or "miter saws are for pussies"
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 By James Whittall
MenEssentials President
Published February 2004
Men take a lot of ribbing from the media for their newfound interest in grooming. When writing their metrosexual theme stories — every newspaper's gotta have one! — journalists invariably call me, sometimes chuckling but most often perplexed that men (read: "real" men) should concern themselves with anything that doesn't involve strange noises and motor oil.
Also invariably, this question arises: "Does the trend come from the gay community, or has feminism finally neutered the modern male?" To which I reply, "Have you ever tried to shave yourself with a straight razor? Many of my customers do it, every morning. Shave yourself with a straight razor and then come back to tell me about the feminization of men."
That part never seems to make it into their stories.
Manly? Yes!
Absolutely nothing is more masculine than a shave tool that can take your head clean off. Straight razors practically drip testosterone from their unprotected blades. These bad boys are the reason safety razors exist. They are unassailable icons of dangerous living.
At times called the open razor or cutthroat, straight razors are making something of a comeback as men rediscover the nearly lost art of the traditional shave. And don't kid yourself: straight-razor shaving is an art - one that takes practice, the rock of eye, and a steady hand. Rush the job and you'll be reapplying your Adam's apple with Krazy Glue.
Practice Makes Perfect
My kids have pet rats. It's interesting to watch them (the rats, not the kids) leave their cage for the first time. They develop concentric "safe zones" by scurrying away from the cage, returning, and then exploring a little further each time out.
Learning to shave with a straight razor involves very much the same process. Create safe zones and expand your territory. Start by trimming your sideburns on the first day of practice. Just the sideburns. That's it. Shave the rest of your face with your favorite safety razor.
Each consecutive morning, expand your safe zones to include more of the face. In this way, you'll quickly develop a technique with the blade that's least likely to draw blood.
Prep
Lather is everything when shaving with a straight razor. The cardinal rule is to never let the lather dry or become too thin, or your razor won't work.
Dip a badger hair shave brush in warm, not hot, water and use it to apply emulsified shave cream and water as a thick lather to your beard. Allow the lather two or three full minutes before shaving to soften the hairs.
During that time, sharpen your razor with a leather strop. Stropping isn't exactly rocket surgery but does involve a marginal level of skill. To strop the blade, fix one end of the strop to some immovable object like a bedpost or mother-in-law, hold the other end of the strop in whichever hand you don't use for writing, and run the blade horizontally in rapid back-and-forth strokes along the leather surface.
The blade should always be turned away from you when pulling it toward your body. Flip the blade over to face you when stropping in the opposite direction. Strop-flip-strop-flip-strop. Get it?
Once stropping is complete, apply another layer of emulsified cream and you're ready to rock and roll.
The Straight Razor Shave
Hold the razor securely by placing the pads of your index and second fingers on the shank, your thumb under the shank and against the shoulder, the handle raised vertically between your middle and ring fingers, and your ring and pinky fingers resting inside the crescent-shaped tang.
Using the fingers of your free hand, stretch the skin until it is as taut as possible. Hold the razor at a 30 degree angle to the surface of your skin and shave your first even stroke in the direction of hair growth. Apply lather over the freshly shaven area and shave a second even stroke against the direction of hair growth. Only two strokes are necessary. You can skip the second stroke, if it seems too tricky to attempt.
The "angle of the dangle" is your key to error-free shaving. Fewer than 30 degrees and you'll rip the hair out by its root. More than 30 degrees and you'll very likely slice yourself to ribbons. The only areas for which this rule doesn't apply are the chin and upper lip. For these two trouble spots only, angle the back of the blade a little closer to your skin and proceed with caution.
Care and Maintenance
Most contemporary straight razors are made of stainless steel. Not so with the blade in our collection. Stainless steel is difficult to sharpen, so many of the better straight razors are still composed of high-carbon steel. High-carbon steel sharpens with relative ease. It also rusts and changes color over time.
Ergo, high-carbon straight razors require a lot of TLC. But the extra attention is worth it. A properly maintained blade will last the rest of your life and probably outlive your kids.
At the end of your shave, thoroughly clean the razor by running it under water. Dab it dry (never rub) with a cloth. Give the blade one final stropping and lightly grease it with mineral oil. Allow the blade to dry for 10 minutes, then dab away the excess oil and store your razor in a dry, dark, well-ventilated spot away from the reach of children. Use a cotton swab soaked in rubbing alcohol to remove the mineral oil before your next shave.
Should you (horror of horrors) discover rust on your blade, remove it at once with one of those white 3M scrub pads or a handful of "0000 Grade" (extremely fine) steel wool. Dip a cotton swab in rubbing alcohol and clean the entire surface of the blade, then grease with mineral oil and store.
Never use metal or silver polishes to clean your razor. Never immerse or expose your razor to bleach, ammonia, or harsh detergents. Never leave your razor near an open flame or heat source. Never (and this one's a double-never) drop or otherwise damage your blade. A severely damaged blade should be discarded.
If your razor becomes nicked or so dull it actually rivals my last job, whip out your sharpening stone and give the blade a good hone. You'll only need to do this once a year, perhaps twice. Strop after honing and you're done.
Why Own a Straight Razor?
Right now, you're probably asking yourself if all this extra love and attention is worth the price of admission. The answer to that question depends on how much of a fetish you've developed for the ultimate in close shaves.
Other grooming sites will try to convince you that multi-blade disposables are the pinnacle of technological perfection. Whatever. Disposables deliver a great shave and they look a little like ray guns, which I suppose is cool. But nothing, absolutely nothing, shaves as closely as a straight razor.
And when it comes to scoring points on the Macho Scale, one cutthroat beats a dozen 10-inch compound miter saws any day of the week.
Resources
Mine is by no means the definitive article on the use and maintenance of a straight razor. There's plenty of better reference material that I urge you to explore.
• Uniclectica Antiques: Caring for Your Straight Razor
• ClassicShaving.com: Honing and Stropping Tips
• Yahoo! Groups: Straightrazorplace
• Razor Central: Principle and Practice of Straight Razor Use and Care
Tip from an Aficionado
Aficion is the Spanish root of Aficionado. It means to have passion or affection. After we published this article, I received the following tip from a true straight razor aficionado:
"Another tip that I pass along to all straight-razor newbies is NEVER to imitate shaving techniques seen in movies or TV. They always shave at the wrong angle, use tiny strokes against the grain, and strop with what I call a 'burlesque' (i.e. wildly exaggerated) method."
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