My Double Edge Safety Razor Shaving Experience

Most of my adult life I've avoided shaving as much as possible, I've rarely had a clean shaven face, preferring to have at least some facial hair or even a full bushy unkempt beard at times at the extreme end of the no shaving scale. It's along the same lines as never wanting to wear a suit and tie unless it was a special occasion, having to wear a suit everyday would probably kill me lol. It's just not me.

Shaving Home Page!

Of course I always "upped my game" as far as keeping the facial hair neat and tidy when I had a girlfriend, though when I was free and single and taking a break from the fairer sex I often went full feral, when I wasn't looking for love, I really wasn't looking. Now don't get me wrong, it doesn't mean you won't get interest from the opposite sex, there are always lovely ladies that don't mind a guy with an unkempt bushy beard, as long as you still showered (lol) and combed out any left behind food scraps, though it certainly minimised the interest from the ladies which at those "nah really want to be single at the moment times" was exactly what I was going for.

These days, the looking for love is just not something I have any interest in and funnily enough I'm keeping my facial hair neater than I ever have, more consistently since I'm happily single and not "looking" anyway, Its actually quite empowering believe it or not.

I mostly used disposable razors in the past, cheap ones at that, I never went for the multi blade disposables, I'd hack through the facial hair I wanted to remove with single or twin blade cheap razors, I wasn't going to pay the ridiculous prices for these multi, multi blade razors with replaceable blade cartridge things they started to use these days. So when I wanted to start keeping the face a bit neater eg. shave and clean up the face more regularly, I did some research and found there was a bit of a resurgence in the use of the double edge safety razors and blades, I had never used them but I do remember my Father shaving with this older style razor from the past.

So here is my journey, I'm no expert I am a recent convert, I've learnt about double edge razor shaving and what you need from the internet and am pretty much all kitted out and loving it, well I still dislike shaving but it's now bearable and at times even a pleasure to clean up the facial hair with this old way of shaving and after the initial purchase of the required products it's surprisingly a cheap way to shave.

I can certainly understand why more and more Men are choosing this method of shaving, some are even going back even further in time and using straight razors, sometimes called cut throat razors. I did go to a barber once and asked for a shave, he used a modern straight razor that you could slide in a new set of blades after each use, it really was a lovely shave and it was a full "clean skin" face shave, one of the few times I was clean shaven. Yep I even call people who are always clean shaven, "clean skins" lol, just taking the piss of course...

Now I will list the products I have bought online mostly from one store that's located in Melbourne, but I am in no way affiliated with them and definitely not getting anything for free from them, it just makes it easier to show what and where I got what I have accumulated and approximate prices that I paid. In fairness and honesty though one of the main stores I use seems reasonable as far as prices go and their time frame to get it dispatched and delivered with of course help from Australia post is always quick, and this store often has discount sales, not as often as I'd like though lol.

The Razor I started with and still use is an adjustable razor, which means you can adjust the aggressiveness for a mild or more aggressive shave, even though many say start with a fixed blade non adjustable I wanted the option in case I needed it of an adjustable Razor, I'm happy with my decision, I have coarse facial hair so I have it at a middle setting, out of five I have it set at a 2 or 3 and it cuts through the hair wonderfully.

The Merkur Progress Safety Razor

As you can see from the picture above I guess I chose the hardware first, the first thing I purchased was an adjustable Double Edge Razor, a Merkur Progress, I'm very happy with it, the Progress Razor came with one blade. I also ordered a blade kit of different brands of blades, believe it or not, the different brands of blades have different characteristics, so it's worth experimenting to find the best blade for your face and how it cuts the facial hair, I have course, thick facial hair.

I won't get right into blades because seriously buy a blade kit of five or more different blade brands and try them out, they are quite cheap. I have so far settled on either the Feather blades (10 out of 10 sharpness) or Merkur blades (9 out of 10 sharpness). If you have finer facial hair you might not need the sharpest blades. Shaving the wet shave way with a Double Edge Razor is so much more than the Razor or Blades eg. Facial/Beard Preparation, pre-shave balm, shaving soap/cream and aftershaves this includes aftershave balms.

Preparing Your Face Before You Shave!

Shave after showering, some guys shave in the shower.
Apply a hot/warm face cloth

Products

These are the products I use, I have started with Proraso "Red" shaving products which have a mainly sandalwood scent because they are reasonably priced and excellent products and I just like the scent, I will experiment a little but my aim in life is not to make this a full on hobby, I just want a better more economical way to shave, I don't want it to become a money pit...

Proraso Pre-Shave

Moisten your face/beard and apply the pre-shave (not too much) over the beard hair you're intending to shave off/remove, leave it on, next you'll apply the shaving soap lather over the top of the pre-shave. I must say I would almost advise converts to DE shaving to use a pre-shave when starting out, I always used it and occasionally still do, but I'm using it far less than at the start, it just gave me a little more confidence.

Proraso Shave Soap

The Proraso "red" shaving soap was the first shave soap I used, it's still not empty, this soap is a "hard" soap not a "cream". I could not have picked a better soap as my first to try, it's excellent! This soap is collected and lathered with a shaving brush.

Proraso Aftershave

The Proraso "red" aftershave has a lovely scent and your face feels really nice after you've applied it after a shave.



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