Did men back in the day always have better shaves?

Carts are no good for me. Some people can get fantastic shaves with them, except me. I'm pretty sure most men 50 years would scoff at the idea of a cart coming out and say something like "One blade is good enough." I would venture to say their shaves were better than the ones most men have today. I read somewhere that the three pass technique is something generally new among wet shavers today. So for all you older guys who remember, how did your dads or male role models do it? Did they have enough time in the morning to do 3 passes or did they just shave in the mornings to get it over with?

 

That's a good question Ryan. And speaking from when I was shaving back in the day, I would have to say no..the shaves were not necessarily better. The equipment was there all right, but how many of us really knew how to use it properly. I got consistently lousy shaves with my Twist M1 even loaded with the good old blades and faired no better with the injector. My buddies also routinely experienced less than stellar shaves. Admittedly in the seventies, the lather can was the norm and maybe I could have done better with the brush..who knows. Anyways the brush didn't manifest for me until the nineties, when by then I was already well into the carts which weren't so good either. I'm sure there were those who could wield their razors with a natural finesse and got wonderful shaves, but no one really seemed to give a darn about shaving and if they were lousy well that was just part of life I suppose. How to information on the subject just wasn't in the picture, so you ended up routinely going around with segments of the septic pencil hanging off the cheek. Lol you wore your TP as a sort of badge of honor in commemoration of the morning shaving battleSo consider yourself lucky Ryan that you have access to such a wealth of knowledge that the new information mediums provide and have mastered a daily ritual that really should at least be, not a unpleasant chore...

 

Lol I have been fortunate enough to have never (knock on wood) cut myself bad enough to put TP on my face. The only place in my life where shaving actually counts is the military. If it wasn't for being in the National Guard, I would never shave. My neck is the only area that still gives me problems, but it's less and less each time I shave. I asked my dad how my grandpa did it and he said he just smeared canned caca on his face and did a combo of WTG, ATG, XTG all in one go. I do that too if I'm running late for formation, but I try not to run late.

 

In reality, I would venture a very un-scientific guess that even today, as back then, most men just want to knock the stubble down and get on with their day. "Close enough for government work" was and is probably the mantra.

Members on shaving forums (again, no scientific proof to back this up) are looking for that shave that goes a little bit above and beyond, trying always for a better shave.

 

You have the beat, you're retired Air Force. I have to be on the lookout for that CSM or 1st SGT with nothing better to do than look for petty things. I just try not to be Gomer Pyle. I pass PT, I show up on time, wear the right uniform, I make sure all the booze is out of my system; but most of all I make sure I'm CLEAN SHAVED.

 

It is an interesting question. I suspect like most men I taught myself how to shave. And most likely I normally got pretty awful ones most of the time, but heck since everyone else did the same I thought that I was styling. Then one evening I was staying with a family friend and we were taking his sister and my mom out on the town (San Francisco). We were all sharing a suite - anyway he was the first person who showed me any thing about how to shave better. It was a basic two pass WTG and ATG, so I know that back in 1969 at least the two of knew that system. I will admit that I did fall back into bad habits but I did know better at some level.

 

I suspect that it was one pass and get it over with. I certainly remember seeing the "old timers" with bits of TP stuck to their faces and thinking how gross that looked.

 

Depends on how you define "back in the day".

At one point, it was a luxury to have hot water. It's scientific fact that warm/hot water softens the hair and opens the pores. Many men didn't have hot water and unless you actually enjoyed shaving with cold water, it wasn't a pleasant experience.

I also think blade sharpening, even in Gillette factories, wasn't as good as it is today - advances in machinery, quality control, etc. A new blade in 1930 may have been sharp but it wasn't smooth.

Same with chemistry and soaps/creams. Advances in technology have given us soaps that not only affect the hair but also the actual shave in terms of lubrication/cushioning and not slowly drying into a film within a minute after applying the lather.

Every older man in my family I've talked to all said they hated shaving with DE and SE razors. I've tried my best to get my dad to go back to DE - with the obvious modern knowledge of how to do it properly and enjoy it - and he wants no part of it. He said he hated shaving when he was young and he won't ever use a DE again. I wish he would. It would make birthday/Father's Day/Christmas shopping so much easier for me.

 

And they often show him nicking himself too... when shaving that is.

 

I remember watching my dad shave daily when I was a kid. That was in the seventies, so not that long ago. He used a Gillette with 2 blades (I can't for the life in me remember the name), a brush (can't remember if that was boar or badger) and Old Spice soap. He face lathered and did only one pass. I never saw him nick himself. I guess he found 1 pass enough, though I didn't check his cheeks. Mom did, however, and I never herard her complain.

 

Steve your probably right of course, but I just wonder if over the past few years, shaving attitudes haven't been gradually shifting with the surge of readily available information and vast consumer choices...

 

They didn't have sample packs with blades from around the world as we do today so if the locally available blade didn't work for you then you were out of luck.
When I told my dad I was shaving with a DE he chuckled and said he wouldn't go back.

 

As someone who was born in the mid fifties, I'm fairly confident in saying shaving pretty much SUCKED then, TP use was rampant and if syptic were a drug most men would have been high every morning . I remember seeing ALOT of men with TP on their face in the morning before school.
Equipment while still available was on the downslide. Remember the US was moving away from producing quality goods and into mass production(make alot of it and make it CHEAP) and consumerism as well as an "if IT's NEWER it MUST be BETTER attitude." Learning things from within the family was also going "out of style".
Then with the 60's-70' young people were rebelling against who knows what(I was there rebelling with everyone else and I'm still not sure what the hell we were rebelling about) and shaving in general was neither popular nor practiced. I'd NEVER heard of a 3 pass shave till I got into "traditional shaving wet shaving" a couple of years ago. I learned how to shave on my own like everyone pretty much did back then. One and Done was the motto. Didn't need to be comfortable or close just FAST !!
I was there at the beginning of the Gillette Trac2(the name your looking for macaronus). And I used that damn thing for 34 stuble, pain/ irritation filled, MISERABLE years !! I couldn't wait to retire and grow a BEARD Then I discovered "TRADITIONAL SHAVING" and my life changed .

So to finally answer you question Ryan anyone who is a member or lurker on TSD or any of the other forums and puts any of the "FANTASTIC" accumulation of knowledge found here into practice gets a "FAR FAR BETTER" shave than they did back in the day PERIOD !! At least thats how I see it of course..YMMV.

 

Good question isn't it? My dad has always shaven with a Trac2 and canned goo and still does on weekdays for speed. He's a TP on the face kinda guy. When I gave him a DE kit on Fathers' day he said he was looking forward to shave like my grandpa used to. He didn't comment on how good the shave was for grandpa back then, but he really appreciates his traditional weekend shave. Now he didn't teach me how to shave but I did initially shave wtg then atg, even though with my baby face I probably didn't need it back then. Dad only does 1 pass and the result is less than stellar.
Makes me wonder, is wtg enough to get bbs for some people? Teenagers? Ladies? Soft-haired types?

 

My Pop loved shaving...He loved the 'me' time every morning and he always used a brush with soaps and creams and Schick Injectors. Before us kids made the scene he used to get a barber-shop shave every day...He wasn't hip to the WTG, XTG, ATG tech...He kind of did a couple passes of a combination of all three pass-types. In later years I gave him a Trac II and later an Atra...He was very appreciative, but I found out later that he always kept using the Injectors...He knew a good thing....)
I always preferred the Schick Injector to DE razors...But as the carts hit the scene I was pulled in with everybody else...a few years ago I rediscovered Traditional Wet Shaving using a DE...But with the techniques I've learned here I got far better shaves than ever before...And then I rediscovered Injectors and with my new found DE 'chops' my Injector shaving was better than ever...Now I have a 1938 Senator OC TTO and have re-rediscovered DE shaving...ha,ha...Between my Senator and Schick Hydro-magic...and with what I've learned around here I'm getting the best shaves of my life and having more fun getting those shaves than ever before....

 

My dad is 74 and when I showed him my razors he flat out said that he would never again shave with them and couldn't believe that I did. I do recall he used to use them back in the day but as soon as the electrics came out he switched.

 

Back in the day... Hard to remember sometimes but seem to remember most the winters when the water froze in the bucket and we had to use the small hatchet to break the ice to get to the water. If we were lucky there was a small piece of Ivory Soap left to lather with or we had to use the Fels-Naptha Soap.
Honed the razor on the bottom ring on the coffee cup and stropped it on old newspaper, if someone hadn't taken it all out to the 'necessary'.
But ... Wow best shaves I ever had!

If you watch the old movies; the little white spots on the guys faces in the mornings was toilet paper. To stop the bleeding. It was real☹.