How to start off with Wet Shaving?

By Eternal-Fire

You need

-Razor
-Razor blades (if you’re using DE Razors)
-Shaving brush
-Shaving Cream/soap

Optional
-Pre-shave oil/cream
-Skin food/aftershave balm
-Bowl(Ceramic or Metal)
-Shaving Scuttle(if you are willing to invest.

Let’s talk about razors first, there is pretty much 2 ways you can go about it. Get a Straight razor or a Double edged(DE) razor. Within the DE razor category, you have close comb, adjustable close comb, open comb and slant bar razors.

I would recommend beginners to go close comb. If you want you can start with an Edwin Jagger DE89L, that should be mild enough for you to not get seriously hurt. Click here to view the razors, also try to take advantage of the the free shipping promotion they have now.

Next, you need a blade, fortunately most razors come with some free razor blades. As a beginner you should try a variety of brands. Read the link for choosing the blades. Mustafa has some blades for you to choose from, mostly Supermax(The yellow green box ones are good IMO), Gillette 7 o’clock, shogun (didn’t try that before). From Daiso, you have Dorco blades. If you venture down to Golden mile, they have feather and Wilkinson sword.

Choosing the Right Blade

As for shaving creams or soap, that is very much up to personal preference, being an exclusive cream user, I cannot tell you about the properties of shaving soap, that you have to ask the other senior experts here. You can get shaving creams at Mustafa, they have Palmolive, Omega and many more. If you are feeling rich, you can get creams from body shop or Crabtree & Evelyn. I personally, prefer Trumpers, but you’ll have to get that from TESC(same shop as the 1st link).

For shaving brushes, there are 3 types,synthetic brushes, badger brushes and boar brushes. Some people in this forum swear by boar brushes, though I did not use them before. Boar brushes need ‘breaking in’, then it will lather well and the application will be better than badger brushes according to boar brushes users. Read the link for the brush grades explanation. You can get synthetic & boar brushes at mustafa from omega brand. For badger brushes, you can get silvertip from whipped dog or you can try your luck at ebay or maybe the experts can help you on this. For beginners, if you wanna try badger brushes, get a best badger brush.

Understanding Hair Grades of Badger Brushes

Yeah, and read more of Shaving 101, you can learn many basic shaving knowledge from there.