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In the old days ….

thombrogan

Lounging On The Isle Of Tugsley.
My grandfathers were both in explaining themselves to some weirdo with a halo before I got into wetshaving. One of them used a straight razor, but he lived very far away. The other used a Remington or Norelco over the sink and would bleed from it. So he should’ve used pre-shave.
 
Triple S for me.

I don't always follow the traditional order though, I'm not that regular. :letterk1:

This.

The only change in my routine over the years is the amount of time I spend on the 3 S’s each morning. Their was a 13 week stretch of time in my youth when I was only allowed 10 minutes to successfully complete the 3 S’s. I did not find that satisfactory. These days I take longer than 10 minutes. Sometimes much longer.
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
I don't believe in "exfoliating" my skin, ie: scrubbing off your dead skin cells. Skin is an organ, the largest humans have, and was designed to keep out infection and hold your internal organs in place, lol.

So I ALWAYS try to treat it as gently as possible to get the job of shaving done. I just use a wet wash cloth, as warm as I can tolerate, for as long as I have time for, to soften my whiskers and then proceed to try not to damage my skin and at the same time try to get those whiskers as closely shaven as possible.

Follow up with AS, Balm, or nuttin' but water, depending on my mood, or what I think my incredibly handsome face needs.
Hey FT. Did you know your skin is replaced every three months? I read an article recently that said the bowel was actually the largest organ. How is that for a UBI (useless bit of information). Anyway, my skin is baby butt smooth and accounts for my undeniable beauty I expect however I try not to expose my bowel often. Got snow yet?
 
Pre-shave doesn't have to be a dedicated product. It can just be a hot shower with soap. Or lathering up and leaving it on for a few minutes before you start in with the razor. The idea is to prepare your face for shaving by softening the whiskers, however you want to do that.

Aftershaves have been around a long, long time. Products like Aqua Velva and Skin Bracer go way back. People did find them useful back then.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
Hey FT. Did you know your skin is replaced every three months? I read an article recently that said the bowel was actually the largest organ. How is that for a UBI (useless bit of information). Anyway, my skin is baby butt smooth and accounts for my undeniable beauty I expect however I try not to expose my bowel often. Got snow yet?
Yes, I gots snow. And I bought bananas yesterday. And somebuddy sent me Arko! so I'm trying to figger out a way to combine them for a unique shaving experience.

Red blood cells get recycled every 3 months. We are wunerfully made animals us humans.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
This.

The only change in my routine over the years is the amount of time I spend on the 3 S’s each morning. Their was a 13 week stretch of time in my youth when I was only allowed 10 minutes to successfully complete the 3 S’s. I did not find that satisfactory. These days I take longer than 10 minutes. Sometimes much longer.
I'll bet the fourth "S" was "salute!"
 

steveclarkus

Goose Poop Connoisseur
Yes, I gots snow. And I bought bananas yesterday. And somebuddy sent me Arko! so I'm trying to figger out a way to combine them for a unique shaving experience.

Red blood cells get recycled every 3 months. We are wunerfully made animals us humans.
Haven’t you heard of bananas and cream? Nananas and Arko sounds delish! Fart bubbles 😂.

Yep those red blood cells. So many I give a bunch away every couple of months.

400,000 years of human evolution and it only took 15,000 to make a hash out of it.
 
In the old days fussing with all these products wasn't considered too manly so the market wasn't there. Only two reasons to use pre-shave IMO: 1) Your just starting out and some preshaves can help prevent nics until you get your technique mastered. And 2) You're prone to razor burn (some guys just are).. outside of that it seems unnecessary. Once in a rare while I try some that I have around just as a novelty. At this point it doesn't make much difference.
 
If you want to take it all the way back to the towns of the old west Barbershops you have to consider. Dirty dusty main streets with cattle being driven down them. No running water, so alcohol would be used liberally for disinfecting. Yeah, they probably used doctored booze for that. There’s a reason bay rum is called bay rum.
 
Shower. 2-pass shave. Use pure, or as close to as possible, aloe vera. Done.

On days when I don't shave I use a nice skin lotion.

Simple yet effective.
For years my father used aloe vera and a razor. He was getting huge jars of it from a medical supply I think.
 

FarmerTan

"Self appointed king of Arkoland"
I'm gonna just leave this right here...there's a dirty word, but that's the whole point.

and if you care for the other side...
"Never should have left Space."

I will be using this. Of course, I can't show it to the Lovely War Department until one of us is dead, but.... I WILL say....bbbbb.
 
What I know for certain, because I’m from the “old days”, is that it was a “getter done” and it was very rarely a topic of conversation and certainly not considered a hobby.
I am not from the ¨old days¨ though my father was. While he was born in the 1940´s he was raised on a rural farm. I came along in 1980, and my grandmother (born in the teens) had the same synthetic whetrock that my grandfather bought when they were first married. It was dished terribly. I do not know if her knives I remember were from their first years of marriage or not, but I recall a number of blades that had been sharpened near out of existence. She had a couple of standard 5¨ blade old hickory knives that the blades were no wider than that of a pearing knife. Those were the knives I used when I was taught to quarter chickens. My father and all of my uncles still butchered our own hogs until I was almost a teenager, however they stopped in the early ´90s.

My dad just shaved. He used canned goop and the cheapest Bic disposable there was. So that was what I used and it was awful. He was adamant about a man staying clean shaven, though. Pictures of both my grandfathers (they both died before I was born) and my great grandfathers (one of whom I knew until he died at 93 in 1987, he was always clean shaven even unto his 90s) confirmed that they shaved regularly. I hated shaving as a teenager, as using my Dad´s Bic razors was pretty rough. He pretty much imparted that a man shaves at least every other day, and before any shift at work though. I was so glad when I found Mach 3, even more so when I found DE shaving, and now I wouldn´t give anything for my SRs. I have run the gamut of crappy to awesome shaves.

I shower, shave, and do a cold rinse. That´s it. That´s all my father did. I would bet that is all any of my grandfathers did.
 
I never used a pre shave , once in a blue moon I will use some vintage Old Spice aftershave, but only on special occasions, a few times a year. Usually I just rinse my face with cold water, works fine for me. My dad never used a pre shave, just a super speed and used Old Spice aftershave , once in a while English Leather , or Tabac .
 
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