sampler. Only thing I learned from this sampler was what I didn’t like.

I literally use none of these things now, although I still think about the VDH soap. Love the smell and feel of that stuff.

Not long after I went with a Parker pure badger....hated it. Then omega 10098 which I love and still own. Most recent is Stirling 26mm finest. AWESOME

The Parker razor was replaced by the EJ DE89, followed by a vintage slim, and now my daily is a merkur 37c slant. Still have the others plus a couple obscure.

Blades are personna (looking for lab blues, got the whites. They’re ok)

Soap is everything I can get my hands on. Currently loving pure tobacco scents like Stirling gentleman.

 

[shaversnapper]

I am a fan of the Proraso Green cream and the Proraso aftershave...especially in the muggy warm weather we have so much of in Mississippi.

If you like cooling feels and scents, Frost byte from HTGAM is a BEAST! Haven’t tried it yet (still have 80% of the original) but PAA (formerly HTGAM) has frost byte on its site. When it’s hot I do a cold water shave with this stuff and finish with a mentholated AS if I have one. Like dunking my face in ice water!

 

[Tallships]

1962 at age 16 I started with:
Gillette Slim (still have it and use it)
Gillette Blue Blades
Williams puck soap
Coffee Mug (Moms Donation)
Boar brush
Old Spice after shave (I think?)

 

[Truman]

Just started a few months ago.

Ordered the Q-Shave Futur Clone, Razorock Bruce Plissoft and Proraso Green Soap on amazon.

The razor and the brush came first and the soap took a while, so I went to target and got some Cremo.

The Blade was from a sample pack. I think it was an Astra.

It was a rough shave. I use the Cremo a preshave now. Settled on Perma-Sharp as my blade of choice. Like the proraso, but Tabac has given me the best shaves so far.

 

[psfred]

Initial shaving equipment was my Grandfather's Schick injector and either Barbasol foam (my dad's choice) or Edge gel which was brand new in 1973 or so. I still have the razor, need to use it again, only quit using it in the 80's because I couldn't find blades regularly, and often had an issue with the injector not working well causing the edge to run along the "foot" at the base of the housing.

Didn't use a brush until I started using soap to shave a couple years ago (shaved in the shower sans soap from 1976 or so til then). First brush was a VDH boar that was just breaking in nicely when the glue failed in the knot and all the hair came out in clumps. Must have been the Williams, eh?

Still have the handle, put a Finest badger knot in it.

 

[NJDJ]

Started with a 34c and a $9 badger brush from Amazon. Now I use either a Wolfman or Paradigm SE and one of three Morris & Forndran badgers. Oh, how far I've come. I sold the 34c and the Amazon brush fell apart after about a month.

 

[LToled]

My first DE setup was the following:

Merkur 23C (still have it and use it for travel mostly)
Vulfix pure badger brush
Proraso Green soap
Proraso Green aftershave
Astra Platinum blades

I still use them here and there but I've since fell deep in the rabbit hole.

 

[FlScott]

My early setup consisted of the following: (I had to go back to my old cold water shaving diary on this forum)

AOS Unscented Preshave Oil,
AOS Unscented Cream,
Humphrey's Alcohol Free Witch Hazel,
AOS AS Balm.
Mercur 180 Long Handle
Parker Silver Tip,
Edwin Jaegger shaving bowl.
Cold Water Shave (ice cubes)

I no longer use the AOS Preshave Oil or the AOS AS Balm.
I've gave the Mercur 180 Long Handle to buddy.
I still have the Parker Silver Tip which I break out a couple times a year.
I still enjoy an occasional cold water shave.

The other items are still in my rotation, but my gear has expanded exponentially.

 

[Aziraphale]

So, my very very first was a Burma-shave kit (soap, brush, mug). I used it with cartridge razors. I eventually used up the soap and eventually lost the brush. I found the mug a month or so ago and acquired a new brush since.

My first DE was a Merkur 23c (180) and the Merkur blade that came with it. I had a sample pack of other blades that I bought of the zon and Proraso White croap and AS. Somewhere between then and now I somehow ended up with an AoS badger brush that has been my regular.

 

[Pedict]

First razor was my dad's old fatboy (in the 1970's) with canned goo. Like most I switched to carts, TracII, then Atra, to sensor etc.. Finally went back to DE about 6 years ago. Fatboy is still my favorite. Btw switched to shaving soap in the early 90's.