For straight razors you have two routes: modern or vintage. Both work very well.
For modern, look for Dovo, Thiers issard (my favorite), or any of a few other companies (but check here first to make sure theyre good). The steel you choose from these companies will be basically irrelevant. They are all great razors and will work great. This place has a good selection and will give you an idea of what's out there
http://www.classicshaving.com/razors/straight-razors.html?limit=all
If your hubby is on here, I assume he can take care of a blade. Carbon can (in theory) take a better edge, but if you leave it wet, it will rust off very quickly. Not an issue of you wipe them down, which you should do with stainless too. Stainless, in theory, has larger carbides and thus takes a less keen edge. In practice, these differences in razor steel are unnoticeable. The edge that any razor steel will take is very, very, very keen, and any razor should be taken care of and kept dry when not in use, or the edge becomes useless very quickly, stainless or no. With new razors, buy the brand, not the steel.
You could go custom, then start thinking about steels. This is much more expensive.
The other route is vintage. This takes a little more research, but there are great buys out there, mostly on ebay. I have a seven day set I built from vintage blades, all of them excellent and elegant, and none cost me more than 20$. Again, you'll need to do a bit of research, as there are many, many old razors of exceptional quality, but the condition becomes very important, and there are specific things to look for when evaluating this.
I suggest you poke around on badgerandblade.com or straightrazorplace.com. They both have large and very helpful communities devoted to just this subject.
