Any dedicated wet shavers here?

And what's with the shavers themselves being so heavy? The ones I looked at at the nearest cutlery store felt pretty heavy.

I actually like the cheapie Dorco blades.

Most days now I use whatever cream or cake I want depending on my mood. If I'm in a hurry I use Jack Black Beard Lube because it's quick and easy (no messing around with a brush or anything).

You can find far more information than you ever wanted at:

www.badgerandblade.com

about shaving.

I would love to try a straight razor sometime; I've always been fascinated by them. Right now I tend to use Mach 3 razors in the shower - I don't have a problem with sensitive skin, and I'm like mudbunny in that I can (indeed, need to) go against the grain to get as close a shave as possible. Functional, but the old fashioned way seems so much more manly, somehow. :-p

Paleocon wrote:

And what's with the shavers themselves being so heavy? The ones I looked at at the nearest cutlery store felt pretty heavy.

Yeah, you want to make sure you can get one that's comfortable and maneuverable, but you also want something that has some substance to it so you feel like you're actually doing something.

I took a quick pic of what I use:

IMAGE(http://www.swordsandarmor.com/images/AX882433_Executioners_Axe.jpg)

It's important to keep it away from any kids, as the clean up can be a real time-waster.

Change the cream and aftershave to what? I already buy the stuff by Nivea, I think. I still dry out and have issues.

DSGamer wrote:

Change the cream and aftershave to what? I already buy the stuff by Nivea, I think. I still dry out and have issues.

On the rare occasion I get to the organic market in Jessup, I end up getting the moisturizing shave lotion from Kiss My Face. It isn't cheap ($9 for 11 ounces), but it works like an absolute champ. I only suffer with Edge gel because I can get it at Costco.

I'm going to have to take Bruce Sterling's advice and not economize on stuff I put close to my skin.

As others have said, a good brush & sharp blades are a must. I switch out soaps & aftershaves fairly regularly; right now it's Taylor of Bond St (Eton College) for the soap & Lucky Tiger for the aftershave. I will probably go back to a high glycerin content soap bar when this stuff runs out.

If you're after the absolutely best shave you can get, it's way expensive. A good straight or safety razor, shaving brush, soap cake to go in a mug, and aftershave will run up a nice tally. However, all of that, combined with a shave in a very hot shower will work absolute wonders.

So, here's an echo of what has come before:

1. Prep is key. Shaving while showering does this best; all the heat and moisture opens your pores and stands up hair. This is the effect achieved by those hot towels a barber wraps your face in.
2. Sharper razors are better. Sharper razors mean less passes over the skin, which causes less irritation. This is also why a good multiblade razor, provided you don't over use it works very well. The problem is that people see the cartridge prices and flip out at the cost, and use them longer which leads to irritation, bad shaves, yadda.
3. Shaving soap is best. With this, as usual, you get what you pay for. Pricier stuff generally has a better mix of moisturizers and all that voodoo that helps keep irritation down while shaving.
4. A good exfoliating face scrub will get shave gunk out of your pores, which is part of what causes shaving bumps. It'll also keep your skin nice and healthy, which helps also. Once you've done that, wash your face with cold water; that will close your pores up and keep stuff out of them. Side effect here is that it helps with acne.
5. A good aftershave balm once out of the shower or finished with the previous ritual seals up the deal.

Personally, I've used a Gillette Fusion for 3 years or so now. I don't use it as often as I used to however; needing to be shaved pre-shower 3 days a week has driven me to a dry electric shaver. To that end, I have a Braun 570 which works very well. I've never been able to get a perfectly clean shave, not even using all of that advice above. This does just as well as all of that, and combined with a good after shave balm, one of Nivea's alcohol free, dye free balms gets me as close a shave as I've ever managed and for far less effort

What kind of store would you expect to find these products at?

All the shaving advice you'll ever need, brought to you by The Art of Manliness blog.

How to shave like your Grandpa - Safety Razor shaving

How to shave like your Great Grandpa - Straight Razor shaving

My current setup:
Merkur HD razor
Merkur platinum blades
Badger brush
Truefit & Hill shave soap and aftershave

I got lucky and found most of it at my local haberdasher. Though Amazon is good too.

www.westcoastshaving.com is a fantastic place to get blades and junk.

The best shave I've ever had was an old fashioned barber shave, but I have far to great a track record of cutting myself with mundane objects to consider trying that on myself. My next best option is to shave in the shower as it really cuts down on the irritation for me.

We have The Art of Shaving here.

kleinetako Thanks for that. I thought "Safety Razor" meant those plastic ones doctors use.

I have no sympathy for any of you, but I will vouch for the fusion. Knocks any daisy/girly razor out of the water.

Razor and Brush is a fairly low-tech website run by a guy who knows his stuff and seems to have reasonable prices. He'll take Paypal, although I think his arrangement is that he can't use credit-card-funded Paypal, only bank-account-funded. I bought my first batch of stuff from him, and was very happy with the service.

The Personna blades I'm using aren't red... they're platinum-something-or-other, and fairly expensive. I find them better than the Feathers. I got a big sample pack with a ton of different kinds, and all the rest I tried were inferior to those two, at least on my skin.

Oh, I went and looked on his site: from the packaging, what I'm ACTUALLY using is "Crystal Platinum", which are made in the same factory, and are sold as Personnas in a number of countries. They're a little cheaper. He must have changed something in the last few months.

Your per-shave cost is much lower on wet shaving, but the initial outlay is very steep. This was my initial order:

Omega 63325 brush: $37
Merkur #34C: $31
Blade Sampler Pack #2: $18.50
Omega Shave Soap, 150g tub: $7.00
Proraso Aftershave Balm, 100ml: $15.00

The Proraso is particularly awesome stuff, but it doesn't last very long; the bottle is small and it takes a fair bit for a decent application. The Omega soap is also excellent.

Learning to foam it up took a little while... I tried to do it like I saw my father do it in his shave mug, which was to stir the soap in the mug until the lather formed. That doesn't work well with Omega, you end up with an assload of soap on the brush before it really starts to lather. What I found was, instead, to scrub the brush into the soap until I got the first real waft of scent out of it, which means that there's a fair bit in the brush, and then actually lather up on my face. Works much better, much faster, and uses a lot less soap.

I think if I were going to get started now, I'd focus more on getting a safety razor with an adjustable attack angle. The 34C is extremely safe, but it takes a lot of passes to get down to zero beard. It'd be nice if I could make it a little more aggressive. I don't even have to be particularly careful with it. I've only nicked myself twice in over a year of use.

The key to a perfect shave is to not give a crap what anyone thinks about your stubbly face.

I've always shaved in the shower. I'm not sure why I should do it any other way. Currently I use a shaving cream and aftershave lotion from The Body Shop, plus washing my face every day with a moisturizer/defolation cream or something like that. Not real cheap but so far it's been the best I've found. If I don't clean my face religiously I get a bad oil buildup + problems shaving.

Malor wrote:

Razor and Brush is a fairly low-tech website run by a guy who knows his stuff and seems to have reasonable prices. He'll take Paypal, although I think his arrangement is that he can't use credit-card-funded Paypal, only bank-account-funded. I bought my first batch of stuff from him, and was very happy with the service.

The Personna blades I'm using aren't red... they're platinum-something-or-other, and fairly expensive. I find them better than the Feathers. I got a big sample pack with a ton of different kinds, and all the rest I tried were inferior to those two, at least on my skin.

Oh, I went and looked on his site: from the packaging, what I'm ACTUALLY using is "Crystal Platinum", which are made in the same factory, and are sold as Personnas in a number of countries. They're a little cheaper. He must have changed something in the last few months.

Your per-shave cost is much lower on wet shaving, but the initial outlay is very steep. This was my initial order:

Omega 63325 brush: $37
Merkur #34C: $31
Blade Sampler Pack #2: $18.50
Omega Shave Soap, 150g tub: $7.00
Proraso Aftershave Balm, 100ml: $15.00

The Proraso is particularly awesome stuff, but it doesn't last very long; the bottle is small and it takes a fair bit for a decent application. The Omega soap is also excellent.

Learning to foam it up took a little while... I tried to do it like I saw my father do it in his shave mug, which was to stir the soap in the mug until the lather formed. That doesn't work well with Omega, you end up with an assload of soap on the brush before it really starts to lather. What I found was, instead, to scrub the brush into the soap until I got the first real waft of scent out of it, which means that there's a fair bit in the brush, and then actually lather up on my face. Works much better, much faster, and uses a lot less soap.

I think if I were going to get started now, I'd focus more on getting a safety razor with an adjustable attack angle. The 34C is extremely safe, but it takes a lot of passes to get down to zero beard. It'd be nice if I could make it a little more aggressive. I don't even have to be particularly careful with it. I've only nicked myself twice in over a year of use.

Are you talking about these? West Coast Shaving has them for $12 for a 100 pack. That's still a great deal lower than the $40 price tag on the Feathers or the $50 price tag on Merkurs.

I shaved with a Fusion this morning and the results were disappointing.

Also, I am hearing that a lot of folks start off with the Merkur HD and then decide they want a razor with greater aggressiveness. If that is the case, should I just get a Futura instead? That will let me start on the safe side and adjust as my technique and confidence improves.

A thought for those that struggle with irritation or razor burn: Keep shaving daily, your skin will get used to it. Taking a day or two off will only make it worse next time.

Hmm. Reading some very intriguing things about straight razor shaving.

Paleocon wrote:

Also, I am hearing that a lot of folks start off with the Merkur HD and then decide they want a razor with greater aggressiveness. If that is the case, should I just get a Futura instead? That will let me start on the safe side and adjust as my technique and confidence improves.

Another suggestion: a Parker 91R double-sided safety razor. Cheaper than a Merkur, but really nice--and it's heavy enough that just the weight of it against your skin is all you need.

I'm also intrigued by straight razor shaving--but I'm not ready to go there just yet. My Parker doesn't have the added bonus of being able to cut a motherf*cker for giving me lip, so I may have to get one.

I'm going to get on the 'shave in the shower' train here. A small caveat, though. I'm not a burly lumberjack, so maybe I can get away with it when others could not.

I tend to shave after a hot shower. I find it softens the whiskers, but I like having the light and large mirror so I can see what I'm doing.

I wet shave with a regular Gillette Fusion razor. And only after a hot shower.

I have very coarse facial hair, but I also have sensitive skin. The best thing I found to do was lather with a badger brush soaked in hot water with natural, unscented shave cream. I get my cream from Art of the Shave. It's fairly expensive, but it's the best I've found so far. I also use their pre-shave oil and after-shave balm, which seems to make a huge difference in comfort.

If I want a really close shave, here's what I do.

  • After a hot shower, I either splash my face with hot water or soak a washcloth in hot water and place it against my face and neck.
  • Take about a quarter-sized drop of preshave oil, rub it together in my hands, and massage it into my face and neck for around 15-20 seconds.
  • Saturate my badger brush with water, and scoop out a small marble-sized dab of cream from the jar, and place it as far into the middle of my brush as I can. Then I lather the brush by dabbing it against the palm of my hand until it's fully lathered.
  • Shave carefully with the grain of hair. Don't use a lot of pressure.
  • Rinse my face, reapply the hot towel, then reapply preshave oil, and relather.
  • Shave again, this time VERY carefully against the grain. I usually have to relather areas as I go if I want to get really close.
  • Rinse with hot water, PAT dry my face, and liberally apply after-shave balm.
  • I can usually get through all of this without any nicks, unless it's been a long time since I've shaved. I've found it doesn't really matter what razor I use, but rather that it's sharp and you use a very steady hand when you're shaving.

Anyone use witch hazel before and after?

Paleocon wrote:

Are you talking about these? West Coast Shaving has them for $12 for a 100 pack. That's still a great deal lower than the $40 price tag on the Feathers or the $50 price tag on Merkurs.

Hmm, I'm not sure. It's not packaged the same. The Crystals I'm using have a blue top, not a red one. I see the blue-top packaging on Razor and Brush for 15 cents each, so the $12 price is in the right ballpark. But you can get them in smaller amounts on R&B. You might want to try ordering 10 each of several different kinds. Losing a buck fifty to bad blades is much less painful than $15.

It looks like the Personnas have numerous different lines, and are made all over the world, so finding specific ones you like may be a little tricky.

Wow, Feathers are really expensive. Searching for 'Feather' on the R&B page also turns up "Dorco Platinum Extra", which they say are very similar. I've used regular Dorco blades, and they kind of suck, but R&B says these are new and much better.

Is there enough of a difference between them that a novice retroshaver like me would notice?