The price is what initially got me into using a safety razor. Can’t beat $0.10 a blade, as opposed to $2.50. But, after I tried it, I found that the shave was far superior as well. The initial investment is fairly high (Less than $35.00 for a brand new Merkur handle), but I’ll never need to get another razor handle barring any accidents and I’d spend more than that in Mach 3 cartridges in about half a year.
By the way, call your local antique store - those safety razors haven’t changed in forever, and you can get lovely handles for eight or ten bucks. Plus sometimes they come in little vintage cases or with cute old blade packaging and stuff. Very hip.
I ordered shaving oil and saw some shaving soap at the drugstore which I bought.
I tried the shaving soap but getting it lather has been difficult. I ended up looking like a female Japanese news anchor.
Do I get it to lather in the soap’s bowl? Watching it on youtube and getting instructions from Google hasn’t worked. Please use short, easy to understand words and type slowly.
The shaving’s great though, looking forward to comparing it to oil shaving.
Are you using a brush?
Yes. I tried getting it to lather in a mug. I only seemed to lather sufficiently when I tried lathering in the soap’s container. I’ve always seen people getting lather from a container other than the soap’s container so I must be doing something wrong.
I tried getting soap in the mug with the brush and then adding water. I tried starting with water and then adding soap with the brush. Didn’t work properly.
Check out this guy’s videos:
Also, there are some forums out there dedicated to “wet shaving” as they call this sort of thing- Badger and Blade is my favorite (just google it for the URL), but there are several others.
However… the short course in lathering a soap is this:
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Put some water on your soap ahead of time. Let it soak in. Pour off excess. There should be a layer of hydrated soap on top.
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Soak your brush in warm water.
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Get your brush mostly dry- shake off as much as you can.
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Swirl/rub the brush onto the soap until you get a pretty good amount of that hydrated soap layer in your brush’s bristles- they should start to stick together.
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Take the brush and soap, and go to your lathering bowl (I use a cheapo fruit bowl from Target), and add a little bit of water to the bowl, and start trying to lather it up. Keep adding water in like 1-2 tsp increments until you end up with a decent lather.
And keep in mind that different soaps take different amounts of time to reach that whipped cream texture. I used super cheapo Colgate and/or Williams shaving soap from the grocery store for years … only switched because my grocery store stopped carrying it. I was surprised at how quickly the Tabac soap makes a good lather.
I was all about the shaving soap until it started mildewing. How do y’all keep that from happening?
Seconded on the sample pack. Just try them all and see which one you like best. They all differ based on your style and the razor you have. I like the Feathers in my SuperSpeed, but put them in the Merkur and I’ll end up in the emergency room.
This is technically how you’re supposed to do it. Personally, though, I just get my brush wet (not too wet or you end up with soapy water and not too dry or you end up with a very thin lather) and rub it against the soap in my bowl until I have some later on the brush (takes about 10 or 15 circular motions around the soap) then apply it to my face. It’s quick and works for me.
Never had it happen before. Of course I live in a place so dry that a cup of water left out overnight is gone by morning. I guess you could try keeping your soap in the freezer when you’re not using it. I have no idea how/if that would affect the soap, though.
Yeah, that’s definitely the long way I described. For creams it’s easier- you either do exactly what you do with soap, except skip the pre-wetting step (step 1), and if it’s in a tube, replace Step 4 with “Squeeze a dollop of cream directly into the lathering bowl”
I haven’t ever been able to get the face-lathering down with as much consistency as the bowl style, so I don’t do it as often. Truth be told, 5 days a week, I use something from a can- Nivea for Men, Proraso foam, Mach 3 gel, etc… it’s just faster, and gives an acceptable enough shave for work.
Weekends are more of the long way though.