Its Quiet Out There....Too Quiet?

Be careful, while I've converted one of my brothers and my son, when I raised the subject with a couple of good friends it didn't really go over all that well - from their reaction you'd have thought I'd asked them what brand of condom they used!!  

How you put it can make a difference.

"What kind of condom do you wear?"
vs.
"I wore a Thunder Horse condom last night and put all my equine buddies to shame. Same goes for the bunny rabiits."

In the case of shaving:

"What razor, blades and shaving cream do you use?"
vs.
"Shaving used to be such a pain in the a##, but then I got a safety razor, really good shaving cream and a brush. Now my face is super smooth, and the ladies absolutely love it. Good thing I bought 100 pack of Thunder Horse condoms."

The fact of the matter is this.
1.  new shavers are sick of paying for disposables. They look for companies offering disposables at a lower cost - theres a few of them. But there still disposables. And they use the same gook every, single, morning.
2.  Then they think of razor blades, and maybe the way their Dad or Grandpa used to shave. It sounds like a novel idea - then they look for a razor
3. They head to places like Amazon and take a look at a Parker, or Merkur. Sounds economical - they buy it.
4. Now -- how to I use this ancient thing -- ah "YouTube"
5. From the tube they begin to search - and find us. Then they discover many shave this way.  Cool.
6. Now theyre hooked -- they find out you should use a brush -- and wow -- different scents of soaps - not the same crap they have used for years.
7. Now completely hooked - they find you can buy different razors other than the one they started with. "You mean guys, and gals have more than ONE razor.  Cool"

Hence -- First, its education we offer. How to shave, what to shave with, bowls, brushes, and the thousands of soaps.  Education on the forum makes a 'hobby' more enjoyable. And the 'addiction' of the hobby continues. Face it -- people are passionate about hobbies - that's addiction. But an addiction that makes you look great every morning.
"Come for the education --- stay for the shave"

Be careful, while I've converted one of my brothers and my son, when I raised the subject with a couple of good friends it didn't really go over all that well - from their reaction you'd have thought I'd asked them what brand of condom they used!!  

How you put it can make a difference.

"What kind of condom do you wear?"
vs.
"I wore a Thunder Horse condom last night and put all my equine buddies to shame.  Same goes for the bunny rabiits."

In the case of shaving:

"What razor, blades and shaving cream do you use?"
vs.
"Shaving used to be such a pain in the a##, but then I got a safety razor, really good shaving cream and a brush.  Now my face is super smooth, and the ladies absolutely love it.  Good thing I bought 100 pack of Thunder Horse condoms."

The fact of the matter is this.
1.  new shavers are sick of paying for disposables. They look for companies offering disposables at a lower cost - theres a few of them. But there still disposables. And they use the same gook every, single, morning.
2.  Then they think of razor blades, and maybe the way their Dad or Grandpa used to shave. It sounds like a novel idea - then they look for a razor
3. They head to places like Amazon and take a look at a Parker, or Merkur. Sounds economical - they buy it.
4. Now -- how to I use this ancient thing -- ah "YouTube"
5. From the tube they begin to search - and find us. Then they discover many shave this way.  Cool.
6. Now theyre hooked -- they find out you should use a brush -- and wow -- different scents of soaps - not the same crap they have used for years.
7. Now completely hooked - they find you can buy different razors other than the one they started with. "You mean guys, and gals have more than ONE razor.  Cool"

Hence -- First, its education we offer. How to shave, what to shave with, bowls, brushes, and the thousands of soaps.  Education on the forum makes a 'hobby' more enjoyable. And the 'addiction' of the hobby continues. Face it -- people are passionate about hobbies - that's addiction. But an addiction that makes you look great every morning.
"Come for the education --- stay for the shave"

Yup, thats pretty much the route I took.

I agree. Tread lightly on the subject of shaving with friends. I live on a block where there are 7 houses where we are all pretty close. Lots of drinking, football, golf, etc. Someone brought up the subject of shaving and one guy said that he uses his wife's Venus cart because of all the lubricants on it. I didn't dare open my mouth after that comment. I gently tried to broach it another time and no one cared. I didn't push it. I really don't think the concept of saving money on carts versus blades for a double edge doesn't apply. I didn't find this hobby because of cart costs. I found it because I thought the idea of doing things the old fashioned way was cool and the ritual sounded somewhat soothing. Little did I know. I've spent far more on classic wet shaving than I ever would have sticking with carts. I would use a Mach 3 head for 3 to 4 weeks. But, the caveat here is that I can sell much of what I bought and likely break even on some of the hardware and make some money on some of it. Regardless, the enjoyment I get from shaving with a brush and double edge is important to me and I don't care if no one else has a clue about my choice in shaving.

A lot of guys are quite happy with cartridges, and so have no reason to switch. I got good to great shaves with a Trac II (usually good). I saw posts about wetshaving in the off-topic discussion section on an unrelated forum, but did not give it a second thought until I found a nice Fusion handle and saw the price of the cartridges.

My journey into traditional shaving was motivated by cool looking razors and cost savings on the blades, and nothing else. Consistently great shaves came as a welcome bonus.

I agree.  Tread lightly on the subject of shaving with friends.  I live on a block where there are 7 houses where we are all pretty close.  Lots of drinking, football, golf, etc.  Someone brought up the subject of shaving and one guy said that he uses his wife's Venus cart because of all the lubricants on it.  I didn't dare open my mouth after that comment.  I gently tried to broach it another time and no one cared.  I didn't push it.  I really don't think the concept of saving money on carts versus blades for a double edge doesn't apply.  I didn't find this hobby because of cart costs.  I found it because I thought the idea of doing things the old fashioned way was cool and the ritual sounded somewhat soothing.  Little did I know.  I've spent far more on classic wet shaving than I ever would have sticking with carts.  I would use a Mach 3 head for 3 to 4 weeks.  But, the caveat here is that I can sell much of what I bought and likely break even on some of the hardware and make some money on some of it.  Regardless, the enjoyment I get from shaving with a brush and double edge is important to me and I don't care if no one else has a clue about my choice in shaving.

"I've spent far more on classic wet shaving than I ever would have sticking with carts."
That's so funny - my experience as well - buying brushes, razors, and soaps to try - something I never would have done with my Mach 3 razor. I smile now when I hear the argument that DE blades are cheaper than cartridges. Of course that's true, but I see now what people mean when they refer to RAD - So easy to go down rabbit holes with this 'hobby'

I've spent far more on classic wet shaving than I ever would have sticking with carts.

There is a big difference, though. With cartridges, especially the Fusions, you have to spend a lot. You really don't have much choice. With traditional shaving, you can spend very little, a whole lot, or anything inbetween. The choice is yours. That is even more true today than in the past, thanks to a greatly increased supply of products.

Regardless, the enjoyment I get from shaving with a brush and double edge is important to me and I don't care if no one else has a clue about my choice in shaving.

A lot of traditional shavers feel the need to recruit. Part of it seems to be hooking people up with something that will make their lives better. At least it looks that way from the point of view of the wetshavers.

Another factor seems to be a lingering fear that this might all go away. The more wetshavers, the more secure and plentiful the supply of wetshaving gear. Or so the reasoning seems to go. No need to worry about that now, my shave preppas.

Good points Tbone , I don't feel a need to push wet shaving on to people in a cult like manner although I am cognizant of the need for it to grow so that it doesn't go away, or at least the selection. We've all seen the steady attrition of artisans as time passes. Sometimes its not a surprise and sometimes it is. I know there are a few artisans that if they were to pack it in I would feel it deeply. But, I got by before I found them and I'll get by after. There does seem to be some sort of pleasure in turning a friend on to something good. Like a great restaurant, fishing hole or wet shaving. You have to be careful, you don't just tell everybody because then there might not be any fish left or you can't get a table and maybe some guys just don't deserve to have a great shave. If your boss is a DB do you want to improve his life? Nope, my lips are sealed. He can clean the camo paint off his face with steel wool for all I care.

On the subject of carts, I was reasonably happy with Mach 3s for years, a little pricey but ok. I'd change them once a week. One thing I notice using DE and doing a nice 3 pass shave is that I don't get a 5:00 o'clock shadow/stubble that I always got with carts. If there was an evening event or for date night with my wife I always had to shave again because hey, I'm not an animal. But with a nice 3 pass DE shave that stubble doesn't show up til like, 3:00am and thats a good thing.

On the subject of carts, I was reasonably happy with Mach 3s for years, a little pricey but ok.  I'd change them once a week.  One thing I notice using DE and doing a nice 3 pass shave is that I don't get a 5:00 o'clock shadow/stubble that I always got with carts.  If there was an evening event or for date night with my wife I always had to shave again because hey, I'm not an animal.  But with a nice 3 pass DE shave that stubble doesn't show up til like, 3:00am and thats a good thing.

OK, I'm new to this (like a couple of weeks) - moved from carts to DE. When you say 2 or 3 passes, are you re-lathering your face between each pass? I see this takes more time than cartridges - but so far that's a good thing :-)