Hey gents,
Long time lurker and wet shaver here. This is not a new thing for me. It is also my 29th birthday, so I thought my first post should be in the SOTD Birthday edition. It's here if you're interested. Glad to be a part of this community, and here goes my second post.
To square with you I haven't really seen what others are posting as Newbie check ins. I don't feel much like a newbie, so I'll just share my shaving thoughts with you, and clue you in on what brought me here. Here's my shaving story.
I first wet "shaved" when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I'm sure many of you have similar memories, but I'll always vividly remember standing on a step stool next to Dad, who lathered with a puck in an old coffee mug and a brush. I would get the "razor" (a disposable with the blade guard still on) and shave my little face in neat lines. My dad was gone a lot when I was that age, so many of my memories are of weird things like that. He would yell when Ditka and the Bears lost, he taught me how to fire a shotgun, he taught my four year old *** how to shave- about 10 years too early. But still...
Fast forward to middle or high school, I can't remember which, and I started shaving almost every day with a cartridge and goop. Dad is a retired Army officer so shaving was a grudging necessity for most of my pubescent life. I pretty much hacked my whiskers away each day with that chemical goop and whatever Gillette cartridge was popular at the time. It's hard to know you're terrible at something if no one tells you, so I kept going this way for years. I finished college in 2007 and continued shaving this way until about a year and a half ago. This time, defined largely by mediocre shaves, was punctuated by flashes of clarity- I messed around with lathering in mugs, using pucks- but it was always half-assed and I never took the full leap. It took me a long time to realize that I was doing more harm than good.
So about two years ago I'm stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia and I'm getting my hair cut pretty well by a decent old school barber shop. One day as I'm administering legal tender for services rendered I notice a bunch of boar hair brushes and old school razors sitting there- I didn't know at that time that I was looking at my future. It piqued my interest the first time, but didn't elicit anything close to a commitment yet. So over the next few haircuts I keep eyeballing these guys. They looked beautiful, luxurious. Bright chrome and soft animal hair. Bespoke lathering mugs diligently thrown from raw clay. It all seemed very wonderful and I don't know what inhibited me for so long. Then one day after an innocuous inquiry the chick in the barber shop tells me to check out an article called "How to Shave Like Your Grandpa." I often find myself reaching for nostalgia in strange places: I drive a 31 year old BMW and regularly claim that I'm from Chicago, where I've never really lived. I shave with implements that were popular when my grandfather was alive.
Anyway- I think I finally bought into the DE and everything when I was just about to run out of fusion cartridges. For barely more than a pack of cartridges I grabbed a Parker 82R TTO and a Parker Pure Badger brush. For lathering, I grabbed an old Pusser's Rum tin tumbler that I got at a yard sale for half a buck, and I think I used Mr. Taylor's as a first soap. First blade was a Shark, and at that point I was either not using aftershave or I was using whatever was cheapest at the drugstore. Either way, once I made time for the ritual, a ritual it became.
I still owe B&B a debt of gratitude for getting me on track: all that bleeding the first few weeks was due to bad technique and shoddy lather procedure. Now, I could whip a lovely thick lather out of a bar of soap, thanks to Badger and Blade. I've had ups and downs, to be sure. But overall I'm so glad I made the change and I've never really looked back. I'm a die hard, life long, wet DE or SE shaver.
Wet shaving to me is what it is to so many of you- a ritual. It's a few minutes to look at the man in the mirror and talk him up, set him straight, curse him for his decisions, shoot straight with him, talk him out of a bad decision or just check up on him and see how he's doing. As men, I believe we don't do enough honest introspection. We're led to believe that we don't have time to search ourselves. Society tells us if we're not working, running, exercising, socializing, networking, drinking, reviewing, leading- whatever- then we're not doing enough. But I think we're missing a key ingredient in manliness- knowing ourselves. Say what you want about a guy like Don Draper- he knew what was going on inside himself, if nothing else. A surgical grade single or double blade demands our undistracted attention, and it slows us down, if only for a few precious moments each day. For those moments in the early dark, we know who we truly are. And these glimpses of our inner selves yield the best results, and the ultimate expression of manliness- we look, smell, and feel damn good the rest of the day.
So anyway, damn glad to shave with you fellas and here's my current shave shelf. I'm in the middle of a pretty intense A/S Acquisition Disorder:
Long time lurker and wet shaver here. This is not a new thing for me. It is also my 29th birthday, so I thought my first post should be in the SOTD Birthday edition. It's here if you're interested. Glad to be a part of this community, and here goes my second post.
To square with you I haven't really seen what others are posting as Newbie check ins. I don't feel much like a newbie, so I'll just share my shaving thoughts with you, and clue you in on what brought me here. Here's my shaving story.
I first wet "shaved" when I was around 4 or 5 years old. I'm sure many of you have similar memories, but I'll always vividly remember standing on a step stool next to Dad, who lathered with a puck in an old coffee mug and a brush. I would get the "razor" (a disposable with the blade guard still on) and shave my little face in neat lines. My dad was gone a lot when I was that age, so many of my memories are of weird things like that. He would yell when Ditka and the Bears lost, he taught me how to fire a shotgun, he taught my four year old *** how to shave- about 10 years too early. But still...
Fast forward to middle or high school, I can't remember which, and I started shaving almost every day with a cartridge and goop. Dad is a retired Army officer so shaving was a grudging necessity for most of my pubescent life. I pretty much hacked my whiskers away each day with that chemical goop and whatever Gillette cartridge was popular at the time. It's hard to know you're terrible at something if no one tells you, so I kept going this way for years. I finished college in 2007 and continued shaving this way until about a year and a half ago. This time, defined largely by mediocre shaves, was punctuated by flashes of clarity- I messed around with lathering in mugs, using pucks- but it was always half-assed and I never took the full leap. It took me a long time to realize that I was doing more harm than good.
So about two years ago I'm stationed at Fort Benning, Georgia and I'm getting my hair cut pretty well by a decent old school barber shop. One day as I'm administering legal tender for services rendered I notice a bunch of boar hair brushes and old school razors sitting there- I didn't know at that time that I was looking at my future. It piqued my interest the first time, but didn't elicit anything close to a commitment yet. So over the next few haircuts I keep eyeballing these guys. They looked beautiful, luxurious. Bright chrome and soft animal hair. Bespoke lathering mugs diligently thrown from raw clay. It all seemed very wonderful and I don't know what inhibited me for so long. Then one day after an innocuous inquiry the chick in the barber shop tells me to check out an article called "How to Shave Like Your Grandpa." I often find myself reaching for nostalgia in strange places: I drive a 31 year old BMW and regularly claim that I'm from Chicago, where I've never really lived. I shave with implements that were popular when my grandfather was alive.
Anyway- I think I finally bought into the DE and everything when I was just about to run out of fusion cartridges. For barely more than a pack of cartridges I grabbed a Parker 82R TTO and a Parker Pure Badger brush. For lathering, I grabbed an old Pusser's Rum tin tumbler that I got at a yard sale for half a buck, and I think I used Mr. Taylor's as a first soap. First blade was a Shark, and at that point I was either not using aftershave or I was using whatever was cheapest at the drugstore. Either way, once I made time for the ritual, a ritual it became.
I still owe B&B a debt of gratitude for getting me on track: all that bleeding the first few weeks was due to bad technique and shoddy lather procedure. Now, I could whip a lovely thick lather out of a bar of soap, thanks to Badger and Blade. I've had ups and downs, to be sure. But overall I'm so glad I made the change and I've never really looked back. I'm a die hard, life long, wet DE or SE shaver.
Wet shaving to me is what it is to so many of you- a ritual. It's a few minutes to look at the man in the mirror and talk him up, set him straight, curse him for his decisions, shoot straight with him, talk him out of a bad decision or just check up on him and see how he's doing. As men, I believe we don't do enough honest introspection. We're led to believe that we don't have time to search ourselves. Society tells us if we're not working, running, exercising, socializing, networking, drinking, reviewing, leading- whatever- then we're not doing enough. But I think we're missing a key ingredient in manliness- knowing ourselves. Say what you want about a guy like Don Draper- he knew what was going on inside himself, if nothing else. A surgical grade single or double blade demands our undistracted attention, and it slows us down, if only for a few precious moments each day. For those moments in the early dark, we know who we truly are. And these glimpses of our inner selves yield the best results, and the ultimate expression of manliness- we look, smell, and feel damn good the rest of the day.
So anyway, damn glad to shave with you fellas and here's my current shave shelf. I'm in the middle of a pretty intense A/S Acquisition Disorder:
Last edited:
