When straight razor shaving was superseded by shaving with double edge razors, a lot of knowledge about straight razors, their manufacture, care, and use, was lost. Given their universal use until the early 20th century, it is remarkable how few books about them actually exist. That lack of knowledge, and a growing curiosity of people interested in straight razors, led to the founding of social groups on the internet. The first, and still the most popular such group, is the Straight Razor Place (SRP). It grew from a Yahoo! group to a large forum. Its spin offs include excellent sites like Coticule.be, but also less useful ones like the notorious Badger & Blade (B&B). You can find more information about these sites in my previous entry on recommended straight shaving sites on the internet.
Given the sheer numbers of people involved in these forums (SRP and B&B both have around 30,000 members), one would expect them to carry a vast array of knowledge. Likewise, given their self proclaimed mission of resurrecting the lost art of shaving with a straight razor, one would expect them to provide essential information for beginners in a concise, and easy to digest fashion. Not so. Most of the information available is buried underneath mountains of forum posts that are hard to access, more often than not wrong or misleading, and almost always repetitions of what has been written many times before.
The only noteworthy attempt ever made at solving this problem failed. SRP's Wiki was built by a surprisingly small group of people. A look at its history of additions, however, shows that its progress has stalled. And not because this Wiki is feature complete. Quite far from it, actually. Strops are one of the most important items a straight razor user needs, but the article on them has been a stub for many months. Which brings me to my case against straight razor shaving forums.
There is only very little that has not been written about all aspects of straight razor shaving. The techniques involved are, after all, simple enough. Honing, allegedly an art so arcane that the chosen few who have actually mastered it are revered as so called Honemeisters, is mostly a straight forward process of dragging a piece of metal across a rock. Lathering, stropping, even shaving - there is nothing overly complicated about it, and there really are no dark secrets.
So why all these forums? Why the endless discussions? And, most importantly, why all the reverence? A lot of it has to do with commerce. The market for straight razors and shaving related items and services is small. Anyone wanting to promote their services will need to gain credibility. In the absence of independent ratings for these service providers, it is mostly up to them to build a cult following. Unfortunately, the term 'cult' can be taken quite literally in many cases. I would be hard pressed to come up with a number of social environments in which obsessive-compulsive disorders would be considered desirable and commendable character traits. In the realm of straight razors, however, people are proud of them. Whether real (allegedly, they are useful for repetitive, low intelligence tasks like honing or polishing), or imaginary, they appal me.
Straight razors can be things of beauty. You will find a few razors in my gallery that I actually have on display in my dining room. But I do not have a razor acquisition disorder (also known as RAD). I have refined my shaving technique to a point where I occasionally search for a new challenge. My recent addition is a full hollow ground 8/8 razor with wide scales - manoeuvrable, but still very big. There are currently seven razors on my wish list; they are there because they are either exceptionally beautiful, or have unusual characteristics. I never made it my aim, though, to collect razors ("collections" in my world start somewhere around 250 razors, while I currently have about 20). It takes me a few shaves to get used to a new razor, and a few more to actually master it. By master, I mean I can shave with it with my eyes closed. While this may sound like an exercise in self mutilation, it is actually a neat little trick to get more control over handling a razor. With only tactition and audition at your disposal, shaving strokes will inevitably become lighter, and more precise. Failing that, learning to use an alum block is another required skill. But I digress.
Beginners who acquire several razors in a very short time are not doing themselves a favour. In fact, they are making their lives unnecessarily hard. Learning the technique and all other skills required takes time. For some, a few weeks; for others, several months. Adding more razors, especially if they have varying widths, grinds, or blade profiles, will do nothing but prolong this process. And this should be very obvious.
Then why do so many people on shaving forums develop disposophobia? Because it is in the best interest of vendors and service providers to support them in this. Imagine the following situation: Vendor G is a restorer, ie he takes razors people send him, sands them, straightens warped scales, fixes rust problems, and so on. He also makes so called custom scales, often in exotic materials. In order to promote his services, he posts pictures of his products before and after the application of his services. In order to make a unique selling proposition, he will usually pick examples where the difference between the original and the finished product will be maximal. Let us take a look at Member X now. Since discussion forums usually have no karma system installed, the only way to get your name recognised is through excessive posting. X sees that G has several thousand posts, and comes to the conclusion that G is a lot more experienced than T, who only has 50 posts. The untold story, however, is that T has been restoring razors for far longer, and has much better skills. He is a well kept secret of truly experienced straight razor users, He simply does not care about forums, because he is interested in the art of restoring, not idle chitchat. So who wins? From a commercial viewpoint, G wins by a wide margin. T wins from an artistic and intellectual viewpoint. Turning a hobby into a profession may be desirable to some, but most people do not mix business and pleasure for a good reason. So who loses? Clearly, X loses, ie the forum member. Fashions fade, and the latest and greatest plastic scales with glittering stars and big, shiny washers are tomorrow's new gay.
To sum this up:
- If you are new to straight razor shaving, keep things simple. Two razors (one for benchmarking the deterioration of the blade you actually use), one brush, strop, cream, and aftershave. That is it.
- If you need information, try to get it from a reputable source, and steer clear of forums with a commercial background. That includes, but is not limited to, the very large forums.
- Personality disorders are just that. They are nothing to be ashamed of, but they are certainly not something you want to advertise in order to boost your business.
- Hoarding shaving equipment is a sure sign of a disordered mind. Unless you are a collector (as in 'person who collects valuables', not 'pack rat'), buying more than one razor per month on average is not what i would call sensible.
