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...The Mach 3 Turbo is the best blade I know of, next to a straight razor. Shaving with a Mach 3 against the grain, I look fairly civilized for about 12 hours. With a straight razor, I can be okay for about 24 hours.

JL, my grandfather used a straight razor with a strop all his life.

Here's a website dedicated to straight razors with its own forum!

http://www.straightrazorplace.com/

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I've never used anything but electric razors. Decided at a very young age that -

a) I couldn't be asked to deal with all that foam and whatever stuff

b) I couldn't trust myself with a blade, and

c) I couldn't see that it mattered a lot, anyway (but I'm blond) *

MG

* PS, well I was :)

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Here's a website that sells expensive creams and such:

http://www.theartofshaving.com/taos6/home.php

*****

Here's another retailer of interesting shaving gear including straight razors:

http://www.classicshaving.com/Home.html

*****

Here's another retailer, e-Barbershop:

http://www.qedusa.com/

*****

How to get that perfect shave, from Today Weekend:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6886845/

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Electric or manuel?

Manuel here.

Never liked the stubble and "ouch factor" of electric razors when they yank out a whisker.

When they get dull, it is comparable to a facial massage.

Nah...gimme a double blade and some shaving cream. I want it done right.

Edited by GoodSpeak
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Here's the News & Observer article that spurred me to resurrect this thread:

http://www.newsobserver.com/lifestyles/fas...ry/1010973.html

Men drawn to shaving wars

For the closest shave, use your grandpa's method

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Cyber shaves

A lively cyber-world guides shaving buffs through the minefield of "drugstore" products and specialty items. Those include the Art of Shaving's $175 "classic" safety razor and Dovo's $178.95 badger-bristle shaving brush with ivory handle. (Hair from the badger's neck is most desirable and expensive. No kidding.)

Some sites are commercial and some are buff-driven, but they're all worth a look on the way to shaving Nirvana.

www.shavemyface.com: Shaving author Michael Ham's site. No products for sale, but plenty of good information and links.

www.shavingstuff.com: Entertaining site has frequent updates and product reviews of various shaving modes. Also has shaving stuff for women.

www.shavers.com: Site devoted to electric shavers sales and lore. Located in Hendersonville, but it's purely a Web-based business.

www.straightrazorplace.com: Just what the name implies, with reviews and lots of interaction.

www.theartofshaving.com: Has upper-end versions of mainstream products, including the $150 Fusion Chrome Collection model.

www.classicshaving.com: Site has everything from vintage razors to strops.

www.qedusa.com: Mail-order site has information on staples such as Taylor of Old Bond Street shaving creams and links to many other products.

www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6886845/: This witty MSNBC piece offers a tour through the fine points of the retro wet-shave culture.

By Thomas Goldsmith, Staff Writer There's a battle going on over men's faces. And much is at stake in the shaving wars.Fewer than one in 10 U.S. males wears a beard, while the rest of us spend hundreds of millions of dollars a year on blades and razors for this exclusively male face-defining ritual.

The rhetoric among the shave-obsessed factions can get sharp. Just listen to Raleigh barber Richard Creech on the hugely successful multi-blade razors.

"Once the first blade is dull, it doesn't matter how many more are behind it," Creech said the other day at Man-Mur, his workplace on Hillsborough Street. "It'll still pull."

And don't even mention electric shavers. People who use those are summarily dismissed.

"They are not worried about a quality shave," said California razor-blade revivalist Michael Ham, author of the self-published "Leisureguy's Guide to Gourmet Shaving: Shaving Made Enjoyable."

In a looks-dominated society where dermatology is one of the hottest medical specialties, anything that makes a man come across smoother stands out amid lots of competition. And in this politics-soaked year, it's worth remembering that in an election cycle long ago, the U.S. presidency may have been lost to a dull blade.

"He didn't understand how important it was," Ham, 68, said sadly of Richard Nixon's 5 o'clock shadow during his 1960 debate with a younger and clean-shaven John F. Kennedy.

Keen competition

In a war of swords, shaving giants Gillette and Schick are locked in a technical, marketing and legal duel over who can sell the most products.

Each seeks to win over a worldwide "shaverati," as they pursue the best shave possible. People consult blogs and Web sites, frequent specialty marketers, and search for razor manufacturers in a dozen foreign countries.

It would seem that the closeness of a shave shouldn't be a matter of debate. Isn't it possible to measure whiskers before and after shaving in some scientific test?

There must be some data behind claims such as this one from Gillette: "The Fusion will give your face the cleanest, closest, and most comfortable shave you'll have ever experienced."

Neither Gillette, the market leader, nor Schick responded to requests for the basis of their claims.

But deep in federal court records, it seems that the companies do get down to measuring micrometers of whisker length, if sometimes only as part of litigation. In 2005, Schick carried out its own tests to successfully challenge Gillette's claim that its M3Power razor caused facial hairs to "stand up," producing a better shave.

"Schick's study took place over three days and included 37 test subjects," a verdict in Schick's favor said. "With respect to each test subject, twenty hairs were measured before and after strokes with an M3 Power razor." Science did not support Gillette's "stand-up" claim, the court found.

The straight truth

For all the fancy marketing, the basic idea for a shaving tool hasn't evolved all that much.

Straight razors date to at least 3000 BC, to copper razors found in India and Egypt, and they remain in vogue today as a specialty item. Modern straight razors are usually handles that have replacement blades inserted into them, rather than a single blade requiring regular honing.

"Nobody uses the kind that you strop any more," said Creech, the Man-Mur barber, marking the change down to hygienic concerns.

Creech can and does still shave customers with a straight razor. Best customers for that luxurious, complicated rite tend to be men in wedding parties, who sometimes come in en masse to get a super-smooth look for the ceremonies.

Safety razors, with the flat, double-edge blades that once dominated men's shaving, were patented by King C. Gillette in 1904. The English company Wilkinson, now part of Energizer along with Schick, made a run at Gillette with its Sword blades in the 1950s and '60s."Wilkinson figured out how to coat a blade with chrome or platinum," creating a longer-lasting and sharper blade, Ham said. "They pretty much took over. Gillette was losing market left and right."

That's when Gillette started the two-blade cartridge, once again winning patent protection.

Though overpowered domestically by multi-blades, double-edge razors are enjoying a major cult revival and are used to trim beards worldwide these days.

"The double-edge razor is still the most common way to shave globally," Ham said. "If you look at where razor blades are made -- in Japan, Pakistan, India, Russia, the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany -- they make some very good blades."

Bad buzz

Electric razors, as noted above, generally get poor reviews from experts, as do disposables. Available to the general public since 1929, the electric devices get dissed as best for people who want to read the paper or drive when in the act.

"They're OK for college students," said Russ Neufeld, editor of the popular site shavingstuff.com. "It's convenient for a quick and easy shave."

Opinions like these are common at shavingstuff, where guys can read up-to-date profiles of King Gillette or enjoy "Celebrity Facial Hair Friday."

On Ham's shavemyface.com, readers encounter ads for specialty products, such as brushes that use badger hair to apply shaving soap, as they debate the merits of razors old and new.

"The multi-blade razors do give a closer shave than, say, the dual-blade razor," said Dr. John Romano, a New York dermatologist. "It might be too close a shave for some people if they have sensitive skin."

Said Ham: "The cartridge war, that's a marketing war. You want to keep the market share and you convince people that you need one that vibrates and has a little flashlight on it. But that tugging and cutting is not that good on your face."

The real secret, Ham said, is that all faces are different. Some African-American males have to risk razor bumps from shaving that irritate and scar the skin. Ham says that the Treet blade that's great for him may be worthless to someone else.

The solution to finding a great shave, he says, is to get a pack of 20 different razor blades from someplace like West Coast Shaving (westcoastshaving.com), try them all and discover what's best for you.

That knowledge might have helped Richard Nixon, who was locked in a fierce presidential race back in 1960. It's become a cliche of shaving lore that Nixon lost the election to JFK because he sported a 5 o'clock shadow so dark that makeup couldn't conceal it.

History does not seem to record the exact shaving implements Nixon and Kennedy employed that day. But there are hints.

"The President-elect waved his aides away and retired to his bathroom to shave, with a straight razor," Theodore star.gif. White wrote of Kennedy in "The Making of the President 1960."

And Nixon? A researcher at his presidential library found he used two devices shunned by the shaverati, at least during the post-presidential years.

"He kept an electric razor (they could not remember the brand) at his office and used disposable razors when he traveled," wrote Ira G. Pemstein, archivist at the Nixon library in Yorba Linda, Calif.

So did Nixon's presidency fall victim to an unserious electric shaver or a dull disposable?

Perhaps not, said Ham. It's the individuality thing again:

"Nixon's problem was that he had a heavy beard and had thin, transparent skin. There's no way he could have looked cleanshaven."

Edited by GA Russell
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Just a point of reference: There was no such thing as disposable blades back then.

I think you mean disposable razors. And you're right -- I remember Bic coming out with them around 1968 or '69.

Correct on both counts.... thanks :tup

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Electric razors, as noted above, generally get poor reviews from experts, as do disposables.

I wonder why people who do not have a vested interest in the sale of metal razor handles diss the disposables.

I went to disposables only after the razor companies kept phasing out razors I had purchased just to get me to buy another over priced blade. I figured who needs the aggravation?

So I buy disposable blades.

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...and when I fire up my Alkaline-charged Gillette fusion, I get

the best shave ever........................... fusionpower_01.jpg

Chris, you'll enjoy this BusinessWeek article:

http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/conte...8889_page_3.htm

Braun Pulsonic ($270) v. Gillette Fusion Power ($13)

The idea of putting vibrating razor blades to your face may sound unwise, but that's the thinking behind both the Gillette Fusion Power and the Braun Pulsonic. The shavers shimmy and shake across your mug, employing minute vibrations to glide more smoothly. The Pulsonic, a sleek chrome electric shaver, manages this by blasting your face with high-frequency sound waves. While you can't feel it, on the microscopic level the waves make your skin ripple like a wind-blown flag, causing hair to stand up straighter for a closer shave. Braun claims the Pulsonic provides the closest dry shave on the market, and it did perform admirably. Yet it still struggled to mow down hard-to-reach hairs nestled under the chin and along the neck. And while we liked the flexible shaver head, the stealthy sonic action, and the heft (the machine weighs a reassuring 6 ounces), it left our tester's face feeling sore and caused irritation along the jawline.

The simpler battery-operated Gillette Fusion, on the other hand, imparted no blotchy redness. And for the comparatively cheapo price of 13 bucks (single AAA Duracell included), it packs some interesting technology: An onboard microchip regulates five vibrating razor blades and a low-battery display. The vibrations, the theory goes, reduce friction between the blades and your skin, so you get a more comfortable shave with fewer nicks and less irritation. Press a button on the razor's midsection and it begins to buzz like a miniature jackhammer. "It felt like putting a Pocket Rocket to my face," our tester reported.

But the results were worth the initial awkwardness. As promised, the blades effortlessly glided across his skin, leaving no whisker standing and proving that the vibration feature is more than just a gimmick. Sure, some men prefer the convenience of an electric shaver, in which case we'd recommend the Pulsonic, the gold standard of face mowers. But for a flawless shave that won't mar your mug, we'd opt for the Fusion. One caveat is the steep cost, as with most razors, of the replacement blades: $14 for a package of four. In the long run, the Fusion could end up costing you more than the Pulsonic, so it's no bargain: just a better shaver. Advantage: Gillette.

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