Come on guys/ladies, advice needed!

[taffy]

Ok, a mate of mine has been using his merkur de for around 5 years, he uses a brush and creams, so he is not a newbie, he has shown an interest in my straights, he has now come to the opinion he wants to try a straight, but he is thinking of getting a shavette first. I have told him that he is quite welcome to borrow (and i did say barrow at least 40 times to him:lol:), one of my straights, but he is a bit concerned about using a "big blade" as he calls them, and feels he would be safer, at first with a shavette, i have told him that i actually found a straight easier to use than a shavette, and when i first found a interest in straights, bought a shavette, and cut myself a fair bit, dumped it, bought a shave ready from here, and actually found it easier, sinse then i have thrown in my shavette into my rotation and found i am now geting better results with it.
So i am going to point him here to your replies, so he can have a look at folks who have been using straights/shavettes, and see what he thinks:thumbup:

[Barber-Eile]

Dear Taffy's friend,
Listen to Taffy. A real straight is a lot easier to learn with than a shavette. With a real straight you can feel the bite before you nick/cut and more often than not you can stop it. With a shavette you will nick yourself without even realising. Shavettes are handier in terms of maintenance (no stropping involved) but that's the only real benefit to them if you are using it exclusively on yourself (as a barber I acknowledge their superior health and safety value as you can use a fresh blade on each client).
So yeah, go to whippeddog.com or somewhere and pick up a nice shave ready straight and just go for it! It's fun!

Regards,
Dan.

[johnmrson]

I used a shavette a few times and found it far inferior to a real straight. They are too light in the hand.

[Shangas]

There's a considerable difference between a replaceable-blade razor and a traditional straight-razor. As Johnmrson says, shavettes are lighter, and in my experience, light razors are fiddly because they encourage you to press harder (maybe it's something about the feeling of flimsiness?) and if you press harder with a straight razor, you WILL cut yourself.

Plus, using a shavette does NOT prepare you for shaving with a straight-razor. It mimicks it, it does not mirror it.

For one thing...a straight-razor is heavier. A straight-razor is about 75% weight in steel, 25% weight in scales (this ratio varies depending on the scales and blade). A replaceable blade weighs nothing at all so the weight-balance difference will not help you to get used to shaving with a traditional straight.

Also, part of shaving with a straight razor is the maintenance. You can't hone and strop a shavette. And if you don't learn to do that, then you can't use a straight-razor, because that's 2/3 of using one. The other 1/3 is shaving.

The cost of a straight-razor is pretty low when you think about it. Don't forget that the majority of people these days shave with cartridge razors and think that Straight Razors are super-duper dangerous. As such, the prices, of second-hand straight razors, at least, are very low. And the other pieces of equipment (honing stone and strop) can also be purchased very cheaply. If they couldn't, then I certainly wouldn't be doing it.

[W_B_K]

Go with the true straight. In comparing how my face feels after a shave with a real one vs. a shavette, the real straight just feels so much better... like you got a face massage! Just that alone makes it worth it. :thumbup1: While I have gotten great shaves with a shavette, it just isn't the same.

[Freedom]

I have to say I am in the opposite boat to most people, The problem I see is that there is just too much that can go wrong with a straight in the beginning.

If you screw up stropping either by totally ruining the edge or just incorrectly strop/touchup, it doesn't matter how good your technique is it will be horrible.

If you drop it because of over cautiousness you ruin it, don't forget we can't assume your ambidextrous to begin with.

The edge dulls over time especially fast for introducties which makes it difficult to gauge your progression.

All of this can just overwhelm and lead to a hopeless circle of disappointment.


What I would say and if I could do it again would be to go into it acknowledging in the end it will be far easier and far more comfortable with a real straight as everyone has said. However getting there I have a lot to learn, and a shavette gives me a baseline which I can use.

I would say use a shavette purely for WTG shaving (I would never use one for ATG, even now it just no no), do this until you feel comfortable with both hands and understand the technique, this base skill you can then transfer over to a straight to say no my technique is okay something else is wrong, you also won't be at such a risk of dropping your nice razor.

Then I would progress into learning stropping and ATG shaving with a real straight with enough confidence on the shave side that I can concentrate sololy on those areas.

Then once i have done that I would move onto honing knowing everything before that is fine and I can evaluate my ability to hone from there.


Since this person has you who can presumably watch his stropping/honing it will be far easier for him to jump onto a real straight but i think a lot of people here forget just how much and hard it was to learn.

[Castel33]

I'll agree a shavette can be a real harsh way to learn straight shaving and if fear of a real blade is his main concern he is probably safer with a real blade.

However I would not trade the time I spent learning on a shavette cause it taught me a lot quickly about angle and pressure using an open blade and you do learn that lesson quickly with a shavette more so then with a real blade. I feel my technique is much better do to the time I spent with shavette in fact my real straight shaves were very unimpressive till I stopped one day a real thought about applying the lessons I learned from the shavette.

[Shangas]

Since this person has you who can presumably watch his stropping/honing it will be far easier for him to jump onto a real straight but i think a lot of people here forget just how much and hard it was to learn.

I wouldn't say that there's much to learn or that it's hard to learn either, for that matter.

It's sharpening and stropping, how difficult can that be? It's harder to sharpen a kitchen-knife than a straight-razor and the only thing you need to know about stropping is to hold the strop tight, lay the blade flat and slide it back and forth with a diagonal stroke.

Maybe it's because I watched all the videos I could find on Youtube, but when I started shaving with a straight-razor I didn't find it hard at all. A teensy bit scary perhaps and uncertain, but not hard.

[Luc]

One or the other (shavette or straight), it will work. You do not have much liberty with the angle when using the shavette. If you need a milder/more aggressive shave, the straight would be easier to control.

[StillShaving]

Your friend, even if a close friend, might be the type of person who doesn't want to borrow personal things, and just feels more comfortable if it were his own razor for that first shave.

Assuming that is not the case, you should try to convince him that the real straight will be smoother and more forgiving. Generally speaking as a newbie, he can make more "mistakes" in technique, especially in applying a little too much pressure, and not slice up his face as much if he starts out with a traditional straight. But if he has a determined personality he may be able to fight through the rough shaves and progress with the shavette. If he really wants to use a disposable blade and his budget allows, the feather AC system is probably a better choice than the shavette.

[bmgreene]

Taffy,

I thought the same way as your friend when I started. I first got a replaceable blade (Parker SR-1) model using a half-DE blade with the plan of learning angle control before complicating things with stropping and edge maintainenece, I also wanted to control my $$ investment in case I decided it wasn't my bag.

I picked, the Parker after looking at a Dovo shavette both because it was half the price and because it had a steel rather than aluminum "blade" section and I figured that it'd match the weight/blance of a real straight better. What I learned was that the half-DE models have a sharp corner that's short of the point which creates a new and interesting way to carve yourself up, and when I did switch to a regular straight (new Dovo BQ Full Hollow 5/8 round-point), I figured out in about 2 shaves that it was actually easier than the Parker since the edge ended at a location on the blade that's visible when you're working.

Also, since your friend is coming over from DE to straights, he's not exactly a stranger to the idea of angles and proper pressure, but needs to learn a different grip and stroke. I'd definitely reccomend starting on a real straight over a shavette, having done it the other way myself; about the only upside to my experience now is that I should be able to use the Parker (bladeless) as a travel razor when I'm travelling too light to check a bag (anywhere with an airport has a drug store where I can pick up a 5-pack of Wilkinson DE blades for a couple bucks). If he still insists on the shavette, I'd reccomend somethign with a steel body if possible for the wieght, and using full-length barber-style disposable blades rather than SE or half-DE to avoid the interior-corner issue.

[jtadmin]

Dear Taffy's friend,

After DEing since November 2010 I dove into my first straight this month. I purchased the ruprazor.com $60.00 set, and couldn't be happier. Ken also includes free life time honing all you pay is shipping. I also recommend watching the world of straight razor shaving which can be purchased from SRP or other places. Straight shaving like DE is an art, with time and practice it's a breeze when you jumped into DE did you use a disposable DE, I think not :thumbup1: and we all remember how bad the disposables where with M3. Go straight and rock it my friend!