- Thread starter
- #7,401
Chan Eil Whiskers
Fumbling about.
Amazing getting to 250 straight shaves sir! Congratulations on the milestone.
Joel, once I did enough straight razor shaves to get about 20% good at them it became obvious SR shaves were so much more comfortable that it became hard to reach for anything else. All the rest is the path of least resistance.
There are remaining issues.
- Have I learned enough from SR shaving to go back to safety razors and take with me what I've learned?
- I know safety razor shaving is much faster and I know I get a smoother and closer safety razor shave (now), but I also know my straight razor shaves are improving in their smoothness, closeness, and in how long the shaves last.
- I don't know how much my straight razor shaves can improve, but I'm hopeful.
- Some gentlemen report their straight razor shaves are as good as or even better in smoothness and closeness and longevity.
- If I could accomplish #1 and if I find I can't further improve my SR shaves so that they match in smoothness and closeness of my safety shaves I might eventually be tempted to abandon the straight razor and return to the safety razor, but...
- Comfort is the most important thing. I'm not sure a safety razor can match a straight in comfort.
- That can be tested.
- Testing it means not taking the path of least resistance. Not sure I'm up for that. I enjoy the SR.
- Straight razor shaving may impress some other people (and give me macho points or something of that sort) but I could care less about impressing anyone. Impressing others embarrasses me.
- The fact that I can sharpen and maintain and actually shave with a straight razor impresses the hell out of me and I do care a lot about impressing myself.
This likely won't help you at all, but I couldn't shave with the General for a very long time remotely east to west on my neck. What I began doing was not a true E-W pattern but more a SE-NW pattern on one pass and the opposite on the next. This has replaced my true wtg passes on my neck with all of my razors. Granted, my neck whiskers make chevrons all the way across with their growth pattern, but this has seemed to do well for me.
It's pretty much what I do with the straight razor, too, although there are limits to my ability. In theory I can figure out how to shave with the straight razor from all sorts of directions/approaches. In theory only. In practice many of the things I can imagine doing with the SR don't seem possible when I actually put the razor near my skin. I'm not sure if I chicken out or if better sense prevails.
Happy shaves,
Jim