For all you old-timers, how did you do it?

[Kyle Hyde]

For all of you members who used a safety razor and soap back in the day before carts even existed, I have some questions. How did you make lather in those days. I find it really hard to believe that you soaked your soap with a little water and your brush before your shower. Then squeezed the brush dry, then loaded up the brush, then took it to a bowl and slowly added water to make a lather.

Did you just hold the brush under the faucet, and take the dripping wet brush to your puck of soap in a mug and swirl until it was the right consistency? I feel that a lot of the steps suggested by some aren't the way things were done "back in the day." Is there any truth to my suspicions?

 

[brianw]

Yup.. just that, except when I was with my Gramps. He used boiled water from the teakettle... Loaded the brush slowly and lathered on his face slowly. 2 passes with a str8 and he was done. He taught me how to shave... so I was expected to do as he did. when he was not around... brush under the tap and quickly face lathered

 

[bigstick]

YES. That's how I learned it in the 60s. But old-time shaving goes back centuries, boy. Centuries. None of them on this-here forum, bygum.

As your GF will tell you, the slow methodical way beats slap-dash any day, no matter how you larned it as a younker.

 

[billc508]

pour boiling water from the teapot into a bowl, pour some of it from the bowl into the mug containing your soap, place the mug in the bowl so you have some hot water in the mug and the mug sitting in hot water itself for a couple of minutes or so. Take the mug out of the bowl, pour the hot water from the mug back into the bowl, soak the brush in the hot water in the bowl for a minute or so. This all takes around 5 minutes. Take the brush from the bowl and lather up in the mug pouring off excess water, dip the brush into the hot water in the bowl and repeat the lathering process as often as necessary, dip the razor in the hot water and shave away. There are variations on this theme but basically, you have combinations of hot water, soap and a nicely lathered brush. This basic routine works at home, in camp, in a vehicle, in a tent, in an aircraft, where ever.

 

[Bertilak]

Long time ago, but ...

1. Soap was in whatever mug the soap came in. Something I got at a drug store. Even then (mid '60s) there weren't too many choices. I remember my attitude was anti Old Spice as I thought that was meant for old guys and not cool young guys like me!
2. Wet the brush and shake it enough so it isn't dripping (might have given it a gentle squeeze).
3. Load up the brush with as much soap as I could get in 15-20 seconds (impatient) while trying not to generate any lather so as not to mess up the mug, the brush and my hand.
4. Apply brush to face somewhat vigorously. At the time I didn't pay any atention to what kind of brush it was as I didn't know there was more than one kind. Probably boar.

I must admit I didn't do that for long. Pretty sure I started with foam from a can and only dabbled with soap and brush for a while then gave up on it. Maybe because foam was quicker but dorm living with a communal bathroom encouraged simplicity, unbreakability, as few items as possible to cart around, and peer pressure not to look too dorky.

 

[klm099]

1963: fill sink with hot water, throw in brush, take shower, retrive brush, shake excess water, whip up lather in mug, apply evenly over face and neck

2009: ditto, except now have Omega soap

nuff said,
ken

 

[buddydog]

We dry-shaved with a freshly knapped flint chip.

 

[luvmysuper]

We dry-shaved with a freshly knapped flint chip.

+1
... and we were grateful we had it!!!

 

[Pescara]

In my day (early 70s) we didn't use no fancy soap or brushes -- I used what my father did, Barbasol in a can. One pass with a Knack, a few minutes with a styptic pencil and some torn up kleenex to blot up the blood and off we went. Funny, it wasn't unusual back then to see a guy walking around with a piece of kleenex stuck to his neck.

 

[bigstick]

are you sure it wasn't toilet paper?

 

[natchez]

When I started it was canned foam, likely Barbasol, a TTO, and whatever blades were in the house. With me it was a styptic pencil or toilet paper for weepers. Canned foam came out sometime in the 1950s I think. I always remember it being in family bathrooms and I was born in 1953.

Only a few of the really old folks I knew used a brush and soap; these guys were born well before WW1. All of the younger folks I recall using the canned stuff.

Even at the barber shop I went to, when they shaved the back of your neck after the haircut, they used a foam from a dispenser. Can't remember if it was a hot lather dispenser, but I think it was. It was a stainless steel looking thing.

Hope this helps.

 

[lamaman3]

After milking the cows and feeding the goats, tending to the chickens - I would come back to shave before breakfast, about 4:30am. Id get some wood and start a fire in our wood-burning stove, slowly heating up some water, put in scuttle, start stropping my straight on a leather strop I made from one of my best cows - when the water was nice and warm Id take my brush - I think it was horsehair at the time and slowly dip in hot water, then swirl on puck of soap I used to pick up at the general store - lather on face, slowly dipping brush in scuttle when I needed more water - one pass with the straight with some touchups and throw on some rum or bourbon for aftershave, then off to a breakfast of oats before returning to work in the fields.

 

[Kyle Hyde]

When you say one pass, was it WTG or ATG. I can't imagine looking acceptable with only one WTG pass.

 

[Hawkeye5]

When most of us "Oldtimers" started shaving, one pass was the norm.

 

[Bertilak]

When you say one pass, was it WTG or ATG. I can't imagine looking acceptable with only one WTG pass.

When most of us "Oldtimers" started shaving, one pass was the norm.

When I started shaving one pass was all that I needed! We called it peach fuzz.

The need for more aggressive shaving probably came on slowly since I don't remember any specific transition. I think it was simply a matter of rubbing my hand over my face and finding spots that needed another go, probably ATG. Somewhere along the line, again I don't remember when, I simply switched to a complete second pass before even feeling for the rough spots.

 

[Pescara]

are you sure it wasn't toilet paper?

You are correct. See what happens when you get old?

 

[natchez]

Shaving was not taken by most as a particularly pleasurable endeavor. Like today, most men just wanted to get a passable shave and get on with the day.

It is just the tools we used were what was the then current technology. Turns out it was very good technology, since the price of the razors used now are well more than they cost new. Gillette SS and their adjustables were very popular, available in all the drug stores, as were number of canned creams. Schick was also pretty widely available and the competition between the two kept the prices down.

You went in and bought what you needed and that was it. No magic to it. Think going into CVS or Walgreen's now and just buying what is available on the shelf.

 

[*King G*]

brush under sink, swirl on soap puck. face lather then, face lather now.

 

[English]

That's why they sell the soap in a bowl.

If you put too much water in the brush or the bowl, the first squeeze gets rid of what you don't need. Thin suds drop over the bowl edges and into the sink. You just keep twirling until the lather is rich and creamy and fills the brush.

When I read about special bowls and puting the lather in a bowl and adding drops etc., I think the worlds gone loopy.

If the soap doesn't whip up instant, thick, protective, white lather that provides protection to you skin and glide for your razor, sling it in the dustbin, because the product has been mislabelled.

It shouldn't sting or stain or smell unpleasant, it shouldn't dry your face and it shouldn't dry on your face or in the brush over the time of a normal shave.

Simple and effective. But actually quite hard to find nowdays.

 

[Saltchuck]

I started shaving in 1961 with my brand-new Slim Adjustable (which I still have). Later I switched to a Schick injector, which I also still have. After that many years, details are a bit fuzzy in my memory, but I still have my Ever-Ready 100T boar brush (which seems kind of puny now next to my newer Omega brush) and Old Spice mug. I know I used Old Spice SS, and maybe Williams too; whatever they had in the store. I doubt that I got as good a lather then as I do now, or I never would have stopped using the mug and brush, but I switched to Colgate in a can, and eventually to Edge gel. I was seduced by the Techmatic, Trac II, Atra, Sensor Excel, and Mach 3, but I drew the line at a Fusion. I seem to recall 2 passes: WTG and ATG. About a year ago I saw the light and switched back to DE razors and real lather.

I remember being pleased when Wilkinson, Schick, and Gillette came out with the new stainless steel DE blades. They certainly outlasted the old Gillette Blue Blades, and delivered a more comfortable shave. Before the blue blades I remember Gillette blades being kind of a brownish-tan in color.

I learned to shave from Dad, who used a Fat Boy, and Ever-Ready 100T, and an Old Spice mug. He would lather up, then soak with a hot towel, then lather up again. I never bothered with that. Dad eventually switched to Colgate in a can too. My older brother remembers seeing Dad shave with a straight, but I don't. I wish I had kept Dad's Fat Boy and Old Spice mug when he died, but, alas, I didn't.