... with the Thiers-Issard 1937 Special Coiffeur razor
Pre-shave: Proraso red
Razor: Thiers-Issard 1937 Special Coiffeur / RazoRock SLOC
Blade: Feather Hi-stainless
Cream: Taylor of Old Bond Street Lemon & Lime Shaving Cream
Brush: The Guv'nor Pure Badger Aftershave: Proraso Refreshing
The Shave: Exciting times*. If you consider going at the stubble on your face and neck with shiny, sharpened steel exciting. Some would say it was scary. Others just downright foolhardy. But exciting seems to sum it up for me.
This was the first time out with the Thiers-Issard 1937 Special Coiffeur**. It was frustrating to have had the razor for over a week and not actually have shaved with it. This delay was basically down to cowardice, although not, as you would imagine, cowardice in the face of sharpened steel gliding, slicing and slashing across my neck. No – I managed to get myself in a right old tizzy over stropping.
I watched videos on YouTube and read articles. I found myself getting obsessed with pastes: white, pastes, yellow pastes, green pastes. This was mainly because at the time of buying the razor I also got talked into buying a four-sided paddle strop along with some green paste. But coming to terms with which pastes went on which side of the paddle, and even whether they were actually necessary anyway and learning to use an X pattern while stropping on account of the paddle strop not being as wide as the blade made me feel like I was learning to drive and having to get used to changing down to second gear as I went round a corner all over again***. As far as I was concerned, the razor was bought shave-ready and all I had to do was strop the blade before use and go about my business. So having blown my mind with YouTube videos and articles, I did what I should have done much earlier and asked a few simple questions on a couple of Facebook wet-shaving pages (I'm looking at you Straight Razor Place Facebook) and got the answer I needed. Which proved to be a lot simpler I'd thought. Thus it was that yesterday afternoon I took my new 3 inch-wide hanging strop, with leather (English full-grain veg tan shoulder) on one side and canvas (cotton) on the other and gave the 1937 a damned-good stropping.
I'm a frequent user and lover of Boker shavettes (both Olivewood and now the black-handled one) and the Feather Club Artist SS folding and non-folding, Japanese-style razors. I have other less-fancy shavettes in my collection too. I thought using these - and having become quite good with them, if I do say so myself - would have prepared me adequately for the job at hand. But using an actual straight razor for the first time was on a whole different level****. The blade actually 'sang' as it carved its way through my stubble, a sort of weird, tinny***** sound that I'd read about in some of the many articles I'd read during the research****** stage of the buying process. It also cut through the stubble very efficiently, although not as well as it will when I've had a few more goes at it and my confidence in using the blade increases.
I kept to just the one pass with the 1937, which I came out of unscathed (apart from one very tiny weeper) and thought it best not to push my luck any further, finishing with my trusty, much-loved RazoRock Self-lubricating Open-Comb Razor and a splash of the equally-trusty Proraso eucalyptus and menthol lotion. A great way to end a momentous shave.
* Depending on your own personal definition of the word.
** Look, it's a pain having to type Thiers-Issard 1937 Special Coiffeur again and again (I didn't that time – I just copied and pasted it). So from here on in I'm going to call it the 1937.
*** Or, in fact, learning to shave, all over again.
**** Different in terms of technique. Or maybe it's not that different and that I was just hyper-vigilant and very aware that I was using something I'd never used before.
***** I don't mean tinny as in 'made of tin'. I mean tinny in terms of audio feedback. A sort of curious, trebly sound that put me in mind of the brief clash of two miniature swords, wielded by mice.
****** By 'research' what I actually mean is 'dribbling over photos of vintage cut-throat razors that I can't possibly afford'. It's a daily thing.