Straight razor and accessories

[Creepo]

Hello
I've been recently looking into shaving with a straight razor and I was wondering what kind of accessories I need with it (strops & stropping compounds, brushes etc.) and where I could find these products.
(BTW I live in Europe so no use linking US based sites that don't ship internationally.)

Oh and all links to straight razor shaving related sites appreciated.

Thanks.

 

[gyssedk]

straightrazorplace.com would be the place to go.

I live in Denmark so i dont really know what shop to buy from in the states, but i see no problem with getting an old razor off ebay, many of the old brands are good as long as you dont buy a cheap knock-off or chinese copies.

Personally i use and old Daveso that i bought from a barber who had it on display in his window, and i have bought a new Theirs Issard that i use on a daily basis. Other good modern brands would be Dovo or Puma, but those are european brands, dont know what US brands to go for.

For soap i use Dovo and Proraso, Dovo is German and Proraso is Italian, the reason i have both was in order to try a few different brands but they are both equally good and i just switch between them for fun.

Get a decent brush, avoid bore hair and go for badger hair, no need to get the expensive badger hair like white tip, the quality is not proportional to the price in my oppinion.

My gear is:

3000/8000 waterstone
1 badger brush
1 strop with a leather and a canvas side
1 shallow coffee cup for the lather.

i like to use a pre-shave conditioner, sort of a thick lotion you rub in to your beard after washing your face, let it soak in before lathering your beard, wait a few minutes and shave. When you get the hang of it, it does not take much longer than a regular Gilette-shave, but you dont have a the same irritation that you can get with the multi-bladed razors, and you can clean/sterilize the straightrazor a lot better, and thats important to avoid irritation and infection.

Initially it a fairly large investment compared to multibladed razors but in the long run a lot cheaper.

Claus Christensen
Denmark

 

[zach2556]

Straightrazorplace has classified where people sell used razors. If your not looking for a used razor looking for a new one they have a post for good razors and razors to avoid.

Good brand :

http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/index.php/Good_Straight_Razor_Brands

Brands to avoid:

http://straightrazorplace.com/srpwiki/index.php/Brands_of_Straight_Razors_to_avoid

Now I havn't started yet, for the past few months I'v been researching about it trying to learn stuff about it, for beginners I head a 1/2 hallow ground and a 6/8 now I really don't know exactly what this means but this is what I have been told. As for a strop. I was told a decent starting strop is 'The Filly' on ruprazor.com. As for the bowl and brush and soap, you don't need an expensive set. They have the whole set at walmart for less than 10 dollars. Its expensive enough for the razor and the strop don't go overboard on everything and get top quality stuff, you have plenty of time to get better stuff.