TheShaveDen

I am a novice. Let us get that out of the way right now.

While I have been using straights almost exclusively for many weeks now, I am far from what I would call an expert. My shaves are quite often DFS, with a sprinkling of BBS here and there, but I think that they can and will be better as time moves on.

I think one of the reasons why my shaves are not quite what they could be is because I have not studied the art of the straight razor shave very much. I certainly have not researched techniques to the extent I did when getting into DE shaving.

My approach to shaving with the straight has been limited to watching TSD Board Member Chimensch / Dov shave in his anniversary video, and a few You Tube videos that PanChango / Dale has sent me links to. In fact, I have spent more time researching the provenance of vintage straights, hones and strops than I have spent studying the mechanics of the shave itself.


The reason for my woeful lack of preparation and study is where this story begins. This is not a story of how to shave with a straight; it is my supposition of why people are reluctant to delve into straight razor shaving in the first place, myself included.

In a word; hype.

Hype I believe is short for hyperbole, which is to exaggerate the significance of something without directly comparing it to another object. An example of hyperbole would be me holding my wife's purse and saying "this thing weighs a ton." Obviously I cannot possibly hold something weighing a ton, but I most likely conveyed my opinion that BG's purse is very heavy, and did so by placing a picture in your head of someone holding a very heavy object.

Last week during my weekly one on one with Charlie, my department head, somehow the conversation got steered into the subject of shaving. Charlie stated that he shaves in the shower with a Gillette Mach 3 and that he has been thinking about switching to a Fusion and he wanted to know what I thought about the Fusion. I told Charlie that I gave up cartridge razors almost a year ago in favor of a double edge safety razor and more recently I had taken up shaving with a straight razor. The look on Charlie's face was priceless! Charlie says "Don't you cut yourself to pieces? I can see you in the obituaries; man dies after cutting own throat while shaving!" The story goes on and on from there, but you can tell from his hyperbole that somehow Charlie bought into the notion that shaving with a straight razor is dangerous.

So where does the notion of a straight razor shave is dangerous come from? Perhaps it is a conspiracy! Did somewhere along the line a manufacturer of shaving equipment hatch some grand scheme to brainwash the planet into thinking straight razors could kill you? That view is perhaps a bit extreme, but there are folks out there who think the moon landing was faked too...

The idea of (insert manufacturer here) creating some kind of artificial shortage of a certain product, or carrying out a well orchestrated " campaign of planned obsolescence" has been bandied about before, so I will not go into it here. No friends, in my opinion, the answer is so much easier, although perhaps just as sinister; the media.

Be it movies, magazines, newspapers, cartoons, sit-coms, commercials, or any other kind of vehicle where you are held as a captive audience is exactly where the whole notion of straight razors being dangerous all started. Can you cut yourself with a straight razor? Of course you can. Can you cut yourself with a safety razor? Yes you can. Can you cut yourself with a cartridge razor? Indeed, you can, although the cuts are not going to be as deep as a straight or a safety razor, but that is just a matter of blade exposure.

Any way you slice it (no pun intended) you can cause yourself to bleed while shaving. The difference between getting cut with a cartridge razor and a straight razor is that the straight razor makes for a better story.

The original tale of Sweeny Todd was created in the mid-1800's and has been re-told and adapted for a variety of audiences over the years. Whatever form the tale takes, be it a stage play or on the big screen, you still have victims having their throats cut with a straight razor. Would the story have the same panache if the razor was a Mach 3? I doubt it. Does any razor other than a straight razor have the moniker "cut throat razor?" Nay. In fact the term "cut throat" is used in a variety of ways from outright murder by throat cutting to implying that something or someone as particularly dangerous or deceitful. Further, the term "razor sharp" implies that a blade is so sharp you can shave with it, among other disambiguation’s. The early days of shaving consisted of using whatever means available to shave with, be it rocks, shark teeth, shovels, axes, or swords.

Once hardened steel was invented in the mid-1700's, and along with it, straight razors, we were...

Hi Y'all! I sure hope today is treating you well!

There is a lot of PIF activity going on around The Den these days. It is very awesome to see all of these free shave vibes happening.

I have given so many things away over this past year I can hardly recall all of them. I once received a comment in one of our threads that if I kept giving things away, I was going to go broke. My response; yep, that is the point.

Besides the religious connotations of giving things away, let me tell you another reason why you see me giving so many things away.

Back in March of 2010, I started looking into our shave obsession. I joined most if not all of the shave boards available at the time. I poked around here and there, vacuuming up all the shave info I could find, trying to figure out which brands of equipment I should buy to get started.

One day, soon after I joined this other forum and had posted my introduction, I received a PM from a guy named Gary in Wisconsin. Gary dropped me a PM to say hello and welcome to the forum (not TSD.) Gary went on to tell me that he has family in my area and that up and till then, no one had joined the forum from this area, and as a special welcome, he wanted to send me a sampling of blades from his stash. I was absolutely shocked that a stranger on an internet forum was offering to send me free stuff. I accepted the offer of blades and a few days later they arrived.

I figured maybe I would get a blade or two. Imagine my surprise when when the box arrived and I had received a full pack each of:

Gillette 7 O' Clock Black
Gillette 7 O' Clock Green
Shark
Derby
Blue Bird
Treet

I was completely blown away by the generosity exhibited by Gary! I sent him a PM thanking him and told him if he was ever in the area to look me up and I would buy him a round of the beverages of his choosing.

I never heard back from Gary. He was sort of like the story of the vanishing hitchhiker.

About a month after receiving my blades, maybe a little less than a month, I found TSD. While that other forum was a good source of information, with very friendly people, I found myself gravitating to TSD more and more frequently, until one day, I realized that I had been visiting only TSD and decided to make TSD my home. Since I have been on TSD, I have posted to no other forums. I have joined a couple other boards, but only because you have to be a member in order to see some of the pictures.

Over the last eleven months, I have developed a serious TSD habit. In fact, here in my house, TSD trumps Facebook! Yes Brothers and Sisters, TSD threads are checked each day long before Facebook is even given consideration. BabyGirl pointed this out to me today during supper.

Here at TSD, we are like a family and I Love Y'all! We share love and laughter, anger and joy, marriages, separations, and the begining and end of our mortal bodies on earth.

One of the ways that I can share my love for TSD, is to try and impart the same kindness on others as was shown to me by a complete stranger with a gift of free blades.

I am keeping alive the spirit that was instilled in me so many months ago by Paying It Forward, just as was done to me. I am not the only one though; there are many others who had the same experience as I, and they too continue to pass the torch.

So there you have it Y'all; the story of my PIF-ishness and my beginning here at TSD!

What about you? What is your story?