What's new

YOUR FIRST DE RAZOR?

My dad started me on an Electric 2 headed Philishave at 13 years old. It must have been old cause I blew it out in a month. I moved onto a Trac II, found that electric razors never gave a close enough shave. After that I tried every cartridge razor available, trying to find a decent shave, all the while irritating my skin like crazy and sick and tired of the price of cartridges. I did have my Grandfather's black handle Gillette Adjustable but lost it in a house fire. About 5 to 7 years ago I found the DE movement again and bought a Merkur, forget the model, but still have it. Then I found this sight and started collecting vintage Gillettes. I have around 40. My go to is a Slim G2, my birth year and quarter.

Dale
 
I started shaving around 1970. My dad had to shave for work but he wasn’t very good at it. He used a Schick injector and always emerged with half a dozen bits of TP stuck to his face. With that as an example, I didn’t want a Schick injector.

Dad gave me a few bucks and told me to go to the store and get a razor, blades, brush and soap. I picked a black Gillette adjustable Super Speed. As a teen trying to be a man, I figured that shaving with the razor full open was the only way a real man would shave - that was a mistake. In retrospect, had I gone with one of the non-adjustable razors, I would have had a much better experience.

It didn’t take me long to convert to disposables, then carts as they became available. I got a more comfortable shave with those, but only because I wasn’t using the DE properly. When I went to college, I switched from a brush & soap to canned goo. I migrated through the cart ranks as they came out for a few decades. I had the occasional foray into a Norelco when my wife would get the idea that because Santa rode one in the ads, I needed one for Christmas. Mostly, electrics were a novelty that I hated, but would endure for a few months.

When I hit my early 50s, Gillette abandon the cart system I was using so I went to grab a new kit with a 12 pack of blades and looked at the price. They had finally hit a price point where I just said enough is enough. I had been at the mall a few days earlier and I saw the new Art of Shaving (AOS) store which got me thinking about wet shaving again. I looked online to see what I could find.

I found a Mercur razor and some blades at a reasonable price, I ordered them. My wife wanted to go to the mall, so I tagged along and spent some time in the AOS store. I grabbed a brush and a kit with soap, balm, etc. The brush was a pathetic excuse for a brush, no backbone. The soap was ok, but clearly not worth the price. Half of the balm is sitting unused in my closet. After getting started, I found this web site and have been wet shaving ever since. Despite having a nice collection of mostly vintage razors, DE, SE & straight, my favorite razors are the 1934 Aristocrat with Persona blue blades, a 1912 SE with GEM SS blades & the Feather Artist Club SS with Feather AC Pro blades.

My only family razor is my grandfather’s straight, which i occasionally use.
 
If you are over 60, it is a fair guess that your first razor was a double-edged job. If so, can you remember what it was and if and how you converted to a twin-blade cartridge offering? Mine was a Gillette Slim Twist with a white or ivory handle. I never quarreled with it, but never really developed any great affection for it either. I must have had it for quite some time, before a girlfriend replaced it with the inevitable piece of modern trash.
A gillette tto with a thicker handle than a Regular super speed, I know it was not a red tip. It was from the early or mid 1960’s. Changed to trac ii when ever it came out.
 
Well, I've written this before...my first DE (after five years with a Schick Injector) was a 1966 Slim (in 1966). It was my daily driver for the next forty-seven and a half years - with Wilkinson Super Swords in the '60s, Light Brigades in the early '70s, Swordmaster XCNs in the middle and late '70s, and made-in-England Chromium Edges until 2013 (a very large stash that was almost gone by 2013).

In 2013 I fell into the B&B Rabbit Hole and discovered open comb razors. I rarely use my old Slim anymore, but it is the razor I took to Paris the last two times I was there for a month each. The adjustable allows me to dial in the shave according to water (very hard water in Paris), lather, and blade.

Thanks for rattling the memory cage.
Tom
 
I started shaving around 1970. My dad had to shave for work but he wasn’t very good at it. He used a Schick injector and always emerged with half a dozen bits of TP stuck to his face. With that as an example, I didn’t want a Schick injector.

Dad gave me a few bucks and told me to go to the store and get a razor, blades, brush and soap. I picked a black Gillette adjustable Super Speed. As a teen trying to be a man, I figured that shaving with the razor full open was the only way a real man would shave - that was a mistake. In retrospect, had I gone with one of the non-adjustable razors, I would have had a much better experience.

It didn’t take me long to convert to disposables, then carts as they became available. I got a more comfortable shave with those, but only because I wasn’t using the DE properly. When I went to college, I switched from a brush & soap to canned goo. I migrated through the cart ranks as they came out for a few decades. I had the occasional foray into a Norelco when my wife would get the idea that because Santa rode one in the ads, I needed one for Christmas. Mostly, electrics were a novelty that I hated, but would endure for a few months.

When I hit my early 50s, Gillette abandon the cart system I was using so I went to grab a new kit with a 12 pack of blades and looked at the price. They had finally hit a price point where I just said enough is enough. I had been at the mall a few days earlier and I saw the new Art of Shaving (AOS) store which got me thinking about wet shaving again. I looked online to see what I could find.

I found a Mercur razor and some blades at a reasonable price, I ordered them. My wife wanted to go to the mall, so I tagged along and spent some time in the AOS store. I grabbed a brush and a kit with soap, balm, etc. The brush was a pathetic excuse for a brush, no backbone. The soap was ok, but clearly not worth the price. Half of the balm is sitting unused in my closet. After getting started, I found this web site and have been wet shaving ever since. Despite having a nice collection of mostly vintage razors, DE, SE & straight, my favorite razors are the 1934 Aristocrat with Persona blue blades, a 1912 SE with GEM SS blades & the Feather Artist Club SS with Feather AC Pro blades.

My only family razor is my grandfather’s straight, which i occasionally use.
Very nice story, the best being your grand father’s straight
 
My first DE was around the early 90s, before that I was using Trac II. I have curly hair, and always got bad ingrown hairs. I read an article in a men's magazine (I believe GQ, but it was so long ago). They were targeting black men who suffered from ingrown hairs, but it was the exact problem I was having. They suggested DE. So I went to my drug store and bought a Gillette G2000 and a bunch of Wilkinson blades because that's all they had.

Even then I thought I was saving $$$. Buying 5 blades for $8CDN. My ingrown hairs went away.

Then the internets came along, I could get a better price on blades. AND, oh my look at all these fancy razors!
 

EclipseRedRing

I smell like a Christmas pudding
Used cheap own brand carts and canned foam, and later gel, for years. I quit drinking a few years ago and my hands got steady. I got myself a Merkur 38C long handle barber pole, a cheap brush and some soap. I have bought and sold quite a bit since then and have dialled in to Tabac and MWF soap, vintage Faberge Brut, Old Spice and Yardley after shave, Simpson Manchurian and Semogue LE 2 band brushes, and a rotation of about 10 various vintage DE razors plus a Feather AC DX and a single Japanese Derby Aiku straight. Now, if I buy a brush or a razor then I sell one so that my modest collection remains modest, otherwise collecting, or 'hoarding' as it is more properly known, will surely beckon. 👍
 
A gillette tto with a thicker handle than a Regular super speed, I know it was not a red tip. It was from the early or mid 1960’s. Changed to trac ii when ever it came out.
Gillette's advertising & manufacturing strategy must have been a brilliant ploy, because almost everyone fell for it.
 
I am 62 and started out using my dad’s razor for awhile, probably a super speed or flair tip, back in high school. Remember had the TTO. Then was a Gillette Trac II, probably saw an advertisement, not sure why. From then on was the newest Gillette, Schlick, or Bic cartridge. Then bought my first DE about 6 years ago, a VDH from WalMart.
 
I got my first DE from my grandpa. I’d been shaving with a straight razor for a year or two and being curious I asked him about it and he promptly put it in my hands and told me it was mine.

He wasn’t really the type to give gifts and I’m pretty sure that’s the only thing he’d ever given me, so it was well appreciated.

He said it was his first razor and might’ve been his dads before. I don’t know a lot about vintage DEs but from what I remember it looked like 46-50 style Tech, with a safety bar, in gold, and the ball-end handle.

Long story short, I travel a lot and it was my daily shaver and it was stolen. It’d be nice to somehow have it back one day.
 
The trac ii was quicker than the de, Ease and Convenience was what gillette was counting on. It worked.
Women played a massive role too. They thought cartridge razors were safer to use on their legs. The thing that annoyed me most was that they invariably denied it. Men really do know when someone has used their razor.
 
Women played a massive role too. They thought cartridge razors were safer to use on their legs. The thing that annoyed me most was that they invariably denied it. Men really do know when someone has used their razor.
You got that right, would always find it in the shower. Now she won’t touch my DE, that problem was solved
 
I got one of these plastic Wilkinson Swords as a student during the 90’s in a bid to save money. I picked it up in the local supermarket. The DE blades were dirt cheap compared to cartridges and I thought I was pretty clever. I had no knowledge of special brushes or soaps so I just used the canned goo on shelf below.

From what I remember I got on pretty well and was spending next to no money. Then all of a sudden the shops stopped stocking the blades. Pre-internet shopping, my supply had run out and I invested in a set of electric clippers. For the next 20 years I rocked ‘fashion stubble’ before seeing the light. Dark days.

Now with the help of the internet my new wet shaving set up is approaching 100 times the cost of the first. Needless to say I have now found plenty of sources for fine blades, razors, soaps and brushes a long with plenty of inspiration from you fine gentleman at Badger and Blade.

F27128D2-8CFE-4727-B7B3-7171B68B90B5.jpeg
 
Top Bottom