Your First Kit -vs- What You'd Change (if you could go back in time)

[Feldgrun]

My first starter kit in 2022 (from Italian Barber):
Soap: RazoRock Don Marco (it was on sale)
Brush: 00065 Omega (I didn't know you had to soak boar bristles)
Razor: Merkur 34C (decent, but I had no idea how to use a DE razor)
Blade: Astra Stainless (blue) (a mediocre blade)

If I could go back in time, I wish I would have started with this kit:
Soap: Cella (red)
Brush: RazoRock Plissoft Bruce
Razor: Gillette SuperSpeed Blue Tip
Blade: Astra SP (green)

I'll admit that I used too much pressure with the razor, not enough water in the soap, and didn't know how to use a boar brush. It was a near catastrophe. I'm lucky I'm still here.

 

[Wgg2017]

I'd definitely skip the Merkur Futur I purchased in the mid to late 2000's. That thing was harsh as hell for a new DE shaver whose technique wasn't the best.

I'd also keep the SuperSpeed I had but sold. That was the right razor for me to be using at that time. It just didn't seem as neat as the Futur. Stupid young me

 

[BobbyB]

18th birthday gift from my dad:

1. Gillette tech razor.
2. Gillette blue blades
3. Tube of Colgate Palmolive shaving cream
4. Basic A/S product (Can't remember the name).

He told me this was my 'manhood' reward because I went to downtown Louisville to register to vote, and for the draft.

 

[BigJ]

I learned to shave in the 1960s using a hand-me-down Slim and (most likely) Gillette foamy.

And I wish I kept that razor!!

 

[Old Hippie]

My beginner kit was a Merkur 38C because the shop didn't carry the 34C, a basic badger brush (rather a luxury but not used since I discovered boars), and a pack of Merkur blades ("just sharp enough to cut a hair, not sharp enough to scare the hell out of you" said the salesman).

If I could go back to that day, I'd buy the same stuff. Learning to use it and reflecting on the ups and downs brought me here. I'm more interested in going back to undo a few purchases from the time after I started wet-shaving. I spent a few years wandering through the shave wilderness before finding some paths worth following.

O.H.

 

[GR5233]

I spent a few years wandering through the shave wilderness before finding some paths worth following.

Haven’t we all that have been here awhile. Only things I would change would be getting a Gillette tech, 1948-50 aristocrat and a decent brush sooner

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

Actually, knowing what I know now. I would have got in a time machine and gone forward in time, and purchased a BlackLand Osprey Adjustable razor, a Zenith Manchurian 28mm Badger brush in Blue Handle, a Cayune Workshop Dark Nebula shave bowl or Captains Choice Obsidian Copper bowl, and Saponificio Verasino Opuntia hard shave soap & matching aftershave. Lets not forget 1000 Wizamet SR blades, gotta have that. Then I would go back in time to give it to myself.

That would set me up proper, and I would have been ahead of the game, and also have spent a little less money in the long run. But this is reality, and in reality, things take time to get where we are today, there is no time machine to speed up the process. Generally, I'd like to think that most traditional wet shavers, spend at least 1000 buckaroo's over the course of 1 to 3 years, by the time we've gotten things figured out.