It never gets boring

[euro]

I have been DE shaving for almost 2 years. And I love it, it never gets boring at all. I was wondering did it get boring for the generations before us? Or are we the only one?

Beside you can save money with DE shaving, I'm still on my first 500ml Proraso AS, Proraso Green 500ml shaving cream. I have used 25 astra's from a 200 blade batch. So I HAVE SAVED MONEY!

 

[the_edski]

So I HAVE SAVED MONEY!

Famous last words.

 

[kansaskyle]

I have been DE shaving for almost 2 years. And I love it, it never gets boring at all. I was wondering did it get boring for the generations before us? Or are we the only one?

I think shaving was more of a routine chore to get through for previous generations whereas we have access to all kinds of razors, blades, brushes, soaps/creams, aftershaves, and more importantly a place like B&B with a wealth of information, not to mention enablers.

Good job on going the minimalist route and saving money!

 

[davidepeden]

The thing about going to DE shaving is the quality of the shave, and enjoyment of the process itself. I shaved with a DE when I started to shave, but went to the cartridges when they came out. And shaved that way for decades. My wife has pointed out that the shaves I'm getting now are the closest I've ever had, plus I am saving money (when not in RAD mode) and I actually enjoy it. It's no longer a chore.

 

[sub vet]

Shaving was, still is in fact, just shaving for me.

 

[Executive Contour]

I think my Italian grandfather, who shaved with a safety razor and badger brush, would be quite perplexed and disturbed to know that I think about shaving when not actually engaged in the practice, or worse yet write little messages about it to an anonymous audience on my computer. He would tell me to get back to work.

 

[petercp4e]

Just wait untill you take the next step and start shaving with a straight razor...

Pete <:-}

 

[prrt949]

I agree with kansaskyle, I think we use the safety razor by choice and the product out there now (great soaps, great brushes, great aftercare) make the process more enjoyable. I asked my father about wet shaving and he said he hated it and was glad when the toss away gilettes came around as they provided a better shave in his opinion. What I remember was my dad using the canned goo with the safety razor. I had never seen him with a brush and soap. So I think his use of a safety razor was inferior due to inferior products

 

[Boro62]

Just wait untill you take the next step and start shaving with a straight razor...

Pete <:-}

yea, i fell into that rabbit hole, and boy has it been fun. Customs really rock the pockets though. I definitely did not save any money switching over to wet shaving, but it is so much more enjoyable.

 

[BSAGuy]

That's good on you, euro. Not many of us here can truthfully say that DE shaving saves us $$. As you know, generally we all spend more than in our cart days.

 

[RVshave]

^agreed, my den is large enough to outfit five gents for a couple of years! and we live full time in a RV, so room is limited.

 

[PugslyCat]

Today we have access to a wide range of products that our fathers and grandfathers didn't have. Rather than choosing which soap or cream they were going to use that day, they probably had one or two brands to choose from at the local barbershop or pharmacy, if they were fortunate. Would you still be so keen on wet shaving if you were facing the same shave everyday? It's not even like they could work up a go to shave combination of their choice. They were basically stuck with what could be found.

As young men from a farming family, my father and his brothers shaved with a thin film of bath soap. No fancy lather of any sort. My grandfather put the last slivers of bath soap into his shaving mug and lathered with his one brush. That just doesn't sound like fun to me.

Another thing that made wet shaving not so much fun was that after adjusting for inflation, DE blades used to be fairly expensive. Maybe not as bad as cartridges are today, but they were certainly no bargain. There is a thread around here somewhere that goes through all of the math on that.

 

[tankerjohn]

I don't know much about the history of shaving as a hobby, however, clearly there have been men who enjoyed shaving with a straight even after safety razors came around and men who continued to shave with DE when carts came on the market. And someone has been buying fancy soaps and aftershaves all this time, or the traditional British soapmakers all would have went out of business when Barbasol switched to cans. My own dad, who never used more than one razor or one shaving cream, had a quite extensive collection of aftershaves that he enjoyed using - and still does, as far as I know. All of that is a long of saying that I suspect that men in the past who enjoyed shaving, or aspects of shaving - like aftershaves, probably didn't get bored with it. And for everyone else, then as now, shaving was just shaving, a daily chore, and it wasn't all that exciting to begin with.

 

[Wood Badger]

I DE shave now, and it is simply a chore that I have to do. Now, I really want to try straight razor shaving, and that might be more fun, or, it might require so much concentration and effort that it will be worse for me, but I won't know until I try it. I also want to try the Schick Injector--I have a few Schick razors, but no blades for them yet. They're in my Amazon cart, ready for me to make my next order. Their time is coming, then maybe a straight. I suspect I'll end up sticking with the Schick Injectors, as they are more like a cartridge system and not as unwieldy as the DE or as difficult to master as the straight.

 

[Eeyore]

Shaving was, still is in fact, just shaving for me.

After thirty something years of wet shaving, it also is just shaving for me.

I love a good soap, and a nice scented aftershave. But the shave itself is just a shave to me. A pleasant routine, but not something special.

 

[TxHarleyGuy7]

In comparison, cart shaving now seems DIRT CHEAP when tolling up all the stuff I've acquired in the last year. Last year? Heck, in the last week alone!!!

 

[BobbyB]

I agree with Euro's comment on DE money savings opinion.

I have:
1) Five good DE razors rotated with each blade replacement. No need to replace any of them--at this time.
2) Three great shaving brushes, rotated daily. All are in good shape.
3) Four shaving soap pucks which should last most of 2015.
4) Six aftershaves of which two may need to be replaced in the next month or so. The other four are almost full bottles.
5) Ninety-one Ladas blades waiting their turn. Currently, I have averaged six shaves for the first 9 blades.

So, it is conceivable that I could go through all of 2015 without having to buy anything. But, who knows what I might stumble on to in an antique store, or on-line later this year!

 

[GoneRetroInOH]

Years ago, just like now, there were men who enjoyed the manly solitude and refreshment of shaving, and there were some who did not care for it at all. What was different was that as of the time, there was no progression of Techmatic bands, Trac II, Atra, Sensor, Mach3, or any outliers. None of them existed, and no one missed what they never had. Shaving was shaving. Except for the old-time purists who still preferred straight razors, one either used a safety razor or an electric. Among the men in the scenes of my upbringing, there was at least one who proudly kept his mug, soap, brush, and razor; and at least one who complained about the whole affair and switched to an electric. I never saw the latter one put a blade to his face, nor do I recall him keeping one around the house. That is how insistent he was that old-time shaving was a needless chore to be avoided at all costs. His idea of improving his shave was to upgrade to successive electrics as they became available. He thought it was the most liberating thing to take his new rechargeable out to the car to shave while he drove.
With such influences in the background, I took up shaving as a military requirement as the postbubescent whiskers started to sprout. Everyone used the razors of the time, which included Trac II and Atra, and canned foam. In civilian life I chose to stay with those selections until recently going retro, and electrics never interested me.
Our distinction is that we have seen all the choices, and all the fruits of shaving system releases that cost up to $1 billion to develop. We have chosen to jump off that bandwagon, not pay all those development costs for products that may not even suit us, and instead spend a bit of extra time to make the experience more interesting.

 

[DucS2R]

I think my grandfather, who used a brush, shaving mug and a straight razor, enjoyed it. He always kept them clean and displayed on a shelf in their tiny bathroom, the the room always smelled of shaving soap and aftershave.

 

[euro]

That's good on you, euro. Not many of us here can truthfully say that DE shaving saves us $$. As you know, generally we all spend more than in our cart days.

I understand, there are a lot of products you want to try out. If you see a new brand of soap you think LET ME HAVE THAT! I have a lot of soap samples here, I bought many of them but I always return to Proraso Green.