How has old-school shaving changed over the last decade or so?

[Doc4]

One thing I notice is the shift from old NOS stuff to a greater supply of new artisan and/or small business products. The NOS stuff is getting harder and harder to find, and it's no longer common to stumble across some NOS stuff offered at reasonable prices and widely available.

On the other hand, there are a lot more small-batch, artisan, small-business manufacturers who are filling the gaps and giving us lots of new choices.

Ten years ago, "artisan soap" meant the Three Sues, QED, and ... um ... golly, there probably was someone else but ... um maybe one or two. Now, there's dozens!

Back then, if you wanted a straight razor, you could pick DOVO, TI ... or one of about two custom makers worth a dang ... or find NOS blades or vintage. Now, the options for buying a razor made this decade have increased greatly. Bigly even. And your chances of getting a NOS blade ... um ... round about zero.

Just two examples.

 

[TheKman]

I can't honestly say I have a meaningful opinion on this topic, however, I admit to being disappointed in the view that we're now too fanatical or OC about this routine. Since the start of this year I've probably invested about AUD1000 in finding the right gear to relieve the pain of shaving daily and I'm personally grateful that the B&B community has contributed to the enormous expansion of available products. Otherwise I'd still be shredding my face daily.

If I was able to make an inexpensive English Tech do the job I would. I've nothing but gratitude for the OCD of some community members, and I have an exquisitely expensive razor leaving my face in great shape to show for it!

 

[Graybeard57]

I've only been at it for five years, but in that time, the choices available in shaving software have really grown exponentially. There are more choices in soaps and AS now than when I started. Oh, and vintage razors are getting more expensive, though there are always bargains to be found if you are patient.

 

[ackvil]

As a 50+ year traditional shaver I have seen numerous changes:

• When I started shaving you bought whatever razors were available in a pharmacy or similar store. There were no eBay or flea markets.
• Razor blades were quite limited. For DE razors, Gillette was King.
• Shaving brushes were smaller and less expensive. I recall only badger, boar, and combo brushes. The number of brushes available was quite limited. If you lived in a large city or had access to one, you had more choices.
• Artisan soap makers did not exist.
• The variety of razors was nothing like we have today.

 

[LexM]

Interesting insight, @Doc4. I wasn't cognizant of the role new-old stock items played in years passed.

One thing I notice is the shift from old NOS stuff to a greater supply of new artisan and/or small business products. The NOS stuff is getting harder and harder to find, and it's no longer common to stumble across some NOS stuff offered at reasonable prices and widely available.

On the other hand, there are a lot more small-batch, artisan, small-business manufacturers who are filling the gaps and giving us lots of new choices.

Ten years ago, "artisan soap" meant the Three Sues, QED, and ... um ... golly, there probably was someone else but ... um maybe one or two. Now, there's dozens!

Back then, if you wanted a straight razor, you could pick DOVO, TI ... or one of about two custom makers worth a dang ... or find NOS blades or vintage. Now, the options for buying a razor made this decade have increased greatly. Bigly even. And your chances of getting a NOS blade ... um ... round about zero.

Just two examples.

 

[BSAGuy]

One word - More.

More razors, more soaps, more creams, more brushes, more blades, more obsessing about every little detail of the shave, more balms, ore after shaves, more artisan makers of ___________ (fill in the blank), more.............

In the immortal words of Andrea True -

 

[LexM]

The limited variety of everything shave-related is interesting to note over a longer timespan, @ackvil. We can talk about how limited was the selection a decade ago, but pre-internet the selection was tiny fraction of that!

As a 50+ year traditional shaver I have seen numerous changes:

• When I started shaving you bought whatever razors were available in a pharmacy or similar store. There were no eBay or flea markets.
• Razor blades were quite limited. For DE razors, Gillette was King.
• Shaving brushes were smaller and less expensive. I recall only badger, boar, and combo brushes. The number of brushes available was quite limited. If you lived in a large city or had access to one, you had more choices.
• Artisan soap makers did not exist.
• The variety of razors was nothing like we have today.

 

[Bookie]

As a 50+ year traditional shaver I have seen numerous changes:

• When I started shaving you bought whatever razors were available in a pharmacy or similar store. There were no eBay or flea markets.
• Razor blades were quite limited. For DE razors, Gillette was King.
• Shaving brushes were smaller and less expensive. I recall only badger, boar, and combo brushes. The number of brushes available was quite limited. If you lived in a large city or had access to one, you had more choices.
• Artisan soap makers did not exist.
• The variety of razors was nothing like we have today.

Same thing is still present over here:
People that still use DE (not shaving enthusiasts) buy whatever their local market or supermarkets sells.
We have some brushes availble at low cost (actually these are quite good, keep lather for 3-4 passes without problem)
And my grandfather used tech and had thicker beard than me.
If I would say for example that tech is too mild for me he would say I'm spoiled or I'm like a woman.
Also supermarkets and local markets keep only creams (croatian brands and palmolive are most common).

But I know that many people use cartridges, but every time I go to supermarket I see creams (not canned stuff), DE blades and disposable being bought, I have yet to see cartridges being taken from the shelves.

 

[TheVez2]

Speaking of shavemageddon, it seems kinda unlikely now, with fifty thousand artisan soapmakers and $150 new production razors,but the hoarding mentality on here seems to have mostly started out of a genuine fear that traditional shave products would disappear one day. Not much cause to worry about that now.

Yes and no.

As I mentioned before, we as a community have momentum and there are a lot of products out there, so there's no fear that we are going to wake up and discover that P&G have shut the system down and we wont be able to find shave soap at all.

However...... there are a lot of new products out there, and some of the old beloved products are seeing reduced sales as a result of everyone only wanting to try the latest and greatest. Newbies ask for recommendations and they get a list of the new stuff, not the old, so they never venture down that path, and eventually some of our beloved products get discontinued. Or in an effort to save money, companies reformulate a product. When we discover that a product, for those reasons or any other, is about to be discontinued (e.g. Irisch Moos Cream, AOS Tallow, Floid Blue, etc.) we stock up and horde whatever is left, because those products are now gone forever. In that regard, the shavemageddon is very real.

 

[BigJ]

Today we have much more variety in hardware and software.

 

[ouch]

What I've noticed has changed:

• A rather snobbish, elitist attitude among some community members that is hardly "gentlemanly behavior."
• An OCD epidemic with minutiae that is ridiculous.

That pretty much covers it.

Well, one thing for sure hasn't changed- an endless supply of serial complainers.

 

[carm10]

This thread is really interesting to me. I've only been at this two and a half years, so I don't know. It does remind me that I got into it through Mantic's videos, which are a decade old. I don't know if they are representative of attitudes of that time, but they are whimsical, relaxed, and confident, with nothing to prove. Some contemporary videos I've seen are more like the person is making a class presentation, where you talk fast and suggest that you're under strain to keep up with the burden of doing it, "things have been really crazy around here... sorry that xyz... thank you guys sooooo much for watching...". (Granted this way of talking is common on Youtube across a wide range of subjects today).

In general, and this might be totally wrong, I feel there's more interest in "hardness" in today's shaving culture. What does that mean? Some things that have already been mentioned, and perhaps coincidentally: soap over cream, and hard soap over soft soap. Triple milled over melt and pour. Face lather over bowl lather. Individual artisan and identity over mass market, drug store. Razors in stainless steel, and now even titanium ("airplane grade"). Some names play up the hardness or toughness: Chiseled Face, RazoRock, Wolfman, Kong, Monster, Kracken, Tallow + Steel, Texas on Fire, etc. (rise of U.S.-made products probably plays a role here) It's a different imagination than the foppish image of some things older than 10 years, say, Nancy Boy, or the "gentleman" image of the earlier Taylor of Old Bond Street or Clubman. Of course a lot of older brands were just names: Edwin Jagger, D.R. Harris, Geo F Trumper, Williams, Parker, Gillette, Schick. Today a brand needs to grab you--there is more to prove--and hardness is a way to get a second look. yeah just some rambling impressions here, lol.

 

[Macfrommichigan]

This thread is really interesting to me. I've only been at this two and a half years, so I don't know. It does remind me that I got into it through Mantic's videos, which are a decade old. I don't know if they are representative of attitudes of that time, but they are whimsical, relaxed, and confident, with nothing to prove. Some contemporary videos I've seen are more like the person is making a class presentation, where you talk fast and suggest that you're under strain to keep up with the burden of doing it, "things have been really crazy around here... sorry that xyz... thank you guys sooooo much for watching...". (Granted this way of talking is common on Youtube across a wide range of subjects today).

In general, and this might be totally wrong, I feel there's more interest in "hardness" in today's shaving culture. What does that mean? Some things that have already been mentioned, and perhaps coincidentally: soap over cream, and hard soap over soft soap. Triple milled over melt and pour. Face lather over bowl lather. Individual artisan and identity over mass market, drug store. Razors in stainless steel, and now even titanium ("airplane grade"). Some names play up the hardness or toughness: Chiseled Face, RazoRock, Wolfman, Kong, Monster, Kracken, Tallow + Steel, Texas on Fire, etc. (rise of U.S.-made products probably plays a role here) It's a different imagination than the foppish image of some things older than 10 years, say, Nancy Boy, or the "gentleman" image of the earlier Taylor of Old Bond Street or Clubman. Of course a lot of older brands were just names: Edwin Jagger, D.R. Harris, Geo F Trumper, Williams, Parker, Gillette, Schick. Today a brand needs to grab you--there is more to prove--and hardness is a way to get a second look. yeah just some rambling impressions here, lol.

Interesting point. It occurs to me years ago folks drove cars. Now everyone needs an SUV to get a quart of milk from the corner store. Hmm. Similar theme?

 

[LexM]

This thread is really interesting to me. . . . It's a different imagination than the foppish image of some things older than 10 years, say, Nancy Boy, or the "gentleman" image of the earlier Taylor of Old Bond Street or Clubman. Of course a lot of older brands were just names: Edwin Jagger, D.R. Harris, Geo F Trumper, Williams, Parker, Gillette, Schick. Today a brand needs to grab you--there is more to prove--and hardness is a way to get a second look. yeah just some rambling impressions here, lol.

That's an interesting observation, @carm10. Perhaps the relative decline of the three Ts (Taylor, Trumper, Truefitt) is symptomatic of the larger shift you identify in shaving-enthusiast culture: away from an English gentleman ideal, toward a more manly firmness.

 

[TheKman]

What an interesting impact marketing makes, even to a utilitarian subject like shaving. I feel a poll coming on... do you identify as 'Gentleman' or 'HardMan'?

The current stable consists of Feather, Timeless, GFT, TOB, Proraso and Simpson. That scream Gentleman to me.

 

[Hoka Hey]

What an interesting impact marketing makes, even to a utilitarian subject like shaving. I feel a poll coming on... do you identify as 'Gentleman' or 'HardMan'?

The current stable consists of Feather, Timeless, GFT, TOB, Proraso and Simpson. That scream Gentleman to me.

But I thought the Stainless was Hard Guy territory?

 

[TheKman]

Even a gentleman needs to pull on the glove occasionally.

 

[MrSpeedy]

I've only been traditional shaving for 3-4 years but have seen a massive increase in the choices we have, especially in soaps. The rise of all the new razors surprised me, but I suppose it was inevitable.

While I don't have data to back this up, it appears that what was once the domain of a few dedicated enthusists has become, to a certain extent, somewhat mainstream. In any hobby - and this is a hobby for most of us - that causes stress among the early adopters. They feel as though their hobby has been "taken" from them. And in some ways it has. It will never be what it was 10 years ago. We have two choices - yell at people to get off our lawn, or embrace the changes we like and discard those we don't. If we choose the second option, the market will shake out and wet shaving will be stronger than ever.

Sent from my Moto G (5) Plus using Tapatalk

 

[Hoka Hey]

Even a gentleman needs to pull on the glove occasionally.

 

[Komboloi]

The Curmudgeon and The Hobby

Whenever someone poses the question about ANY subject (music, the NFL, cars, clothes), "How has it changed in the past 20 years," identifiable categories of responses come out. The most prominent one is always The Curmudgeon: "It was better then, and we didn't need this newfangled stuff, because we were better then, and now the world is full of sissies." It doesn't matter what the topic is, The Curmudgeon will be there to tell you with great certainty that the olden days were better and that you are WRONG to think otherwise. There's no use talking to him; his hearing aid is switched to "off".

I wasn't engaged in traditional wet shaving 20 years ago, so this is just a guess: I think the idea of shaving-as-hobby is newish. And it's people who see it that way who buy $200 razors (more than the one razor they need), lots of brushes, cabinets full of soaps, own lots of different kinds of blades, and maybe even have a "collection" of old razors. Needlessly-fancy razors have been around for a long time, but I don't think people who bought those razors thought of shaving as a hobby.

My sense is that many of the changes people have noted above stem from this attitudinal change among many people who stopped seeing shaving as a daily task and began seeing it as a hobby. Once shaving becomes a hobby, people start collecting razors, buying more of them because they like them as industrial art, and start experimenting with lots of soaps and blades, rather than buying a puck of Williams and a tuck of Wilkies every month. IOW, the explosion of "more" stems (I think) from the movement of shaving into hobby territory. There's a reason why the postal service prints more than one kind of stamp: Many people see a stamp as something more than evidence of postage paid, so there exists a variety. Same with coins produced by the U.S. Mint.

The thing about any hobby is that it needs no justification for the person who enjoys it. And for those who don't get it, it will always seem silly.

But the result has been undeniably good, in my opinion: MUCH greater choice across the board. And if The Curmudgeon doesn't need a new hobby and just wants to keep shaving with his one and only 1965 SuperSpeed to get a decent shave in the morning, he can still do that.