Given the high costs of modern cartridge-based shaving, increasing numbers of men around the world are looking for alternatives and are asking: what is wet shaving? Since you are here, you are no doubt asking the same question. Whether you are looking to save money, improve your shave, or just try something new, this article will tell you how to get started with wet-shaving.

What Exactly Is (Traditional) Wet Shaving?

The simplest definition of wet shaving is: any form of shaving that involves water applied directly to the face.

If you shave with a mechanical razor, like this one, that is dry-shaving.

If, on the other hand, you use water to wet your hair and perhaps then apply some sort of oil, gel, foam, or soap, then that is wet-shaving.

By this definition, if you use mass-market cartridge razors and gels and so on, you are performing a wet shave every morning.

Equipment and technique therefore separate “traditional” and “modern” wet shaving.

This post is about how traditional wet-shaving works. If you want to know why you should take up traditional wet-shaving, read this first. Once you have done so, let’s look at how to get the best shave of your life with a simple safety razor, a proper shaving brush, and some shaving soap.

Step 1: Acquire the Necessary Equipment

The quality of your results depends on how much effort and investment you put into your task. That is true in life, and it is true in shaving. Fortunately, traditional wet-shaving requires a relatively small initial investment. You can get everything that you need for an entire year of shaving for an initial outlay of about $150. If that sounds like a lot, divide it by 365 to get your daily cost of shaving. You will quickly see that the daily cost of shaving is very low.

To start with traditional wet-shaving, you need the following essential items:

• Safety razor;
• Pack of razor blades;
• Shaving brush;
• Tub of shaving soap;

You can also invest in the following optional items:

• Some good pre-shave lotion or cream;
• A high-quality after-shave balm or lotion;

Step 2: Preparation

Your daily shave is a ritual that celebrates tradition, precision, and style. It should be treated as such. Do not regard your shave as a boring necessity. Think of it instead as a way to present your best face to the world.

Start your first shave with a fresh blade. Unscrew the comb of the safety razor. The comb is the container for the blade and in most open-comb razors consists of two separate metal parts that are held together by the handle. With a closed-comb razor, all you have to do is twist the handle around to open the blade housing. Place a fresh razor blade into the comb, and screw it all back together.

Be very careful when handling double-edged blades. They are extremely thin and REALLY sharp.

Do not over-tighten the comb. If you do this, you can force the blade to crack and warp. This will worsen your shave. Tighten it just enough to ensure that the comb is securely closed.

Now, start by applying warm water to your face – not cold. Take some warm water in your hands and rub it on your face. This will lubricate and soften the hair on your face before you apply shaving soap.

Step 3: Lather Up

The following video explains exactly how to create a lather of the right consistency and richness for your morning shave:

This is by far the most time-consuming, and yet important, stage of the entire shaving process. Take your time with it. Enjoy the ritual. Savour the experience. You absolutely should use a high-quality shaving soap for this step. I recommend soaps that have high concentrations of coconut oil, which is packed full of healthy fats. As a result, the skin on your face will feel fresh and supple after your shave.

Step 4: Use the Safety Razor

There are three keys to getting a great shave with a double-edged safety razor.

First, use short strokes. The safety razor is a precision instrument designed to be wielded with care. Because the blade is EXTREMELY sharp, long strokes are absolutely not advised, as you will inevitably end up running over something and cutting it. Use short and careful strokes along the contours of your face.

Second, let the weight of the razor do the work. Do not apply ANY additional pressure when shaving with a double-edged safety razor. If you do, you WILL cut yourself and you WILL tear off parts of your face. A high-quality safety razor is heavy, as it is supposed to be. It will feel substantial in your hand, as any quality product should.

Third, shave WITH the grain, never against. Every man’s face is a little different. The contours of stubble will therefore be different. Find out what pattern of shaving is most comfortable for you. Shaving against the grain will lead to tremendous irritation, friction, and razor burn. I advise very strongly against it.

Now, I warn you that the first two weeks or so of shaving with a safety razor will be pretty uncomfortable. You will feel a lot of itchiness and irritation. This is normal. Your skin will take some time to adjust to the extreme sharpness of the blade and the fact that you are using nourishing shaving soap or cream, rather than mass-market gel or foam.

Do not be disheartened. Persevere. The shaves will get much easier. Your skin will get stronger. As a result, you will feel better.

Step 5: Rinse Off and Apply Aftershave

If you have performed all of the steps above correctly, you will have a smooth, stubble-free, refreshed face. Apply a proper aftershave lotion to sooth and nourish your skin. You are now ready to face the world as a well-groomed, confident, masculine man.

Conclusion

Once you start with traditional wet-shaving, you will never, ever go back to your old multi-blade mass-market cartridge razor. Quite aside from the expense involved, you will recoil at the insubstantial, cheap, plastic feeling of a cartridge against your skin. Because of the multiple blades, you will feel the unpleasant sensation of tugging at each hair as the cartridge rasps over your skin, leaving you with razor burn.

Don’t do it unless you have absolutely no other choice. Invest in yourself, your grooming, and your skin’s health. Switch to traditional wet-shaving. Shave like your grandfathers did, and reap the same benefits that they did back in the day. They were likely strong, confident, capable, well-groomed men – be like them, not the scraggy neckbearded dishevelled soyboys of today.

Most men usually treat shaving as a simple daily necessity. As a result, they always overlook the benefits of wet shaving, because they don’t know any better. They put no more thought or effort into it than they would into buying a cup of coffee. They buy whatever mass-market products they see on TV – cartridge razors, shaving foam or gel, aftershave, and so on – and put perhaps five minutes of effort into their daily grooming ritual. To them, shaving is just something that needs to be done.

This is a serious mistake. That attitude reduces shaving to a mere procedure and denies its true importance.

As men, we should take pride in our careful grooming and presentation. We should take care and with shaving. And we should always strive to get the best value for our money when it comes to shaving products.

If you have always used cartridge razors and mass-market gels and foams for your daily shaving routines, my message to you is: STOP.

There is a much better way to shave – the old way, the traditional way, the way that at one point seemed lost to the past.

That way is traditional wet-shaving.

No School Like the Old School

This is the kind of shave that you used to get from your local barber, back in your grandfather’s day. In those days, your barber would use an old-school brush to work up a lather out of a tin of soap or cream and apply it to your face. He would then use an extremely sharp straight razor to give you a very close shave. If he was good at his craft, he could do so without ever giving you a single cut or nick. He would finish the procedure by applying some refreshing balm or lotion to your face.

That was a great way to shave. It was traditional, manly, and pleasant. Most of all, it was special.

The good news is that get the benefits of wet shaving, in your own home, at a fraction of the cost of modern cartridge-based shaving, and in far less time than it would take for your barber.

In case you need more convincing, here are the top 5 benefits of wet-shaving:

1. You Will Save a TON of Money

Have you ever stopped to think about how much money you are spending on replacement razor cartridges? A pack of 8 Gillette Fusion Power cartridges will set you back about $30, depending on where you buy it. And each cartridge will last about 10 days, if you’re lucky.

And that’s before you get to adding up the costs of a can of pressurised shaving gel or foam, which lasts maybe 22 days, 30 if you are frugal.

Now imagine spending $9 on a pack of 10 Merkur double-edged blades of superb German quality. That one pack will last you as much as twenty weeks, at one-third the cost of the latest and greatest Gillette or Wilkinson blades. In fact, you could buy a hundred blades for anywhere between $10 and $30, depending on the brand you prefer.

And imagine spending a further $10 on a tub of fine Italian-made shaving soap that will last you for up to three months. Or, if you prefer, buy a tube of traditional shaving cream, again for only $10, that will last about the same length.

The simple fact is that modern cartridge-based shaving is vastly more expensive than traditional wet-shaving. The graph above shows you the total amount spent over one year on blades, soaps/gels, and aftershaves by comparing Gillette’s products against the ones advertised here.

As you can see, shaving with a safety razor is simply far cheaper. That is money that you could spend on anything else you want to improve yourself, not the bottom line of some faceless corporation that hates your masculinity.

2. Your Skin Will Be Stronger and Healthier

Did you ever stop to think about why your cartridge razor needs so many blades? Or why the skin on your face always feels soggy somehow when you are done shaving? Or why, despite the advertising, you always get more ingrown hairs and irritation, not less?

All of this happens to you for a reason.

The shaving foams and gels that you use are designed to make your skin soggy and lumpen. The fact that your cartridge razor cuts deeper into each hair with every stroke ensures that the hairs will become ingrown – which makes it necessary to have more blades on your razor to get rid of the very hairs that those blades caused to become ingrown.

These combine to give you more irritation, not less.

Surely there must be a better way – and there is.

Shaving soap is full of essential oils that nourish your skin and make it stronger and healthier. And the extreme sharpness of double-edged razor blades, combined with proper shaving technique, makes it very easy to get rid of ingrown hairs within weeks.

As a result, your face will feel better after every shave. You will suffer far fewer nicks and cuts from the blades themselves once you master the technique. And your skin will not be irritated or inflamed.

All of which leads to the next big benefit…

3. You Will Look and Feel Better

Your skin will be stronger, smoother, and healthier. As a result, you will look and feel much better when you present your face to the world. Furthermore, because double-edged razor blades are extremely thin and extremely sharp, you will get a far closer shave than you can with standard cartridge razors. Most men who take up traditional wet-shaving report that they feel far less skin irritation and less stubble growth. Some men even report that they only need to shave once every two days, because of the sharpness of the blades.

This will give you greater confidence and presence as a man.

4. You Will Start Your Day Off Right

Traditional wet-shaving forces you to slow down and take a bit of extra time. This is a VERY Good Thing. The modern world is too hectic and busy as it is. The extra time required to use a pre-shave lotion or oil, lather up soap, and shave with a safety razor, is well worth it. You will come to appreciate those precious 10-15 minutes that you can use to make yourself look good. You will value how fresh and alive your skin feels after you shave. And you will realise that when you invest in high-quality, great-value products, you are investing in yourself.

5. Shaving Will Become a Pleasure, Not a Chore

As my friend Adam Piggott likes to say, the modern man takes pride in his appearance and embraces opportunities to appreciate ceremony in his life. Traditional wet-shaving is an art. It is a ceremony. It is a celebration of masculinity, of all the things that make us men. Most of all, it is an expression of tradition, precision, skill, patience, care, and cleanliness. These are all trademarks of a man who is a civilising force upon the world around him. That is the kind of man that other men admire, and other women desire.

Get Started With Traditional Wet-Shaving Today

Tens of thousands of men around the world have rediscovered the value and virtue of traditional shaving. We have never, ever gone back to the vulgar, crass, consumer-driven, low-quality world of cartridge razors unless forced by circumstance. Become one of that group of men. Stand for tradition and good grooming, and stand out among your peers.

Now that you have seen the benefits of wet shaving for yourself, you can start by looking through my catalogue of preferred products and ordering them today. In future posts, I will show you how to do a proper wet-shave, so that you can have a great shave every single time.

Get rid of your cartridge razor, your mass-market gel or foam, and embrace the masculine ritual of traditional wet-shaving today!