The BladeForums.com 2024 Traditional Knife is ready to order! See this thread for details:
https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/bladeforums-2024-traditional-knife.2003187/
Price is $300 $250 ea (shipped within CONUS). If you live outside the US, I will contact you after your order for extra shipping charges.
Order here: https://www.bladeforums.com/help/2024-traditional/ - Order as many as you like, we have plenty.
Blades are cheap, even my preferred Feathers. My beard is medium at best but I usually go 3-5 shave and toss the blade. Blades are too cheap to push overuse IMO. Think about it, at say 25 cents for a Feather blade, three shaves costs you just 8.3 cents each and five shaves is a nickel each. Why be cheap?
I have one of Tatara's Masamune razors. I freaking love the thing.
I find the soft soaps easier for traveling. I can hand lather those, which lets me leave the brush and bowl at home. I use Trumper's lime and there are travel tubes for the shave cream and a small bottle for the skin food. I put a leather slip over the end of the razor. A Gillette Fusion 5 can work in a pinch of if you're in a hurry. I still bring my bloc osma just in case.
For travelling, I usually just buy a pack of cheap disposable razors. I also pack my oldest, worn out socks & underwear, and throw them in the trash every night after use.
I don't like synthetic brushes much, but they're great for travel. They dry out quicker, and they won't rot if they stay wet for a long time.
No problem. I started out using a safety razor 60-some years ago, and went back to it about 15 years ago, not because it's the new fad, or because I love shaving, or anything like that. For me, it's just the most effective way I've found to scrape hair off my face.
I hear you! I have merkur's , super speed's (one made the year I was born 1950) and others. Occasionally, I will get my dander up and give it a go. But a DE requires more attention than I usually want to apply. So there.
I think I was pretty much the same. Started shaving in the later mid-60's using a Gillette hand me down from my dad and Williams and Old Spice soaps. Have no recollection of the shaving brush. Then I tired the double blade and triple blade Gillettes as they were introduced and, finally, the various electric razors. I think I had a Remington first and settled on the Norelco rotary electrics. But some years ago (maybe 20?) I got into the whole safety razor form of shaving again and today have way too many razors, brushes, soaps and creams, and, at my current age, a good thousand or more assorted razor blades than I'll ever need with the likely years I have left. That said, I still have a Norelco rotary shaver for lazy days but the shave is nothing remotely close to a proper wet shave.