I’m old school: I shave with Wilkinson Sword double-edge blades in a Merkur safety razor, using shaving soap which I lather up with a badger brush and a shaving mug.
“Old school” does not have to have a negative connotation. Cheaper and just as efficient—as if that is not enough.
I had one of those, cut myself to ribbons. Couldn’t get the hang of it. Loved the hardware, though, nice stuff.
Still use a shaving brush, gave up the canned foaming goo ~15 years ago.
Merkur and Feather blades here
Used a safety razor till about 20 years ago, but the volume of nicks was just unacceptable. Switched to cheap plastic disposables, and haven’t looked back. Gave up shaving soap about the same. Now I just use any quality triple milled soap, and shave in the shower. My only problem has been finding disposable razors without the integrated slime strip, but I have a good 10 years worth in reserve.
I am sick of this BS.
I was so angry at Gillette with their anti-male advertising that I wrote a letter to the CEO in a civil yet angry tone (no cusswords or ad hominem attacks, both of which I felt I really wanted to include) which is not easy to do. I had a boatload of triple-edge razors saved up (hundreds of dollars I am sure) and am on my last one now.
(Note: I put this line in here after I was done writing below, and saw it was long-the rest is just what crossed my mind as I thought about how I have shaved in my life, and I came to a screeching halt when I thought of that shaving paste I describe below. This is just me remembering, and documenting it a little for myself. I save snippets of these in a folder because I have memories that have completely disappeared, then out of the blue, one pops up. At this stage of my life, I began to think "Hell...I might never remember this in the time I have left, so I should write it down..." It is kind of fun writing it down as I ponder it, something so forgotten it is completely novel. That is what this is.)
Shaving was hard for me. When I was in the Navy, I got razor burns and bumps in the worst way, but...they wanted you to shave in four directions so I kept at it. But it sucked.
Then I got the stuff the black guys used...damn nasty stuff. But it worked for them, and one the black guys in my division who used it offered me a can. I was asking him questions about it while he was eyeing my nasty face and neck, and I recall he just handed it to me. Facial depilatory. It came in a little cardboard can with a pop top, and it was full of an odd blue powder.
You would throw a couple of dollops of that powder into your former shaving cup, pour in room temperature water, and mix it up into a damn paste.
How I hated that stuff.
Then, using a long spatula (like a thin flexible butter knife with an edge on both sides) you would scoop the paste out of the mug, and like a plasterer, cover your face with it.
It smelled like you stuck your head into a toilet bowl someone just crapped in and flushed. That sulfur smell.
So you let it sit on your face for exactly five minutes. Not four, not six. Five. And like I said, you were supposed to mix it with room temperature water. (I often thought about that...why? Wouldn't it be more comfortable or spreadable if it were a bit warm?)
I realized later as a chemistry major after I got out of the Navy, that it is because they needed to absolutely control the rate of the chemical reaction taking place on your face. (this is what I thought, but never found out)
But I learned the hard way when I started using it. I thought I would leave it on my face a bit longer to make the hair come off easier, and more comfortable to put on and easier to spread using hot water. And I burned the crap out of my face. The chemical burn turned my face red as hell, and it was damned painful.
So I always scraped it off right at five minutes after mixing with room temperature water.
When you scraped the paste off your face, you wielded the "spatula" as if you were shaving with a straight razor, rinsing that nasty stinking mix of hair and blue chemical paste into the white, brightly lit, enamel sink.
Then you washed your face with soap and water, and it sure was smooth (LOL, took off the top layer of skin, that's why!) and eventually, the smell would fade. And it did reduce the painful rash and bumps if you used it correctly.
Before I left the Navy when my hitch was up, I purchased a whole case at the Navy Exchange on the base and drove all the way up the East Coast from Jacksonville to Boston with all my personal belongings in the world stuffed into that little MG Midget I owned.
Including that damn case of stinking shaving paste!
After I got out, I probably used that paste for a few more years (choosing to shave infrequently) but gave it up and went back to a disposable razor and a shaving cup/brush setup (ditching the steel razor I had previously used)
And I remembered how great using a mug and brush was. I had forgotten. When I was on the ship, they had scalding hot water coming from the faucets at each sink. One of the things I found over time was, if your water wasn't hot enough (and most of the time wasn't) by the time you brushed up a good set of suds and applied them to your face, they were near room temperature. Bleh.
But, on the ship, when you put that steaming hot water that came from the boiler room into your shaving mug, it would not only froth better and quicker, but...man. When you put those warm-to-hot shaving suds on your face, it was glorious.
Funny. My wife got me a gift certificate to one of those barber shops where you could get the whole treatment, haircut, scalp massage, facial grooming or full facial shave, so...I went. I liked it, it was pretty cool with the hot towels and such...
But I was disappointed when the guy stuck his hand near a machine that dispensed warm lather. That, I didn't care for. It felt like some crappy warm chemical foam being applied to my face. That was disappointing.
I admit to being an analog guy. I would have absolutely been pleased had he walked over with a shaving mug and brush, ginning up some good warm suds. That's analog...:) But it would have made the experience (which is really pretty much the biggest part you would go there for) so much better. It was as if you were reassured there was still craftmanship involved in some way when you saw the guy with the mug and brush.
As the years went by, I grew more to having a scruffy face, rarely a beard, and would shave for special occasions or once every week or so. And I still got those evil bumps. They made me miserable sometimes.
I worked for an ex-Army Colonel, a woman who had been in the Medical Corps. She was Indian, about 5'4" in her Sixties, and not what you would call petite. People were scared to death of her, and for good reason. And she knew it. And liked it. But she liked me because I was ex-military and always treated me well.
One day, I was walking with her down the corridor, and she said out of the blue to me "Why don't you shave? You look better when you shave." (I know-nowadays people would have to break out the fainting couches, but she clearly meant it as it would have been meant in a military environment, and it was frank, not a come-on. Thankfully.)
I told her about the painful bumps and razor burn, and she said "Use Dial Liquid Antiseptic soap." and then casually walked away.
I thought "Really? I've tried everything. Dial liquid antiseptic soap? Really? "
But I tried it. And it worked. And it changed my whole shaving life again, so...If I wanted to, I could go back to the double edge razors, shaving cup and mug. And now, that Harry's seems to be going the way of Gillette, I need new equipment from new vendors...:)
Every once in a while, when looking for something else, as I peered in to the blackened depths of the closet, my flashlight beam would catch the box, and I would see all those unused cobalt blue and white striped cardboard cylinders just sitting there, patiently, unchanged, like grenade-sized cannisters of nerve gas waiting decades to be used.
Then when I redid our garage, we got one of those big tarp-like bags you can even stick an engine block in, and we cleaned out our house.
Heh, those cans were the first thing I went for to throw into that tarp-dumpter!