Hello, everyone!
I'd like to introduce myself to you fine folks. I'm 27 years old, soon to be happily married come December, and very excited to be here. After several weeks of getting bombarded with ads for supply and leaf razors, I decided to do some research and realized - I would much prefer a traditional DE Safety Razor to either of those newer alternatives (no hate intended)! I've never really enjoyed cartridge shaving, and am excited to be able to dial in a comfortable and efficient shave once the stars align with technique, hardware, and software. I love a good hobby where I get to experiment around and find a good fit.
I must have spent about two weeks combing through youtube videos, these forums, and several others on reddit to get a good idea of where to start. I finally bit the bullet and grabbed a cheap Baili 171 with some Astra SPs for a trial run. Just a few shaves in, and I'm never going back to cartridges. It already resulted in a much less irritating shave, and so far I've even managed to escape nick and cut free! After using it for a couple days, I also found a fairly good condition late 1940s super speed for around $20, and that should come in soon. I imagine I'll stick to using those for a while, testing out different blades and nailing down my technique. I'd love to build a little collection of razors to find what's best, but I shouldn't keep too many at a time or it'll get hard to justify to the soon-to-be-missus. My facial and neck hair grows evenly pretty much everywhere except my cheeks (quirky genes, I guess), and I need to shave every 1-2 days, no more than 3, especially my neck and goatee zone. From my limited experience and knowledge I've absorbed from my brief but intense lurking, I'd wager a Rockwell 3 plate would do really well, but I'd like to try a few other things before taking that path of least resistance (while I imagine I'll eventually grab one, I'm hesitant due to what I've read about the larger razor head).
My question now for you all, is where should I be prepared to go from here? Are there any must-tries for a beginner to help deduce my preferences? Which razors would you recommend looking at when it's time to upgrade? What soaps and post-shaves should be on my radar? Thank you in advance, and I'm looking forward to shaving with you!
I'd like to introduce myself to you fine folks. I'm 27 years old, soon to be happily married come December, and very excited to be here. After several weeks of getting bombarded with ads for supply and leaf razors, I decided to do some research and realized - I would much prefer a traditional DE Safety Razor to either of those newer alternatives (no hate intended)! I've never really enjoyed cartridge shaving, and am excited to be able to dial in a comfortable and efficient shave once the stars align with technique, hardware, and software. I love a good hobby where I get to experiment around and find a good fit.
I must have spent about two weeks combing through youtube videos, these forums, and several others on reddit to get a good idea of where to start. I finally bit the bullet and grabbed a cheap Baili 171 with some Astra SPs for a trial run. Just a few shaves in, and I'm never going back to cartridges. It already resulted in a much less irritating shave, and so far I've even managed to escape nick and cut free! After using it for a couple days, I also found a fairly good condition late 1940s super speed for around $20, and that should come in soon. I imagine I'll stick to using those for a while, testing out different blades and nailing down my technique. I'd love to build a little collection of razors to find what's best, but I shouldn't keep too many at a time or it'll get hard to justify to the soon-to-be-missus. My facial and neck hair grows evenly pretty much everywhere except my cheeks (quirky genes, I guess), and I need to shave every 1-2 days, no more than 3, especially my neck and goatee zone. From my limited experience and knowledge I've absorbed from my brief but intense lurking, I'd wager a Rockwell 3 plate would do really well, but I'd like to try a few other things before taking that path of least resistance (while I imagine I'll eventually grab one, I'm hesitant due to what I've read about the larger razor head).
My question now for you all, is where should I be prepared to go from here? Are there any must-tries for a beginner to help deduce my preferences? Which razors would you recommend looking at when it's time to upgrade? What soaps and post-shaves should be on my radar? Thank you in advance, and I'm looking forward to shaving with you!
. As far as razor recommendations go, it will be different for everyone, but personally if I went back to the beginning and had to choose one razor…for the price, I couldn’t do much better than my Game Changer. 
