I've been looking to get a straight razor and start shaving that way. I'm a little afraid of the blade which is why I haven't pulled the trigger yet. Any advice on brands and how to get started without Sweeney Todd-ing myself?
Forget brands when you are starting out, much more important is who you buy the razor from. It needs to come from a good honemeister. It doesn't matter how good the razor is, if the edge isn't set correctly it won't shave. There are several honing experts on this forum.
I would suggest a Feather SS shavette using Artist Club Pro Guard blades. If you like the experience you can get a true straight razor. If you don't your investment will have been minimal. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008CF6KMC/?tag=thshde-20 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B004IGSVQC/?tag=thshde-20
Get yourself a round-tip straight razor to ease the learning curve. Unless you are looking to spend well beyond the bottom of the line models, you are better off getting a nice vintage, shave ready razor off of BST / Classifieds. Whatever you do, do not get a DOVO “Best Quality” razor as their quality is abysmal. As stated previously, be sure to get a blade that’s shave ready or you run the risk of a poor experience.
I use Gssixgun on here, Glen Mercurio (Gem Star custom razors) to hone my razors. He also sales straight razors from time to time. If you contact him he can probably set you up with a good vintage razor. That being said there are other things you will need to get like a strop. Buy an inexpensive one to start with, you ARE going to nick/cut it while learning to strop properly. Everyone I know starting out does, including me when I started. The other way to go is get a Shavette, although I have been SR shaving for some years I recently got a Shavette to try ( waiting on it to arrive). I got a Dovo Shavette and a Green blade holder, that is for Personna hair shaper blades which I am told are the closest thing to a straight razor. Comparably they are a lot cheaper than getting a straight razor to try and see if it is for you. There are plenty of videos on YouTube about straight razor shaving and stropping your razor and about shavettes. My first suggestion is to watch as many of those that you can find. Start out with just doing your cheek with your dominate hand and finish with your normal razor. You will need to train yourself to use the other hand for the other side of your face. You can practice with a butter knife and learn to find the angle that you need to shave, yes lather as if you are going to shave with a straight. Short strokes will yeald better results than long strokes down your cheek. I do hope this helps you make a decision on to get a straight razor or not. I shave with straight razors because I like the nestalga of doing things like my grandfather did back in his day. If you decide to start straight razor shaving, Welcome To The Dark Side!
Glen knows his stuff. I have only one blade that he has sharpened, but it is a very nice edge. I use it to compare to the blades I have honed, over the years. .
He is the best I know of to hone razors, I trust my most prized razors to him to hone. I am learning to hone my own razors and get a decent edge on them. but my everyday razors I trust to him to hone for now.
Check the classifieds here FIRST most SRs sold on the forum are Shave Ready or at least the seller will tell you if it needs a re-hone unlike eBay eBay if you decide to try that PLEASE feel free to pm me with a link and I will give an honest opinion on the Razor @DaltonGang , @speedster are two other guys that know eBabies well Shavette / Feathers ain't SR's it is a different animal there is a whole other section for it here https://theshaveden.com/forums/threads/which-shavette-did-you-use-today.58802/page-21#post-1754348 If you don't want the hassles of SR shaving they are a great option, but they ain't SRs nor are they a beginners back door into learning how to use them Honing - Wait 6 months before you start honing, see if you even like it, The prevailing wisdom of success is to get a shave Ready Razor and learn how to Shave and hopefully Strop Trying to learn to hone and shave at the same time has been shown to be a steep climb for a beginner, and leads to frustration... Good Luck there are many of us here to ask for help ps: To answer your direct question, IMHO if I were going to buy a new production SR and have the best hope of success out the door I would buy a Ralf Aust today
..and, if the OP is still reading the thread - the common advice is to start with a 5/8 to 6/8 hollow blade with a round point. Not required but helpful in my opinion. Then, start with only WTG passes on cheeks only until you feel comfortable taking on the rest of your face. Advance slowly and add XTG and ATG when you have some experience. Experiment as you go with pressure (light or very light is best), angles, how you grip the scales, skin stretching, face puffing, etc., and you’ll find what works for you. I’d guess most folks start to feel like there is light at the end of the tunnel after 10 shaves and are starting to feel competent around 30 or so. Good luck and ask questions as you go!
Ralf Aust? Yeah good one to start with. My favorite modern production razor has got to be the Dovo Bismarck but an Aust will get your hand in the game a bit cheaper I think. The Revisor site is a veritable candy shop of razors, and prices are not too bad, with some plain vanilla 5/8 models going pretty darn cheap. Japanese maker Tanifuji makes some sweet Western grind folding straight razors. Best bang for the buck would be a good vintage razor. You can get something that will work for as little as a ten spot. You can get something really nice for under $60. Some vintage razors have powerful cult followings and are worth the price to their fans but while excellent razors, aren't worth that to you. Filarmonica, Dubl Duck, Dorko, Wade and Butcher, anything Swedish come to mind. Prewar Solingen, and US mass produced, are generally good values. If I had to name a brand, for low cost but high usability, it would be Genco or Geneva Cutlery, same company just changed name. Next would be the Union Spike, and these go crazy cheap but the point can gouge a chunk out of you if it is not muted and you are not careful. Old Bokers, Henckels, and the like are good German razors. The thing is, if you limit yourself even to a dozen brands, you are only picking from a very small percentage of razors available. Look for any known brand that is reasonably well regarded, in decent condition, not honed to a toothpick and not cracked or deeply pitted. For a brand new razor, proceed with caution if the price is under about $80 because there are very few modern cheapies I would recommend to a newbie. Those few are basically the cream of the crop from China, the Gold Dollars, Gold Monkey, etc and they are not without issues. My rec for a Chinese razor would be the Gold Dollar 1996 model. Most in that price category are unusable junk that can't be honed or won't stay sharp. Anything from Pakistan, unless someone you can trust says different, should be avoided. So it is not, for your first razor, a question of what to get, but more a question of what NOT to get. A razor must be sharp before you can shave with it. It is not like a knife. Don't think for a second that you can "sharpen" it like your pocketknife on your trusty carborumdum stone and make it shave. Shave arm hair? LOL that is how you test a pocketknife, not a razor, which needs to be way sharper than that. Believe me, you need to first experience a truly shave ready edge and shave with it successfully before you even understand what a shave ready edge is, how it feels and looks, how you know you got one. So for now you basically have two choices. Buy shave ready, or buy and have someone hone it for you. Either way, you need to have someone known and reliable do the honing. Fleabay is full of shave ready razors sold by people who don't even shave with a straight razor. How could they know? They can't. And don't. Shave Ready has become a buzz word on ebay that is included to help sell razors. The sellers on ebay who can be trusted to deliver true shave ready razors is verrrrry short. Always verify a seller on this or another straight shaving forum before you pull the trigger. If you always get an opinion from one of the major straight razor forums, you will have a reasonable assurance of edge quality. Likewise, an edge honed by a member who has his reputation to think about. Typical cost for having a razor honed vary between around $15 to about $25 if the razor is of decent grind and condition. Some guys will do it free just because they like to hone, just pay the postage both ways. You can learn to do it yourself, but wait until you have a couple dozen shaves under your belt with at least two razors. When you think you are ready, do your homework before you start spending money on all sorts of rocks and stuff. You need a usable strop. Not a "good" one, not yet, because you will damage it while learning, but a usable one. Whippeddog.com Larry's Poor Man strop is okay for learning. The 2/1/2" wide (not the 2" wide) strop sold on fleabay by "thexbay" is okay and sells for under $10. Upgrade later. No, don't use your belt. It is for holding your pants up. Don't get a naugahyde special from China, either. Phone book, newspaper, those are emergency strops, not learner strops. Get something made for the job. Youtube is your friend. Watch stropping vids. Do your forum research. Read read read. Practice the motion with a butter knife or a purposely dulled Gold Dollar. Don't start shaving without a shave ready razor and a strop. And a brush and soap or cream. Real shave cream does not come out of a can. Canned goo comes out of a can. The goo does a poor job of lubricating and cushioning the skin. Don't even try. In fact, I suggest you get a good shave soap and a good brush and learn to make a good lather before you ever buy a straight razor. Good face prep and lather will do a lot to make your cartridge or throwaway shave better. Practice before your date with destiny. Be ready in every respect before putting sharp naked steel to face. Cheapest soap you can get that is easy to use and gives great lather is Arko, at about a buck a stick in quantity online. Cheapest cream that does a really great job is Godrej Rich Lather, in the red tube. Get it from your local Indian shop. C.O. Bigelow is just Proraso rebranded for the US market, and is good, in either the soap or the cream version, in any of the 3 or 4 formulas you are likely to encounter. Don't bother looking at Walgreens or Rite Aid or Walmart. You might find something usable at Target. There are synthetic, boar, badger, and horse brushes. Badger has the edge. Black badger is about as prickly as boar but holds more water, which is good. Higher grades of badger are silky smooth on the skin and Whipped Dog sells decent Silvertip grade badgers pretty darn cheap. Chinese brushes are usually a bit cheaper but only Virginia Sheng or VS is worth bothering with currently. There was a brand called Frank Shaving that was a good buy but quality went down and price went up and they are now off the radar. Noname Chinese brushes 9 out of 10 times will be very poor quality. Boar is very prickly but softens after about a 30 day breakin period. They don't hold as much water or product as a badger but they are very cheap. Horse is usually a bit on the floppy side. Synthetic IMHO is getting better but not there just yet.
