What did your father teach you about wet-shaving?

[JustJames]

My father taught me to shave at a very young age (in the 1950's)- mimicking his shave with my tiny brush and red plastic razor standing on a small stool to reach the sink. He continued leading and coaching me (off-and-on) until I "actually" shaved at about age 13.

Unfortunately, there was not a lot of information about building a lather back then, but I still remember running my brush over the tiny wooden dish of soap and painting my face with the soap. I really felt like I was grown up.

 

[KQY61]

Hi,

My dad told me it was Time when I was 15. That was 1976.

He gave me his old Pre-War Tech. He used a Post-War Tech.

He shared his Rubberset brush and he used Yardley at the time.

Blades were either Gillette or Schick whichever had the lowest price tag for a 15 blade dispenser on the day he bought blades.

He showed me how to face lather and then how to use that Tech such that I'd not nick myself with it.

I still have both razors plus his spare SuperSpeed. He didn't like the TTO design as well as the 3-piece.

Stan

 

[BigJ]

My dad used an electric shaver. So he was no help.

 

[poppi]

Nothing was taught me by my Father. He didn't seem to care

 

[Shaun asleep]

Mine taught me how to shave with a Gillette slim twist and another Gillette razor. He doesn't remember which one, if I were to guess I'd say it was a flare tip. I still have the slim twist, but I dont really like it all that much.

I think I was about 14 or 15, used canned foam and applied it with my hands.
It wasnt long until he bought me a Mach 3 and an electric razor. I used an electric for a while....then went Mach 3 for like... Ever. Until I stumbled upon B&B, then I went broke.

My dad is one of my best friends. I like this topic, but some of the replies make me sad. Sorry for everyone that had no help or support from their father.

I am a father myself. Me and my daughter lather up our faces on occcasion and she loves it. She has a favourite brush and she'll use the Gillette slim twist (without blade) to shave off the soap. She also loves to sniff my aftershaves and soaps. I really enjoy doing those things with her.

 

[Frito Ray]

Here (gives razor)…don’t cut yourself.

 

[Rusty Blade]

Mine taught me how to shave with a Gillette slim twist and another Gillette razor. He doesn't remember which one, if I were to guess I'd say it was a flare tip. I still have the slim twist, but I dont really like it all that much.

I think I was about 14 or 15, used canned foam and applied it with my hands.
It wasnt long until he bought me a Mach 3 and an electric razor. I used an electric for a while....then went Mach 3 for like... Ever. Until I stumbled upon B&B, then I went broke.

My dad is one of my best friends. I like this topic, but some of the replies make me sad. Sorry for everyone that had no help or support from their father.

I am a father myself. Me and my daughter lather up our faces on occcasion and she loves it. She has a favourite brush and she'll use the Gillette slim twist (without blade) to shave off the soap. She also loves to sniff my aftershaves and soaps. I really enjoy doing those things with her.

That is really special. Thanks for sharing.

 

[JCoulter]

My earliest memories are of Dad shaving in our tiny bathroom using his Schick Hydro-magic J1 (long white handle, gold head) and Mennen's brushless cream (long since discontinued, though If I concentrate, I can still smell it), and finish up with Mennen's Skin Bracer. He showed me how to inject a new blade and slip the old one in the built-in bank in the body of the injector mechanism, and I demanded that he call me in to change the blade for him whenever necessary. He usually shaved in the evenings b/c he arose so early in the construction business and there isn't a daily clean-shaven expectation when you're running earth-moving equipment. I must've play-shaved with some of his equipment, but since injectors are normally never empty, I can't remember what I used.

I started shaving with his razor irregularly at fourteen, and at fifteen started my own setup using disposables and Edge gel. He gave me no instruction, or I might have done better. This was 1976, so there were still single- and double-edged options out there. Pity.

At about age forty-five, still the victim of marketing that got me on the disposables and canned cream, I became frustrated with the cost of an eight-pack of Mach 2 cartridges, thought there must be a more economical way, and re-discovered wet shaving. I had a brush and one of those oval soapdish-looking Old Spice scuttles from an experimental foray into straight razor shaving when I was nineteen, that I abandoned after a few months because I'd bought a very cheap razor and the library books available in a pre-YouTube University era weren't able to teach me to keep it sharp. I did figure out the basics and made it work for a while.

Today I have my own Hydro-magic J3 Golden 500 (long black handle, gold head, Hydro-magic rinsing lever) that, along with the Skin Bracer (and the Brylcreem) reminds me of him three times a week. I wish I had a son to pass this tradition to.

 

[sternej]

Like many others here my father worked long hard days and had neither the time nor the knowledge to instruct me. An̈other thing we all realize is we have the tine, the inclination and a shared community to treat this as a hobby. I recall the huge move to electrics because not knowing what your doing made DE shaving dificult to say the least. I distinctly remember the Trac Ii being a game chamger thay for the most part burried the DE razor. We here have rediscovered what was possible with the DE, Trac II then carts was like the market changing to CD's from Vinyl.. Which, althougjh records are comming back , the days are numbered for, consumng music on physical media of any kind.

 

[Jim in NZ]

My dad taught me to thoroughly wash and wet the stubble, put Prep preshave on, leave for a few minutes while brushing teeth, then use hot water to rinse the prep off, them rub the Williams stick onto the stubble. Using a boar bristle brush, work the lather until the bubbles were too small to see individually. The shave itself was always one pass, with the grain, (nothing like light teen facial fuzz!) using light pressure. Nicks were to be rinsed in cold basin of water. Toilet paper was used to stem the bleeding. Then came the army, and with it, cartridge razors for the next 3 decades.

 

[Phoenix997]

Nothing

 

[tehnothing]

My father wasn't around when I started shaving. My step dad handed me a Schick Tracer and a can of Edge Gel and sort of watched uncomfortably to the side. That was the combo I used for many years.The only thing I remember him saying was to avoid doing an against the grain pass. Later on I lived with my dad again, but, we didn't go over shaving. He used Gillette Atra as well as an electric which he used more often for as long as I remember. He hasn't shaved in several years now. It is not something we share. I read the Art of Shaving book in 2002 and they said use a brush, soap, and a fancy handled mach 3 which they just happened to sell. I used the brush and soap from then on and Gillettes with normal handles and then Dorco 5 blade cart razor till 2016 when I got a 34c. Youtube and B&B taught me the rest. One grandfather wasn't alive when I started shaving, but, he used straights. I remember one grandpa using electrics and disposable Bic's. Old Spice is what sticks out the most and I received it for Christmas for many years.

 

[thombrogan]

Learned the toilet paper bit from my Pop. And that they were called “hemoplugs” on Not Necessarily the News on free HBO weekends. Pop has gone long bouts of having a beard including most of the past 20 years. He’s my father, but our hyperfixations never sync.

 

[tehnothing]

Learned the toilet paper bit from my Pop. And that they were called “hemoplugs” on Not Necessarily the News on free HBO weekends. Pop has gone long bouts of having a beard including most of the past 20 years. He’s my father, but our hyperfixations never sync.

My dad said that's a nice shave you had. I was hard pressed to get across all I get from the shave. It is kind of like a spa treatment for men.

Pretty sure Homer Simpson taught me about the toilet paper though.

 

[thombrogan]

Pretty sure Homer Simpson taught me about the toilet paper though.

As he should

 

[Jens]

My father used an electric shaver, didn't teach me anything at all about shaving.

I was living in Sri Lanka when I first began taking an interest in shaving at age 19 (in 1982).
My first razor was some butterfly twist to open DE razor (cheaper brand I don't know the name of it).
Shaving with it was absolutely horrible. I had no idea what I was doing, it was tugging like crazy, extremely uncomfortable. Just applied shaving cream directly to my face straight out of the tube, had no idea I was supposed to use a brush to work up a lather. Using the cream as glide, I was not too impressed with "shaving cream" either ...!!
It's quite hilarious to think about today..! Really no clue what I was doing...!

The big eye-opener for me was a few months later.
Still in Sri Lanka, I went to a local barbershop and got my first straight razor shave. WOW ...!!

Everything about it was fantastic. The barbershop atmosphere, the traditional style straight razor, the alum block after the shave (had never seen an alum block before), aftershave smelled fantastic (didn't even know the concept of aftershave), post-shave felt outstanding. I paid something like two rupies for the whole ordeal, like peanuts..!

I walked out of the barbershop, kept touching my face as I was walking down the street, couldn't believe the feeling.
Like a baby bud indeed..!!

From that day, I knew that I loved a good shave..!

And so I kept returning to a barbershop once in a while for a straight razor shave, while living in Sri Lanka, and through my subsequent travels throughout South Asia (I spent years traveling in Asia as a young man).

When not in South Asia, I shaved myself, all self taught, and soon settled on disposable BIC razors (single edge, yellow plastic), which was my goto razor for many years (ca 1985 -- 2015). The first real shaving soap I recall using (apart from some cheap Indian shaving cream) was Tabac shaving cream in a tube. And I would use a cheap "pure badger" shaving brush once I figured out that I needed a brush (still a long time before I figured out how to actually produce a decent lather). My postshave was Tabac aftershave balm, that would be my goto for many years to come (from ca 1985 onwards). The Tabac white/brown design appealed to me (somehow reminded me of COHIBA Cuban cigars), I loved the scent, and at the time I could only buy it abroad (Germany), so it was kind of exotic to me, felt very special.

Intermittently, when I got more confident, I would just use a bar of regular bath soap (most often Imperial Leather), foamed up some lather directly in my hands, and shave while in the shower. No brush. No aftershave.
(Irritation ..: yes, just part of shaving, as I thought of it)

All self-taught, but I got the initial itch from the Sri Lankan old school barbershop straight razor shave experience.
Looking back now, I feel very fortunate about that heritage.

Then in early 2016, I discovered DE shaving anew, and went all in, and became very serious about the Zen of shaving... !

 

[tehnothing]

The only Barbering I have had was with a half DE Shavette for Beard trims when I wore a beard for a while. I haven't had a hair cut at a Barber since I was a kid. Great Cuts has my cut in the computer and I don't have to explain what I want every time. Maybe one day I will go back to a Barber, It would be great if they didn't use Shavettes now but regular straights.

 

[psfred]

My Dad sorta just told me more or less what to do and gave me my Grandpa's Schick injector and some blades. Only cut myself once -- learned not to move the razor sideways when touching the skin.

I didn't shave much in high school, and Dad was sick starting the summer between freshman and sophomore years at college, then passed away finals week when I was 20. I think he might have been using cartridges by then, I was but soon switched back to the injector, much cheaper and the blades lasted longer.

All this was 48 years ago, my memories of Dad are getting sorta thin. Never met that Grandpa, he died before my parents got married in 1950.

 

[Merchant Seaman Z]

Nothing. Didn’t even meet him, until I was 10 or 11. He showed up in the front yard asking if knew who he was…Most likely due to the fact my mother was over her 2nd divorce. YMMV

 

[Rusty Blade]

My father used an electric shaver, didn't teach me anything at all about shaving.

I was living in Sri Lanka when I first began taking an interest in shaving at age 19 (in 1982).
My first razor was some butterfly twist to open DE razor (cheaper brand I don't know the name of it).
Shaving with it was absolutely horrible. I had no idea what I was doing, it was tugging like crazy, extremely uncomfortable. Just applied shaving cream directly to my face straight out of the tube, had no idea I was supposed to use a brush to work up a lather. Using the cream as glide, I was not too impressed with "shaving cream" either ...!!
It's quite hilarious to think about today..! Really no clue what I was doing...!

The big eye-opener for me was a few months later.
Still in Sri Lanka, I went to a local barbershop and got my first straight razor shave. WOW ...!!

Everything about it was fantastic. The barbershop atmosphere, the traditional style straight razor, the alum block after the shave (had never seen an alum block before), aftershave smelled fantastic (didn't even know the concept of aftershave), post-shave felt outstanding. I paid something like two rupies for the whole ordeal, like peanuts..!

I walked out of the barbershop, kept touching my face as I was walking down the street, couldn't believe the feeling.
Like a baby bud indeed..!!

From that day, I knew that I loved a good shave..!

And so I kept returning to a barbershop once in a while for a straight razor shave, while living in Sri Lanka, and through my subsequent travels throughout South Asia (I spent years traveling in Asia as a young man).

When not in South Asia, I shaved myself, all self taught, and soon settled on disposable BIC razors (single edge, yellow plastic), which was my goto razor for many years (ca 1985 -- 2015). The first real shaving soap I recall using (apart from some cheap Indian shaving cream) was Tabac shaving cream in a tube. And I would use a cheap "pure badger" shaving brush once I figured out that I needed a brush (still a long time before I figured out how to actually produce a decent lather). My postshave was Tabac aftershave balm, that would be my goto for many years to come (from ca 1985 onwards). The Tabac white/brown design appealed to me (somehow reminded me of COHIBA Cuban cigars), I loved the scent, and at the time I could only buy it abroad (Germany), so it was kind of exotic to me, felt very special.

Intermittently, when I got more confident, I would just use a bar of regular bath soap (most often Imperial Leather), foamed up some lather directly in my hands, and shave while in the shower. No brush. No aftershave.
(Irritation ..: yes, just part of shaving, as I thought of it)

All self-taught, but I got the initial itch from the Sri Lankan old school barbershop straight razor shave experience.
Looking back now, I feel very fortunate about that heritage.

Then in early 2016, I discovered DE shaving anew, and went all in, and became very serious about the Zen of shaving... !

Great story. Thanks for sharing.