As I have stressed repeatedly everything about traditional shaving is personal to you. You do exactly what you want no matter what anyone else says. This is part of the whole anarchic joy and is the exact opposite of the constrained, walled garden, approach that the big global shaving companies try and force on their customers.
To make a lather to shave with we can use either soaps or creams (there are also soft soaps which are half way between) then using a bit of elbow grease, a good brush and some water we magically convert this into a superb, luxuriant cushion and lubricant for our shave. 1,000 times better than any aerosol foam or gel.
There are three techniques to build a lather. Firstly you can use a mug, bowl or scuttle, gradually adding the water and working till you have a rich lather. The second technique is the same but using the cupped palm of your left hand in which to build the lather. Thirdly you can actually build the lather on your face, just load the brush then work it on your face till it delivers the results you want. I go for this third option and here’s why:
It is simpler, there is no intermediate step. It is also quicker.
This process gives more time for the lather to soften your stubble which makes the whole shave better and easier.
It keeps the lather warm.
A good brush will hold enough lather for multiple passes, you don’t need to use a bowl.
I shave in the shower, a bowl would tend to get unwanted water in it.
Face lathering is much less complicated when you travel. One less item required.
With shaving sticks it is awkward not to face lather.
It gets the concentrated soap, at the beginning of the process, right into the stubble.
You may well completely disagree with all of this, which is your choice and which does not make either of us right or wrong. But face lathering works just perfectly for me.
A couple of months ago I was putting together a traditional shaving starter kit for a friend who has high moral scruples concerning the impact that his existence has on other animals. So perhaps I can share with you the issues involved.
With the razor and blade there are no big issues, obviously. These are made of metal. The only possibility for concern would be waxes and glues used in the packaging of blades, but the same applies to the packaging of just about everything in our lives.
The real problem is in making a lather, many of the best shaving soaps are made from tallow, which is animal fat and the best brushes are made from the hair of badgers that have been killed as vermin, mainly in China.
The tallow can be avoided by using creams, which are mainly made of plant oils such as palm oil. Maca Root cream from The Body Shop is a prime example.
Another way of retaining the high moral ground is to use tallow soaps where the tallow was produced without harming animals, such as the wool fat extracted from sheep wool shearing. On Mitchell’s Wool Fat soap’s packet it says “No animal suffers in the preparation of this bio-degradable product”.
And finally you can buy your soaps and creams from artisan makers who have their own high ethical standards. Nanny’s Silly Soap Company say: “I provide a range of soaps all of which are vegetarian, and most of which are vegan. The non vegan ingredients used in some of my products are honey, goat’s milk and tussah silk (wild harvested after the moth has emerged).”
With brushes badger hair is recognised as being by far the best. The first way to avoid harming animals is to use a brush with a synthetic knot, where the hairs are made of plastics derived from petrochemicals, but they are nowhere near as good as badger hair brushes. There are a number of different models of these available. Luckily “Siv” on one of the forums has done a full analysis of ten different offerings. The best value for money is the Body Shop brush and this is what I bought my friend. The best overall is the Taylor’s of Old Bond Street brush. If you have a close look at one of these you will see that the individual hairs have been mechanically flattened to vastly increase their surface area.
A better way to have a good shaving brush without harming animals is to use a horse hair brush, these are made from hairs that come from grooming live animals. The resultant brushes are really excellent and have been described as being 85% badger and 85% boar in their properties. They are common in some countries such as Turkey and Spain. I have one of these which I cannot fault. And they offer a big range of brushes made from horse hair.
So there we have it you can enjoy the luxury and pampering of real, traditional shaving whilst retaining the self satisfaction of retaining your moral superiority. But you will never get to enjoy the supreme excellence of a Simpson’s Chubby 2 in Best Badger.
One of the great joys of real, traditional shaving is the huge diversity of kit available. You could have many dozens of razors without having two the same, the same goes for brushes, creams/soaps and for blades. So each day it is possible to choose the exact shaving experience that you want. But if you were forced to narrow this down to just one of each then what would it be? Americans call this choice their “go to” selection.
Of course any “go to” will vary over time when there is so much quality and so much choice available. So someone’s “go to” kit today may well not be what it was a month ago or what it will be a month hence. It is just an ephemeral choice frozen in time. And it is very personal, what works for one person is unique. It may work for other people but it may not. So two good reasons to take the subsequent choices with a big pinch of salt.
Creams and soaps mostly just do the job, however there are a handful, like Mitchell’s Wool Fat and Cella Crema da Sapone that are exceptional. But if forced to choose just the one then right now it would be Taylor of Old Bond Street Avocado Shaving Cream. So lush, so lubricating, it forms a fantastic lather and seems very kind to the skin. There are other TOBS creams and their formulation is no doubt similar, but it is the avocado that seems to perform the best.
To apply this cream the brush has to be the $9.99 Frank Shaving Finest. The combination here of soft tips, backbone and the ability to charge up with a huge amount of lather are a bit special, better even than their own, more expensive, silver tip. However there is one enormous caveat to this choice and that is that whilst I have used shaving brushes for many years and have accumulated a small collection, some famous names are absent.
For the razor the choice is a lot more varied, there is a huge difference between shaving with, say, an Edwin Jagger DE89L and a Merkur Bakelite, the whole shaving experience is changed completely. Far more than the changes wrought by any other element of the shave. Current “go to” is the 1972 Gillette long handled Super Adjustable. By the time Gillette made this exact razor they had been making adjustables for a very long time and it shows. The balance and weighting are so perfect that it has the agility of a far lighter razor yet the cutting action of a far heavier razor. The handle is just perfect in length, diameter and grip. And it is super smooth. I have tried the other adjustables, the Fat Boy, Slim and Toggle, but just now this is the best for me. However in mid September I am going to have a long run using my Mergress, perhaps more familiarity will elevate this back up to the top.
The blade choice is very simple indeed, Iridium Super from the St Petersburg factory. These really are to me the benchmark against which all other razor blades need to be measured. They are very sharp (but not the sharpest) and are very smooth with a great consistency from blade to blade. But, as with all the choices they may not be for you. I have a small stash of Personna 74s but have not brought them into this reckoning, that they are irreplaceable means they cannot be a daily use blade.
After shaving there is a near infinite variety of balms and moisturisers to choose from, some with fancy brand names, some with magic ingredients. But, just now, the Geo. F. Trumper West Indian Extract of Limes Skin Food comes out on top. And to be honest it would take a lot of beating. Whilst it is expensive you only use a little each day, so you can use this luxury product without breaking the bank. They make it in other flavours but for me the limes are nicely bracing after a shave.
So there you have it, these would be the “go to” choices if forced to choose today. But the really interesting thing is that, as I write this, I have never actually shaved with that exact combination. Maybe tomorrow.
Real shavers have the option of using either soaps or creams. But basically creams are just soaps with added water, they are far more expensive per shave and they go off more readily with age. However they are easier to use so they are ideal for beginners.
Ultimately soaps are better, you get more of the key ingredients without them being diluted. They come in three forms, hard soap pucks, which are the real thing, soft soaps, which are half way between soaps and creams, and shaving soap sticks, which are one of the wonders of real shaving.
To use a stick you first make sure that your stubble is waterlogged. Then you rub in the soap stick like using a big crayon. Once you think there is enough on your face it is time to make a big lather using a wet brush. Personally I think this process is superior because it deposits more of the key ingredients directly on the hair follicles. Certainly it seems to cushion like no other lathering method.
But there is more to the wonder of sticks. They are absolutely brilliant for travelling and tubes to carry them are easily available. Also they last a long time, a stick costing 50 pence could last for months. But best of all some of the finest shaving soaps that you can buy come in sticks.
Here are a few:
Palmolive. The name of the company tells you the ingredients. But this time it is wrong because this stick is tallow based. It really makes an amazingly good lather regardless of price. And for what you can buy it for it is one of the bargains of real shaving, which is why I have this in my beginner’s kit. Palmolive reserve this product for the European market which infuriates American traditional shavers.
Erasmic. Another amazing soap at a bargain price, this one is made in the UK. Traditionally this was a tallow soap but just recently they moved away from this. The result was nowhere near as good and the shaving community were not impressed. Fortunately the company saw the light and moved back to the old formulation.
Arko. A famous Turkish soap that is another great bargain and which shaves fantastically. It smells quite strongly of lemons, some people think that the odour is too close to that of some toilet cleaners, so they open up new sticks and leave them for a month or so for the fragrance to evaporate off. The traditional packaging is also great, really distinctive and gets the message over.
La Toja. A slightly more expensive non tallow soap stick from Spain that is very highly rated. The full name is “Sales de La Toja”, it is named after the island in Galicia, where the mineral springs have healing properties. La Toja started making soap sticks from the spring’s mineral salts in 1907. It comes with a ventilated travel tube which is quite handy.
Tabac. Yet more expensive, a tallow based stick from Germany.The Tabac Original fragrance was introduced in 1959 by Maurer & Wirtz and has been controversial ever since, some people like it, others don’t. What is for sure is that most people like how this stick works.
Sir Irisch Moos. Another German tallow soap that I had to include for its silly name. Maurer & Wirtz acquired the original company that made this. Nowadays it is reckoned to be just about identical to the Tabac stick, but with a far more pleasant smell.
Taylors of Old Bond Street. Luxury shaving stick available in Sandalwood and St James fragrances. In a very handy twist dispenser. And like all of the above it is very highly rated.
Valobra. Sapone per Barba Hard Shave Stick. A tallow based soap from Genoa, Italy with lecithin and vitamin E, using only the finest ingredients.
Plenty of choice there and they are well worth trying, all of them are very highly rated and do a fantastic job. None of them are excessively expensive and some of them are downright cheap. And there are plenty more to try.
Mitchell’s Wool Fat (MWF), and the supposedly identical Kent Brush shaving soap, has a legendary status in the traditional shaving community. It is regarded by many as the gold standard in shaving soaps, yet some people don’t get on with it. Part of their problems could be the normal different strokes for different folks syndrome that enriches real shaving so much. Part of it could be the way that MWF behaves.
The thing about MWF is that it doesn’t do what other soaps do, it acts almost as if it is a living thing. Use it on consecutive days and it gets better and better, as if it appreciates the attention. Leave it for a week and it will have a sulk and try and give you a bad time. Left for a while it becomes a loner, forming a hard skin round itself. Too long and cracks appear in the surface as it displays its displeasure.
This is what Mitchell’s themselves have to say about this soap:
Mitchell’s Wool Fat Soap was first produced in the early 1930′s by Bradford chemist Fred Mitchell who realised that the natural lanolin content of wool fat, which kept the hands of local sheep shearers and wool sorters so exceptionally soft, could also be beneficial to delicate complexions and sensitive skins
A simple and natural product, Mitchell’s Wool Fat Soap is still made to Mr. Mitchell’s original formula, based on a recipe from the turn of the century and incorporating lanolin from the wool fat as the key ingredient.
So what is this wool fat of which they speak? When a sheep is sheared between 5 and 25 percent of the wool’s weight is wool fat, produced by the sheep as waterproofing. This is removed from the wool, initially with steel rollers and then using detergents and centrifugal separators. It has a lot of uses including in medicine because it is hypoallergenic and bacteriostatic, it forms the basis of many ointments, where it is listed as lanolin.
One useful feature is that this is an animal fat produced in large quantities without killing anything. So strict vegetarians can get the considerable benefits of products like MWF. In fact on the side of the MWF box it says: “No animal suffers in the preparation of this bio-degradable product”.
So how do you manage your puck of MWF so that it gives a brilliant lather every time? Firstly don’t expose it to the air between shaves, it need to live in its own microclimate. The best way to do this is keep it in a hermetically sealed container such as a Tupperware box, you can find one the right size or you can mill the soap puck to fit.
Milling is very popular in the traditional shaving community and makes any soap perform better. Firstly you need to grate the soap puck up in a kitchen grater, then you put the flakes into your container of choice, then use a weight to compress it and remove the air. This process is so successful that many luxury soaps are “triple milled” using steel rollers.
If you mill at home you should aim to only half fill your container, as a maximum. You need space above the soap to form the lather. Also you can use small containers to make MWF convenient for travelling with. After each shave the residue of lather left on top of the soap adds to the microclimate keeping your MWF ready to perform optimally next time it is used.
Real shaving, with a dual edged (DE) safety razor and lather generated with a brush, was the dominant way of shaving on planet earth for about 50 years, practised by hundreds of millions of men. During this half century many of these men travelled and many went to war, whist continuing to shave properly. In fact DE shaving is better adapted for travel than the more “modern” methods. You don’t need access to electricity at the right voltage and with the right pin configuration, like the miniature lawnmowers, that some men use, do. And DE blades are available in far more places than the patented multiblade cartridges are.
The adventurous thing to do is to take nothing and buy locally. Men all over the world shave, so when in Rome do as the Romans do, just use whatever is available. Then when you come home bring it back with you as a memento.
If you want to take your own DE razor with you then there are two routes to go down. The first is to buy a leather sheath for your full sized razor, there are available from Parker and Merkur, some of the online retailers stock them and they are on eBay.
Your second route is to buy a special travel DE razor. Merkur make their 933 travel razor which fits into either a very small soft plastic pouch, or a leather one. It is available with the choice of two standard Merkur heads, the standard straight head with the scalloped blade guard, or the more aggressive comb head. The razor handle unscrews into two very short lengths, so when it is broken down and packed away it is very compact indeed. Which is perhaps why it is a favourite of the military. The Feather Portable is a fantastic travel razor from Japan that fits into a very small case. Manufacture has been discontinued but you can still buy them for less than half the price of the Merkur.
DE blades you can buy just about anywhere, buy maybe not with the same quality as your favourite brand. If you do take some with you remember to put them in your hold luggage. If security find them in your carry on they won’t be happy.
Image from SafetyRazors.co.uk
It is worth noting that when DE shaving was at its peak a popular gift to buy a man was a travel set. This was a small leather case containing a DE razor, a hairbrush, sometimes a clothes brush and two well ventilated metal tubes. One of these tubes was for the shaving brush and the other was for a stick of shaving soap. Mostly these travel sets never got used and you can still buy them in secondhand shops today in mint condition.
Image from SafetyRazors.co.uk
For your brush you once again have two options. The first is to use your regular brush and to find a tube for it. The cheapest is a tubular pill box with a few holes drilled in it. The second option is to buy a special travel brush, which comes with its own tube. Vulfix make their 2190 and Turnback travel models and Simpson their Case and Major models, for instance. So you can take real quality with you.
For your soap or cream you can just use a standard tube of cream, like the 3Ts and other St James’s grooming companies make. This should keep you in luxury when you travel. The alternative is the soap stick kept in a pill box tube, this will last much longer and you have access to some amazing soaps in this form: Arko from Turkey, La Toja from Spain, Tabac and Sir Irisch Moos from Germany and of course the fantastic value Palmolive stick sold throughout Europe.
So as you can see real shaving when you travel is an opportunity to have even more fun, to experiment with more variety. And you can look on with pity at the poor traveller who gets his lather out of an aerosol and who is still a slave to multibladed system razors.
In an earlier article I explained how I bought some brushless shaving cream at T K Maxx, due to my own stupidity and lack of attention. Well, when you have a lemon you make lemonade, so I thought I would get at least a shave and an article out of it.
Proper shaving cream is a fairly concentrated soap. An almond sized piece is enough for a shave. Add a bit of water and a brush and this lathers up for four passes easily. Brushless soap is, quite obviously, nothing like this. Basically it is slime that you put on your face. It does not lather up or foam in any way. So you have to use a lot more of it.
Once I got my face covered with this slime I realised that it formed an impressive barrier to any razor, so I reached for my 1956 Gillette Red Tip Super Speed, an aggressive razor with a fairly fresh Iridium blade in it. If anything could cut through the slime then this legendary beast could. And it didn’t. The Red Tip was totally tamed. It felt like there was a thin sheet of invisible but impenetrable polythene between the razor and my face. After two and a half passes it was as good a shave as I was going to get. And it wasn’t very good.
When or for whom is this brushless shaving cream any use:
If global warming wipes out all the world’s badgers. And boars. And horses.
If you are so hungover that you don’t really know where your face is.
For shaving more sensitive parts of your body than your face.
This is the question I get asked most. Someone wants to come over from the dark side and start real shaving. Suddenly they are confronted with infinite choice. This is freedom, this is liberation, escape from the walled garden of multibladed system razors. It can also be a bit confusing. Especially as paying more money definitely does not get you better stuff. Far from it. So this article tries to clear the confusion and expands considerably on my previous article.
Real shaving, using a double edged safety razor, started in America in 1902, it rapidly spread to the rest of the world and it has been used by many hundreds of millions of men. So by now everyone involved in bringing you real shaving products knows what they are doing. There is very little bad stuff out there. And you can always use the power of the internet to research any purchase.
Razor.
One of the best ways of getting a good razor is to ask round friends and relatives and get hold of an old Gillette double edged safety razor. There are vast numbers of these in attics and the bottoms of draws lying unused. And they are brilliant razors, usually made of solid brass plated with nickel they are better engineered than most brand new razors you can buy today. Their life is virtually infinite, they shave nicely and they are going up in value. If you get one just boil it very briefly in water to disinfect it then clean it with an old toothbrush.
If you must have a new Razor then the cheapest option is the Chinese Weishi, available on ebay for about £10. This is lightly and not robustly made, largely out of aluminium. However it is a precision instrument. It is a good beginners razor because it is very mild, it also demands being used at an accurate blade angle. Because it is so light it forces you to put a lot of effort into learning not to put pressure on the blade.
Then there is the razor I would recommend to everyone, the Edwin Jagger DE89L razor, which costs around £20. Lots of people have bought these on my recommendation. This is a heavy razor and the weight does the work, remember you don’t press down like with a multiblade system razor. This one is not aggressive, so ideal for beginners. It is beautifully engineered, British and is getting rave reviews. Amongst the online DE community this is considered one of the very best razors. You can buy one here.
If you must start with what is probably the very best then you want a Mergress. This is a Merkur Progress adjustable razor modified by an American engineer, in small batches, to be as close to perfection ad he can get. A beginner can use one of these on #1 and get a really mild shave, then with improving technique gradually open it up to be more aggressive. The shaving world is raving about this so demand exceeds supply, when they are in stock you can buy them here for $90.
Brush
The key thing about a brush is what the hairs are from. Synthetic isn’t so good. Boar is stiff, so works well with hard soaps. With use the ends split and they become softer. Badger is the more expensive classic, very soft and holds a lot of lather. Or you can get the best of both world by having a boar/badger mix. Two big brush manufacturers with outstanding reputations are Omega, in Italy and Vulfix, in the Isle of Man.
You can get a cheap boar brush for £1 or so at a discount chemist. This is perfect and does the job. If you want better then you need to spend about £10, either on this Omega Brofessional Boar brush. Or on a badger and boar Vulfix 404 which you can buy here. Ultimately you will probably want to own both these brushes, they are exceptional and incredible value for money.
Then you can spend a lot more money. I would recommend the two big brands. Just buy the size and hair variety that you want. Remember that they will last at least 10 years so even an expensive brush isn’t too bad when you average the cost out on a per month basis.
Just get a Palmolive shaving soap stick from any discount chemist or supermarket. Rub the stick directly into your wet stubble like a big crayon then lather up with the wet brush. This is a truly excellent quality product at a bargain price of around 50 pence. Every wet shaver should have some, it outperforms many far more expensive soaps. Even if you still use system shavers this is a lot better and cheaper than using aerosol foams and gels, where you are mainly paying for water.
A more expensive soap is Mitchell’s wool fat, this really is the gold standard against which everything else can be measured. A puck of this will cost you about £5 and will last for a very long time, or you can pay more and buy it with a dish. If you really want you can pay a whole lot more for shaving soaps, but the main thing you will be getting is a fancy smell.
Creams are easier to use, less concentrated and generally have a stronger scent. Once again Palmolive make a very acceptable product, available cheaply at any chemist. Though it is not as outstanding as the soap. More expensive is a tube of Proraso shaving cream from Italy, a very famous product, and rightly so. It explodes menthol and eucalyptus on your face and will cost you about £6. For the same price you can get a classical London shaving cream. Taylor’s of Bond Street (TOBS) have a range of scents available in a cream that is outstandingly lush.
As with soaps you can pay a whole pile more, but there really is no need.
To start with just use Tescos or Boots own brand blades for about 20 pence each (a tenth the cost of a multibladed system razor). These are Israeli Personna blades which have a good reputation. Once you get into it I would personally recommend Iridium or Gillette 7 O’clock yellow pack blades bought in bulk over the internet, which are a lot cheaper per blade and which are both trully excellent. These both come out of the state of the art Gillette joint venture factory in St Peterburg, Russia, alongside another 6 brands of double edged blades. If you want to experiment (highly recommended) then you can buy online a sample pack of many different blades and find out what suits you and your razor best.
As you can see you can start real shaving very cheaply. And if you go the Edwin Jagger DE89L, Vulfix 404, Mitchell’s Wool Fat, Iridium route ( which are all exceptional quality products) then they will probably pay for themselves in a few months compared to the cost of using multibladed system razor cartridges and aerosol gels/foams. After that you will be saving yourself about £100 every year. And yet you will be using some of the highest quality luxury goods in the world. And, every day, shaving will be a pleasure that you look forward to.
Now I know that I said I didn’t need any more shaving soaps and creams, but a journey that went straight past T K Maxx was more than a little tempting and held the potential for a blog article as well. They are a retailer that sells off expensive brands cheap and they have a cosmetics and grooming section so there was plenty of potential there.
The first find was two different shaving creams from St James of London in 150ml glass jars and a fancy box. These were reduced from £14 (which is the price on Amazon) to £5.99 and the choice was Cedarwood and Clarysage or Mandarin and Patchouli, I chose the latter as it promised to be the more interesting experience. A bit of research tells me they are an own brand of Creightons plc, who make many of the creams sold in the top men’s grooming shops in London. So it should be good stuff. The big fly in this particular cream is that I was too stupid to see that it is brushless, so less than ideal. Another fly is that it is £5.95 on Creightons own website.
Next up was 200ml of Pecksniffs Otriental shaving soap, in even fancier packaging, at £7.99, reduced from £20. So Pecksniffs are an upmarket Brighton fragrance house. On their website they don’t have shaving soap, just shaving cream at £20 for 200ml. As soap is more expensive than cream this definitely begins to look like a winner, let’s see how it shaves.
The third discovery was a very dark blue plastic pot just like Cella and Proraso come in, so this was maybe an Italian shaving soap. However it was covered in T K Maxx price stickers so it was difficult to tell. But at £2.99 it was worth the risk. Back home, with the labels removed it turns out to be a 150 ml pot of Bottega Verde Crema Da Barba, with coconut oil and cocoa butter. A quick trip to their website shows them to be a mid market cosmetic company, but there is no sign of any Crema Da Barba. So off to their Italian website and there it is. For 2.99 Euros.
This little trip just shows some of the fun and adventure to be had when you escape the walled garden of the big global shaving companies and when you move away from the aerosol foams and gels that are on every supermarket shelf. And this adventure has a long time to run, I have yet to actually use these three purchases.
