Loving Straights

[ph33nyx]

I have to say, I've only been shaving with a straight now for a little over a month and not every day, but I can tell the superiority of them.
My face feels just as smooth with fewer passes and lasts much longer!
I have just a few in my rotation: 1-5/8, 3-4/8, and 1-6/8
I guess I play favoritism because I find myself going back to the 6/8 time and time again (although there's nothing wrong with the others).

 

[JPM]

Congrats! I'm new to straights as well, but I get such a feeling of accomplishment from using one and getting a good shave.

 

[leighton]

 

[Luc]

Good stuff...

There's something with a 6/8... I love 11/16, I can do with 5/8. I have a few 13/16 and 7/8 but I need to work a bit more with a 4/8...

 

[Fnord5]

Of course you love them, they are better in every way.

 

[wedwards]

Nice one. I have mainly 6/8's, but started with a 5/8. There is just something about a 6/8 razor that seems to work very well.

 

[chainfire]

I just discovered a 6/8 Gotta that -for whatever reason- suits me extremely well. I absolutely love shaving with it. I started with 5/8's and still like them, but I'm glad I started straights for sure.

 

[LarryAndro]

It takes a little work to clean and strop a razor. If not for this effort, I would use a 4/8 for under neck, etc. And, a 5/8 or 6/8 for most of the face.

Right now, I'm using a 11/16 round-tip Sochi, Russia razor.

 

[mark3d]

I also clearly prefer the 6/8 for shaving (i only have a 5/8 and 6/8 for comparison, and am only about 15 shaves into the journey). something about the weight of it is just right.

i agree with the sense of accomplishment, shaving with a straight is something i never thought i'd be able to do.

while my best overall straight shave is not yet better than my best overall DE shave, I can see that this will not always be the case - I will definitely be able to get better results with the straight - already in the neck area i get a closer result.

I am grateful the art of straight shaving, and the manufacturing of the tools, was not lost to history.

.

 

[Scissors]

Starting to shave with a straight has been one of the best choices and greatest pleasures I've had in the past year.

There's so much to learn, but it's not an overwhelming task; you don't need to learn everything in order to start to shave, only what is relevant to you at the level of your skills. For example, you don't need to know how to set or reset a bevel for regular razor stropping. At the same time, if you want to dive into the subject that deeply, the information is there. As mark3d said, we're quite fortunate that the art, tools, and technology of the straight razor was not lost to history.

Straight with a straight is great fun, and in many different ways for different people.

• You can embrace straight shaving because you can get to fancy yourself a an antique badass or outlaw, performing a piece of daily grooming with something that can be used as a weapon.
• You can also become a straight shaver because of the control and delicacy it provides. If you have the technique, there's nothing gentler on the skin than a straight shave.
• No other shaving method provides so much for the obsessive-compulsive. If you want to attack a small patch or even a single whisker, then your tool must be the straight razor (and yes, I have stared down single whiskers...lousy little basterds!)
• It offers more than any other method of shaving to gear lovers. Yes, there is the razor, but then there is also the strop, and beyond the strop are the hones...I wouldn't be surprised if there are shavers who hone and then check their edges with a bench microscope.
• But despite the pleasures of endless consumption straight shaving offers the gear fan, it has the smallest environmental footprint of any shaving method. The side products of leather tanning and the manufacture of honing pastes aside—and for all I know these may be quite well regulated, and contribute little or nothing to the waste stream—the straight shaver beats even the DE shaver in the size of his environmental foot print. The DE shaver leaves behind spent blades; the straight shaver, only waste water with soap or cream and whiskers. And straights more than fifty years or even a century old are in regular service today.
• Finally, there's the shave itself. Can the DE or cartridge razor offer the simple and pure tactile pleasure of a well executed straight stroke? Can they match or even rival the the cocoon of intense concentration necessary to perform a good straight shave? Perhaps the new comer to the DE will experience something similar. But the intensity with the straight has to be greater.

My apologies for the purple prose. But there's my $0.02, and why I have come to prefer straights.

 

[faster_than_u]

Wow every time I read something like this makes me want to try even more. One day ....one day