When I get my hair cut, the barber always shaves the back of my neck with a straight razor. This feels great and really leaves a smooth shave. When I asked her about getting a full face shave, she said they don’t do that due to health concerns (I.E. liability if someone gets infected from an insufficiently sterilized razor). I would love to get a straight razor shave from a professional barber but is it an impossible dream? What do you all say?
No, you can probably find someone who will still do it.
It is a wonderful experience.
Why can you get infected by getting your face shaved but not your neck? Seems if that was such a concern they wouldn’t do the neck, either.
I didn’t point that out since she had the razor against my neck. I get the feeling she simply doesn’t want to do it and made up an excuse.
If this sounds sexist, I apologize, but you need to go to a male barber (both male and barber are key words). I can get a great shave anytime at my barbershop for $4.00. 
The unwillingness of your stylist to do face shaves may stem from a licensing issue. She may be a licensed “hairdresser,” but not a licensed “barber.” Just guessing here, mind you.
I got one once. The face-pampering part was nice but the shave itself was too close, leaving parts of my face irritated for days. I’d chalk that up to the barber who did it, not to the process itself.
You should be able to get one. The barber I went to for years would shave patrons. I had a shave from him once or twice; it was a great feeling afterwards.
But he was a proper barber, an older gentleman, who ran the kind of barber shop that you see in the movies: old sports magazines, daily newspapers, and likely a Racing Form somewhere about. In other words, he was not (for example) a young stylist in a modern salon. I don’t know where you went or who denied you a shave, but perhaps you might have better luck getting a good shave if you look for an older barber who has done thousands in his life.
A very few number of barbers still do str8 razor shaves. If you want to find one in your area, go to www.straightrazorplace.com or the straight razor place Yahoo group and ask for recommendations in your area.
Those websites, by the way, also support those who want to shave with a str8 on a daily basis. Like me. 
Barbers used to shave everyone who didn’t shave himself, until Bertrand Russell came along…
If your barber is worried about the cross-contamination thing, get your own razor, and take it in with you.
I hit “post” too quickly. If you are shaved with a razor that never has shaved anyone else, you cannot be infected by any germs or viruses you didn’t already have. You can’t contaminate yourself with your own blood.
I’ve had a professional shave with a straight razor. I found that, while the pampering and face-treating and all was nice, the shave itself wasn’t as close as I can do myself with a Sensor Excel.
And for that matter, I think the quaintness factor of a straight razor is WAY overrated. I had a friend who shaved with a straight razor until he slipped one day and severed a tendon in his finger. He switched to a safety razor after that.
Just to chime in, my husband gets a shave from a barber using a straight razor as a little treat every few months or so. It is very smooth and he feels pampered (yet manly!) when he gets one.
I would say, like others have mentioned, the key is to go to a barber, not a hairdresser.
Thanks. You’ve bent my mind. Now I need a shave and an aspirin.
One other thing to point out here: I used to know a guy, a fairly serious partier, who finally got a 9-to-5 office job. He had no intention of letting the workplace get in the way of his drinking, with the result that he was often at work sporting monstrous hangovers.
He always said that the best thing for a workday hangover was to take your lunch break and, instead of going and eating, go to the barbershop down the street and get a shave, hot-towel treatment, hair trimmed, etc. He said it made him feel 100% better… just in time for Happy Hour.
Hey, I own a straight razor, and use it quite often. I don’t shave with it everyday, though, mainly because it takes alot of care and maintenance. This, I believe, is one of the reasons it is rare to find a good-shavin’ barber. Straight razors aren’t your run of the mill throwaways; they’re expensive, take practice to use properly, and have to be constantly sharpened (stropped, really) and cleaned. I think the posters who have had bad experiences with straight razor shaves went to the barber who had one or two weirdos come in every couple of months asking for a shave. They don’t get a lot of practice this way, and their razor’s probably been rusting in a drawer for months. Safety razors to me are nothing but convenience at the price of a slightly worse shave. Most people don’t mind the trade-off, but me, I like to do it right a couple times a week and break out the Dovo.
I had a barber who used a straight razor for the back of my neck. When I asked him if he gave straight-razor shaves, he said no. He said you had to do it pretty regularly to be proficient at it. Once things got to the point where he didn’t get enough calls for it to stay in practice, he stopped doing it rather than risk having a problem from it.
Years ago, a friend who was going to barber/hairdressing school showed me the straight razor she had just purchased, along with a package of long, disposable blades, each about an eighth of an inch tall, machine folded in half along their lengths. Each blade fit over the edge of what would/should have been the real razor blade. No strops, no stropping and no cleaning.
I knew then that the world was going to hell in a handbasket.
In California you have to be a licensed barber which is different than a licensed hair dresser. There aren’t that many barbers anymore. I had that treatment done once and it was wonderful. The hot towels and the shave was very relaxing and it was the closest shave ever. I’m definitely going to do it again some day.