Hmmm, right. Maybe I should add that straights can be dangerous even to those of us who know what we're doing. James.
I think DE's and the progression of shaving instruments is what did it. I mean..why hone/strop a blade.when you can just plop a blade in...and your shave ready.
Funny I think the image has a lot to do with media ,I have a market stall on a Wednesday it is a very large market one of the biggest in the country ,I sell custom made knives and referb razors and the comments that you receive from the public are unreal some times. Normal intelligent folks that obviously have a stereotype opinion instigated from the media. The old saying .a dictatorship is ruled by the gun ,a democracy is ruled by the shit you feed people on the nightly news. I got so fed up one day with the usual ,(They look deadly) comment ,I replied Christ I bet you shit your self every time you go to the kitchen draw, he obviously didn`t so at least I made him think for himself Kind regards Peter
I think that this makes a lot of sense, a lot of my pals and I tend to do the exact oposite of what the advertising industry is telling us to do. We tend to avoid any product or service where we can recall an add within the past four years for the product. The theroy is this that if a company has a truely supiror product then advertising is not really necessary. Present the product and customers will buy the product wether the company advertises or not. On the other hand if the product is trahh then consumers will not buy the product and advertising becomes a necessity. I have paid segnificantly more for one product or another becuase I simply could not recall an add for the higher priced product. Have you ever enounterd an add for a straight or double edge razor? Probably not, enough said.
Back in the day there were plenty of DE razor advertisements. Even sports celebrities appeared in TV commercials for Gillette. I have also seen old newspaper ads for straights and DE's. Again, once technology developed something new, disposable multi blade behemoths, that were touted as the greatest thing since sliced bread the "old" razors were doomed. Raf
I have to make sure I only use the str8 when it's the quietest in the morning. I got tired when someone would walk up to me and say "Jesus Christ, are you nuts? Aren't you afraid of cutting your throat? Well, ya, when you walk up behind me and spook me like that I do. :rofl
and let us not link to the thread where Bill showed us the cut a straight did to his wrist. im still sick from seeing that one... ::sesel
everone one has seen/wanted to be in a movie with a gang fight a some dude has a straight razor in his back pocket and wips it out like a switch balde....hahah....who just carries one around...hahahah AND.....im sure somewhere out there, there is a kid that "wanted to shave like dad" and is missing an ear/lip/chin/finger from trying out dads old straight. So I would say safety issue.....less chance of permanently maiming yourself!!! Phillip from Texas
If don't know how a S/E could give a closer shave than a D/E, unless you are talking about doing so with one pass. When I am finished with my shave with a D/E, I'm as smooth as a newborns butt. Perhaps one day I'll get the stones to try a S/E shave. I'm not even brave enough to let a Barber shave me other than the straggling neck hairs or around the ears after a haircut. Respect for those who have mastered the S/E !!
I could be mistaken, but I think it's not just a closer shave, but a closer for LONGER shave. I used my DE twice before I lost it. Both times I would shave around midnight, and still be nearly 100% smooth at 9PM the next day. Last night I shaved with a FRESH cartridge razor, at about 3AM. Barely 12 hours later, and I'm not 100% smooth. Still would looks 100%, but I can already start to feel it when I rub my hand on my face. Maybe the SE vs. DE thing is the same?
The best we've been able to come up with in order to shorten "straight" is "Str8". But we haven't given up on an even shorter abbreviation. Some of the brightest minds in the shaving business are working dilligently to this end.
It doesn't help the image of the straight razor when you think that it was the instrument of choice used be certain East End villains for administering what was known as a 'Chelsea Smile' - the razor being inserted into the victim's mouth and then sliced to one side, 'widening the smile'. A favourite punishment for 'bigmouths' - if they survived. It's added to by such things as the cover of an edition of 'Brighton Rock' I saw recently - the whole cover was just an image of a straight razor. For anyone unaware of this book, let's just say it's no Sunday school picnic. Of course then came Stanley knives and boxcutters but I think the evil image lives on - more's the pity. It's odd though that given the dark reputation of the razor it never seems to feature in modern 'slasher' flicks - you never saw Jason with one did you? Nope, it was always the 12-inch cooks knife - yet does that get bad copy? Still i suppose you can't stick one in your back pocket for nefarious doings............!
