Ahoy, fellow sailors on the sea of lather!
My journey to the world of classic wet shaving was a long and - quite literaly - bumpy one. I started shaving in the early to mid nineties, and have been searching since. Being "blessed" with the unfortunate combination of sensitive skin and curly hair, I quickly started searching for a way of shaving without ending up with razor burns, nicks and ingrown hairs.
The problem was that this was the dark ages of wet shaving. Gillette had the whole market on it's knees with their awful cartridge razors, all available "lubricant" was in a pressurised can, and aftershaves were alcohol-heavy splashes. I don't recall ever seeing a safety razor or brush in the wild growing up, so i had to work with what was available. And I gave most everything a chance. The Gillette cartridges with a steady increase in number of blades, as well as their desposables. I tried a Wilkinson Sword system, also cartridge based, only available by mail order. I also tried different machines, from cheap travel model Philips to a Braun model with an alcohol dispenser for self-cleaning which set me back about $350 at the time. Still I never seemed to find anything that didn't make my face look like varying degrees of the recieving end of a shotgun training ground.
But then, around 2008 in a strike of pure luck, I found an ad from an online store for a tray-thingy for sharpening (and by that expanding the life of) razor cartridges in a men's magazine, and went online to check it out. And lo and behold, the store was a fairly new one with lots of stuff resembling the decades old worn out stuff my grandfather kept in his closet. They had a deal on a starter's kit containing a Muhle 34C HD, a pack of quality blades, and a brush, tube of cream, and balm from proraso at about $50. I ordered it, and never looked back. I never got the tray-thingy, by the way.
My collection when writing this is without a dubt a modest one compaired to many of you, but i like it and expand now and then often with bursts of growth. I have three straight razors, five DEs, nine brushes, and at any given time a handful of soaps, oils, creams, balms and gels. I have yet to go into the vintage and artisan segment, but I aim to fill in some holes in the near future.
So why is this guy from Norway rambling on about his life in shaving? Well, I guess this is a hello. And a thank you; whenever i post a shave related question to Google, I always seem to end up in a thread in this forum.
So, hello, thanks for the help so far, and I suppose we'll speak again soon.
Cheers!
My journey to the world of classic wet shaving was a long and - quite literaly - bumpy one. I started shaving in the early to mid nineties, and have been searching since. Being "blessed" with the unfortunate combination of sensitive skin and curly hair, I quickly started searching for a way of shaving without ending up with razor burns, nicks and ingrown hairs.
The problem was that this was the dark ages of wet shaving. Gillette had the whole market on it's knees with their awful cartridge razors, all available "lubricant" was in a pressurised can, and aftershaves were alcohol-heavy splashes. I don't recall ever seeing a safety razor or brush in the wild growing up, so i had to work with what was available. And I gave most everything a chance. The Gillette cartridges with a steady increase in number of blades, as well as their desposables. I tried a Wilkinson Sword system, also cartridge based, only available by mail order. I also tried different machines, from cheap travel model Philips to a Braun model with an alcohol dispenser for self-cleaning which set me back about $350 at the time. Still I never seemed to find anything that didn't make my face look like varying degrees of the recieving end of a shotgun training ground.
But then, around 2008 in a strike of pure luck, I found an ad from an online store for a tray-thingy for sharpening (and by that expanding the life of) razor cartridges in a men's magazine, and went online to check it out. And lo and behold, the store was a fairly new one with lots of stuff resembling the decades old worn out stuff my grandfather kept in his closet. They had a deal on a starter's kit containing a Muhle 34C HD, a pack of quality blades, and a brush, tube of cream, and balm from proraso at about $50. I ordered it, and never looked back. I never got the tray-thingy, by the way.
My collection when writing this is without a dubt a modest one compaired to many of you, but i like it and expand now and then often with bursts of growth. I have three straight razors, five DEs, nine brushes, and at any given time a handful of soaps, oils, creams, balms and gels. I have yet to go into the vintage and artisan segment, but I aim to fill in some holes in the near future.
So why is this guy from Norway rambling on about his life in shaving? Well, I guess this is a hello. And a thank you; whenever i post a shave related question to Google, I always seem to end up in a thread in this forum.
So, hello, thanks for the help so far, and I suppose we'll speak again soon.
Cheers!
