Den creep - 1 year

[buma]

Hey all,

was cleaning out the bathroom today and as I was taking EVERYTHING out of it and was thinking of how much stuff I've accumulated in just about a year of being a member of B&B. As I was ready to put all the stuff back, I decided to do a 'before' and 'after' shot of my 'den creep' since joining:

Image 1 - before


Because it was so sparse, I did a blowup so you can clearly see that there were only 5 things in my shave den pre-B&B:
1. cart razor (switched to a trac-II head as I couldn't stand paying so much for the Sensor replacement heads - hahaha, little did I know)
2. shaving brush - a boar brush from Sephora that I've been using for over 10 years
3. soap in bowl - originally housed C&E sandalwood soap, but resorted to glycerin soaps as C&E disappeared from here for a while
4. Dominica Bay Rum - ever since I saw it in the old J Peterman catalog, I wanted a bottle of it - and one lucky trip to California later...
5. prickly heat powder - not really a shave powder, but great for those hot days as it is very cooling

Add deodorant, comb and a toothbrush to the pic and you have what for over 20 years, with only a slight variation, was very satisfactory for my day to day grooming needs. I used to be proud of my spartan mini-den, and I fully admit that I made fun of SWMBO and all her bottles, creams, ointments, lotions, etc etc (originally, the rest of the space in the before pic use to be hers).

However, once found out about DE / SE razors and B&B...

Image 2 - after


I'm not even going to begin to count the number of items shown here, but everything other than my original cart razor is still there... somewhere, buried in the picture. As you can see, everything has.. um... grown quite a bit in the year: soaps, creams, brushes, after shaves tonics, shave bowls, and lets not forget the razors, too. Egads, the razors..

What's worse, there is the backstock of items NOT shown - you know, for the eventual shave apocalypse... So - thank you B&B (I think) for opening my eyes to a whole new obsession, er, hobby.

And to show that there is symmetry in life, SWMBO now makes fun of me and all my bottles, creams, ointments, lotions, etc etc...

 

[tgutc]

Very nice! your razor selection is great.

 

[rebos]

You've done pretty well.

Have you found much of your acquisitions locally? How is the selection in Hawaii as far as "in the wild" finds?

 

[dfollett_98]

Ray:

Very nicely done, my friend. I really like your razor storage box.

Enjoy your ever-expanding gear and your shaves.

Don

 

[smalltank]

Wow!..nice lookin

 

[Shaving_CHENG]

Truly impressive, especially the butterscotch brushes

 

[BallisticBurrito]

I was going to get a bottle of Dominica when I made my last order to WCS but alas..they were out.

But thanks for this..I now feel better about my 3 razors and 5 soaps/creams, lol.

 

[malocchio]

one hell of a collection ! nice going ..

 

[buma]

tgutc, smalltank, and malocchio - thanks for the kind words! I really didn't start out wetshaving to collect. I really and honestly started it to save money. The switch to a soap and brush was to cut the cost of canned foam and all those cans I was throwing away. I switched from a sensor to an older trac-ii razor to save money but still thought that spending that much money was still excessive.

During a personal financial slump, I started to read those saving money blogs and I came across an article at the simple dollar on how to save money shaving and it talked about shaving with a traditional DE razor (I didn't even know they still made the things). I was interested in it, but as I started looking up the modern DE's on Amazon at the time, the cost was a bit outside my comfort spending zone at the time, so I filed it away in the back of my head. About a year later in 2011, I was in a bit of a better space, but was still interested in DE shaving to save money, so I went to eBay to go look up 'safety razor' and was inundated by all the razors that came up - and that's when I also realized I knew NOTHING about razors.

So, next stop, Google - and guess what was one of the first places I found... Once here, I signed up, did my research, found that I wanted a Gillette Superspeed and never looked back! Since then and now is documented in the pic above.

rebos - I've learned that any hobby I have becomes a slight obsession to me. First it was finding the right razor, then cream, then aftershave, then brush for restoration... so I'm getting AD in stages it seems.

As to finds locally, almost all you see has been purchased online either thru eBay, or more likely thru the B&B BST, which I think at least 80% or more of what I have comes from fellow shavers here. Not one razor, brush, soap, nor cream (save the Bigalow) was bought locally. Most of the aftershaves and tonics were purchased online, too, although there are at least 1 or 2 exceptions to it. I would hate to see the size of my den if I were on the mainland and free shipping would apply - oi!

Don - thanks, that box was originally a flatware box (knives, I think) and meant to hold ALL my razors. However, due to ever expanding RAD, I've had to think of ways of maximizing the space in it, and even now it doesn't hold my latest lather catchers... sigh... we'll have to fix that somehow

Shaving_CHENG - thanks! The butterscotch brushes started out by accident when I purchased a dopp kit and 1 of the 3 brushes that came with it turned out to be one. I didn't realize at the time they were so sought after, but stick here long enough and stuff rubs off on you The second and third came recently in quick succession: one that I thought would be used came with a razor lot (that came along with a pretty nice slim and G-bar, too), and the second was alone in box which I was hoping would be unused. As it turned out however, the one I thought was used, wasn't - and the one that I thought that wasn't, was... it all works out even in the end! As a lover of vintage badgers and their flop, I now have backups!

BallisticBurrito - I don't know if you remember the J Peterman catalogs or not from the 90's or not, but it was such a different breed all unto itself. Instead of pictures, all the items were hand-drawn images; instead of canned descriptions of things, it was more of a personal recommendation for each and every item in the catalog. It made you want to buy pretty much everything in it (at least I did).

Dominica was sold as pretty much shave-heaven in a bottle and the description alone of the scent made me want it. It wasn't until a trip to the mainland that I could actually see, feel, and smell it (at Restoration Hardware, no less - another great store at the time) that I finally bought and brought that bottle home with me. I've kept that original bottle with me all these years even though it's empty now and the original cork is starting to fail on me, too. I've now found it on Amazon and have restocked, but can't seem to let that bottle go yet. And I'm glad I make your collection look sane

 

[BallisticBurrito]

Never saw, or heard of, J Peterman but I know what you mean by hand drawn images and personal descriptions. There's a modern company that does stuff like that, I used to get their catalogs randomly but they stopped sending them to me just as randomly as they started, Duluth Trading Company:
http://www.duluthtrading.com/

EDIT: And a quick search on there shows they have some shaving stuff..including Ogallala Bay Rum Cologne:
http://www.duluthtrading.com/search...p_origin=work-pants-for-men&processor=content

At a pretty decent price when you notice it's a 8oz bottle and not a 4oz.
They carry a Edwin Jagger razor, too, nifty.

 

[Josh_WA]

Never saw, or heard of, J Peterman but I know what you mean by hand drawn images and personal descriptions. There's a modern company that does stuff like that, I used to get their catalogs randomly but they stopped sending them to me just as randomly as they started, Duluth Trading Company:
http://www.duluthtrading.com/

EDIT: And a quick search on there shows they have some shaving stuff..including Ogallala Bay Rum Cologne:
http://www.duluthtrading.com/search...p_origin=work-pants-for-men&processor=content

At a pretty decent price when you notice it's a 8oz bottle and not a 4oz.

Every time I hear J Peterman mentioned all I can think of is Seinfeld...

 

[Mike_P]

Wow! That's quite the collection! I'm jealous... Lol.

 

[alitkty]

Nice box.

 

[sgtd]

Wow. Well done.

 

[CB1]

Five weeks into this new hobby and I'm trying to slow down on purchasing. I find your one year picture terrifying . Very nice though.

 

[jumper]

Every time I hear J Peterman mentioned all I can think of is Seinfeld...

+1

 

[jb4647]

A month in and I may already match you razor for razor....... My eBay PayPal spend Since June 1? $385...

 

[kpeople]

Every time I hear J Peterman mentioned all I can think of is Seinfeld...

My thoughts exactly

 

[BigBull]

Like WOAH!

 

[buma]

BallisticBurrito, Josh_WA, jumper, & kpeople - J Peterman was an interesting catalog in it's day. It was tall and slender, and for a guy who wasn't much into shopping, I really looked forward to seeing it in the mail. In fact, it seems that they're still around and they have the Dominca Bay Rum still for sale, hand drawn image and catchy description still. It's good to see them still around. And it seems J Peterman has shaving stuff, too!

Mike_P, Patrick, jb4647, & BigBull - Thanks, I think. The sad thing was, I didn't want to actually have this much stuff when I first started out. I was happy being spartan (THIS IS SPARTA!) but all of a sudden, I heard of the 'aristocrat' razor.. and then all hell breaks loose and the envoy gets kicked into the bottomless pit and... waitaminute, getting my life mixed up in the movies again

alitkty & KcHighLife - Thanks! as I mentioned above, it started out life as a flatware box, I believe. It's like one grade above a cigar box in build quality, but it was inexpensive, nice looking, and it wasn't that expensive to get here to Hawaii, either. A good long weekend of work and voila! If you're interested, I made a post about the conversion process. Oi - at the bottom of it you can see the collection as it stood back then, which has considerably grown since.

CB1 - be afraid, be very afraid... well, if you're like me, that is. If you have a level head, you should be fine. If not, I suggest cutting your interweb access NOW! kidding, kidding