How Did Ancient Romans Shave?

[scotandrsn]

Here’s a site of completely unknown credibility of the history of shaving.

It repeats a story I heard elsewhere that one of the ancient Roman methods of shaving was with a pumice stone, which must have hurt like hell.

[Barbarian]

You can put an edge on bronze. The problem is keeping that edge. You’d probably have to hone a bronze razor every half-dozen strokes – which would be long and tedious for shaving.

[sjc]

@633squadron

I shave with a straight razor, so I’ve read lots about this subject before. The Romans did use tweezing, which strikes me as extremely painful and irritating. No wonder they called for blood in the Arena :eek:

Alas, we don’t seem to have any definitive Roman literature about shaving. We do know they used tweezers and iron blades. Other cultures used sea shells!

I suspect that if you work hard enough, you can put a good edge on both bronze and iron. Bronze may even work better, since iron will tend to flake even on the microscopic level. You want a blade that is extremely thin and even.

I also suspect that you could use an obsidian razor. The problem would be trying to keep it both sharp and thin. If the body of the razor is too thick, you can’t put the blade edge at the correct angle to your face. You notice that problem with that when you start to use a str8 razor.

The best modern str8 razors are hollow ground, so that you can get them close to your face. They have a double bevel, which means that if you could look at a cross-section of the blade down near the edge, you’d see a broad V and then a narrower V sticking down from it. You then have to constantly hone and strop the edge so that it is smooth even at the microscopic level.

This sounds tedious and difficult, but it isn’t all that bad. The absolute best shave I’ve ever had comes from a old-style double-edge blade in a reproduction of King Gilette’s original razor. The only reason I use a str8 instead is that I am opposed to tossing a piece of metal (even a small one) every five or six shaves. If someone could figure out a way to re-hone double-edged blades…

My str8 gear costs more, but in the 18 months I’ve been using it I have not thrown away anything. I know guys who are using str8s they inherited from their grandfathers!

[hijack]
This is almost entirely off-topic, but I used to hate shaving until I started using a soap and brush rather than shaving cream. I’m not sure why, but it shaves much better for me. Maybe it’s just that it makes me take a bit more time with beard-prep, but I think that there’s more to it than that.

You can buy special soap, but I find that a particular brand of non-scented glycerin soap works well for me. I buy it at the local health food store (I believe it is cheaper than either shaving cream or the special soaps they sell for this, though I’m not entirely sure since the other two may last longer).

[/end Hijack]

[Sigene]

@Derleth

That’s ‘Mesoamerica’. They weren’t Italian.

How well does obsidian stand up to being banged around? I should think the glass would be very brittle and prone to shattering into thousands of extremely sharp little pieces.

My experience with obsidian and other “glass” blades is that they are incredibly sharp…the sharpest I’ve ever handled.
But they dull more quickly then expected and of course are as brittle as glass. I suppose they can be resharpened by grinding, but I always just break off another piece or rework the edge.

[Scumpup]

@Barbarian

You can put an edge on bronze. The problem is keeping that edge. You’d probably have to hone a bronze razor every half-dozen strokes – which would be long and tedious for shaving.

The solution is to have more than one razor at hand. All may then be honed before the next shave. Remember, too, that you are just re-honing the edge between shaves…not quite sharp enough to shave is still pretty sharp. It’s not like re-profiling and sharpening a blade that has gone blunt.