Breaking into str8s: Shavette, Feather Artist Club, or.

I'm thinking about giving straights a try, but I don't want to deal with sharpening and stropping. I would prefer a "full" size blade rather than breaking DE's in half. I was looking at Shavettes (around $30) or a Feather Artist Club (around $110). I heard the Feather may be too aggressive to begin.

Which is the better way to start with a replaceable blade straight? Is there some other product I'm not aware of?

A Weck Sextoblade from ebay <$20, and some Fromm blades from Sally's Beauty supply is a cheap and easy way to try. Looks scary as heck though.
West Coast Shaving has the Feather AC SS on sale for $95. Both good options, but I like the feather better.

There are several topics on the Feather going on in the straight razor shave clinic forum and the general straight razor talk forum at the moment, you might want to read up on these. A shavette is cheap but not exactly the easiest to learn, whole different feeling than a straight as far as handling and the shave itself. A feather or KAI razor or the cheaper version from Korea might be worth a try but you might want to try the cheaper models and see if it's something you like. IMHO shaving with a good honed straight is easier to learn then with a shavette or Feather, these require very good technique or you will cut yourself, you can't use any pressure when shaving (more info in the aforementioned topics)

mistervee123 said:

I'm thinking about giving straights a try, but I don't want to deal with sharpening and stropping. I would prefer a "full" size blade rather than breaking DE's in half. I was looking at Shavettes (around $30) or a Feather Artist Club (around $110). I heard the Feather may be too aggressive to begin.

Which is the better way to start with a replaceable blade straight? Is there some other product I'm not aware of?

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I'm thinking about the same thing in the future. The Feather Artist Club looks like the way to go. Still some if not a lot of straight razor purists say it's not like a straight razor shave which I believe and respect. However, I'm not going to spend the time and money on the sharpening and stropping. It just doesn't interest me.

David don't worry what others say, I have used straights and Feathers and they are not exactly the same just like not all the DE razors are the same or shave the same. There is even a big difference among straights in the way they shave.

I've heard it many times from people who visited us, your feathers are not the real thing! I've convinced a few to try one and love watching them shave for the first time ;-)

Snuff makes a good point that not even regular straights are uniform and give the same shave. However, for the approximation of a regular straight, a Feather AC or clone that is using a blade that has five or six shaves on it is pretty close. When the blades are new, they are wicked sharp but still controllable (a broken blade shavette blade will last two or three shaves and bite you when it gets a chance). Once you get used to the AC, you can get many shaves out of one blade. I normally get 9 or 10 and I've pushed it before and gotten 19 or 20. The biggest difference is that the AC is a much shorter blade. I prefer shorter blades for my neck area where I have to do Rubber Man tricks to the the right angles of attack. To me, the AC is a win-win.

Another option for a 'close to regular straight' experience is a SextoBlade. Look at the thread on them here: http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/320019-The-Straight-Eight-Shavette-Pass The shave is closer to a regular shave than just about anything I've tried and they are cheap to get started. The blades don't last as long but you can strop them if you wish. They are just a tad longer than an AC blade.

mistervee123 said:

I'm thinking about giving straights a try, but I don't want to deal with sharpening and stropping. I would prefer a "full" size blade rather than breaking DE's in half. I was looking at Shavettes (around $30) or a Feather Artist Club (around $110). I heard the Feather may be too aggressive to begin.

Which is the better way to start with a replaceable blade straight? Is there some other product I'm not aware of?

Click to expand...

Based on my own experience over the last 1-2 months, I would recommend starting with a Feather SS and KAI Mild Guard blades. You can read my whole saga here, but that combination was very good to start with. The CJB (clone of Feather RG) is another good razor to start with. If you go read my thread, please pay close attention to advice from ladykate and Kentos - everyone gave me good advice, but these two went out of their way to help me out!.