Hey everyone! Totally new to DE shaving here!

Just wanted to start a little thread to introduce myself to everyone and tell you a little bit about myself, why I jumped into the DE shaving world, and my current equipment (okay.... excuse for an adequate setup!) I first got into DE shaving about a month ago, I was with a friend at the grocery store and I was looking to see how much some replacement cartridges were, obviously too much, and I saw some Van der Hagen soaps and their Luxury shave kit with the apothecary mug, brush, etc. My first thought was "No way! They're still making this stuff? I wonder where I can find a razor!" After that I started looking into it a little bit, my primary motivation being the fact that I wanted to move away from spending an arm and a leg on stupid razor cartridges and to get a shave that wouldn't tear my skin up and make me break out as bad. Today I finally decided to get one. I ended up with the Van der Hagen razor at Target due to the fact that there's not really anywhere around here or anywhere in Central MS to find shaving supplies from what I was looking at, and I didn't want to spend a lot more money on an ikon, merkur, etc before I knew what kind of razor would be best for me/ which ones I would like to experiment with. I already had a little mug, brush, and soap that my grandfather sent us in a big box of stuff about 6 years ago. The brush is an Ever-Ready 1CS, the mug is an old-style scuttle, and the soap is Claire Burke. If anyone has some info on these I'd love to hear it! I will add some photos from my phone later

A little bit about me: Well, I'm about to be a sophomore in college, I'm studying chemical engineering and loving it so far! I enjoy guns (working on getting a reloading room set up actually), fishing, hunting, working on cars, cooking, science, and FIRE. Sure, that's not very descriptive and sounds somewhat like the cliche description of an average guy, but you'll have to see for yourselves Anyways, I'm excited to be a new part of this community and can't wait to begin my shaving journey!


Edit: Well, I TRIED uploading the photos I took, but they're too large, so I'll link them or something tomorrow

 

Welcome, nice to have you here.

My uncle got his PhD in chemical engineering.

 

Welcome to the Den!

 

Welcome aboard Zachary!

 

Welcome to TSD!

 

Welcome Zachary!

 

welcome aboard
sounds like you will fit right in

 

Welcome! I think we've all experienced a bit of what you.

 

Welcome to The shave den!

 

Welcome from Northwest Mississippi!

 

Welcome aboard! I'd say you are off to a good start. My basic advice to a new DE shaver;
1)Read a lot of the threads here about technique, because it is different from shaving with a multi-blade cartridge.
2) Do not apply any pressure to your skin. Let the weight of the razor do the work.
3) Get a sampler of different brands of blades. (You will probably have to go on line for this) People can get very different results with different brands.

 

Thanks for all the welcomes everybody! I got the pictures uploaded just now, take a look! I'm going to take my first shave tomorrow morning, here's to hoping I won't come out looking like freshly shredded cheese!

 

Good luck. Take your time, apply no pressure & let us know how it goes.

 

Welcome to the Den! Good luck with your first shave.

 

Welcome to The Shave Den.

 

Welcome and good luck with your shave.

 

Hi Zachary and welcome to TSD! Happy Shavings!

 

Glad you decided to 'come in from the cold'. Welcome

 

Welcome aboard.

Good luck with that. This is why most of us, IMHO, started wet shaving. However, most of us have found out that while we have saved gobs of money on cartridges, we have also spent gobs of money on collecting soaps, creams, razors, etc.