Dancing the Razor's Edge

Regardless of a person's preference for facial hair, shaving has been and will be around. For as many styles of facial hair that there are, there are as many ways of removing it. And, well, since this is my blog, this will be a discussion of my preferences and my reasoning behind them. Of course, you may be wondering why I am talking about razors when, if you see me, a razor hasn't touched my face for over a month. Well, I like my razors, and I have given a lot of thought to this topic.

I have two straight razors that are my main weapons against facial hair. I will admit that I went cheap off of ebay, but they work great. Of course, with the straight razors come the responsibility of maintaining them. There are some great tutorials on the web and if you are really interested there are some books out there, too. But to break it down, a straight razor needs to be sharpened, at least at first, but it also needs to be stropped. Stropping the blade helps keep burrs down and lets the blade run smoothly down the skin. Well maintained, a straight razor will last far beyond one person's lifetime.
Now, when I first started shaving, oh so many Moons ago... I used what was called a safety razor. It took double sided razor blades as refills. One blade would last me a week, and the case for the replacement blades took up so little space. I jumped off the deep end to start with.

This is not to say that I haven't tried the others, but I did not like the other styles. I tried an electric, but you still have to replace the blades and heads for them... and they were NOT cheap. I tried the disposable cheapies, but they MAY last me one shave... if that. The more expensive disposables will last me longer, but that is more money flowing out of my pocket constantly. Call me cheap, but I'd rather spend more money upfront if it will leave money in my pocket for a longer time.

I also use a shaving brush and soap instead of a can of shaving cream. A brush will last a long time and even when it starts to wear out, there is less left to go into the trash. Think about each can of shaving cream when it gets thrown away... think of the amount of trash that gets thrown out.

Then there is always the fact of going through the whole routine of shaving with them. When using straight razors, they are not like the cheapie disposables that you take out of the bag, scratch on your face, bleed a bit, and move on. No, you need to run the blade across the strop to make sure that the blade is ready. Then you wet your brush and work up a good lather with warm water and brush it into the face to make the bristles stand up to face the blade. You don't need to rinse out the blade to get all of the stuck bristles out of the razor, so it takes a lot less water.

On top of the money savings and the reduced waste, I feel that I get some of the best shaves from this method. I don't expect everyone to agree with me, or even be willing to give this a try, but if you are worried about the waste you produce, its a great way to cut down on garbage. Also, it gives you a great feeling to be able to say, "Why yes, I do shave with a cutthroat razor". Not too much is more Macho!

I think that's about it for now, until next time!