thewayne | I started shaving with a safety razor recently

For those not in the know, a safety razor is the one with the bare double-sided blades that you have to insert into a head, then screw on to a handle. A straight razor is the throat-slitter seen on Sweeny Todd. There's another type of razor known as a Leaf razor where you snap a safety blade in half, which strikes me as odd as I use both sides of mine, then unscrew it a bit to loosen up the head for rinsing before continuing to shave. And then there's what appears to be a straight razor, except it uses safety blades! That intrigues me, they're not very expensive and I might try one some day. It's all a question of the angle you hold it at and letting the blade do the cutting - not pressing in.

I've only used my new razor three times, but I like it! One thing that'll be very nice is saving money: the blades are very inexpensive, and no throwing away gobs of plastic every time the blades dull! And it shaves much closer than the multi-blade plastic cartridges. I'm using an empty pill bottle as a blade 'safe' to keep my dull blades, once it fills I can just throw it into the trash or a recycle bin.

The setup is a bit expensive, but but not horribly so, and it pays itself off pretty quick - I paid a little over $100 for everything, which is less than a year's supply of Gillette refills. I bought a Rockwell razor, they're adjustable via inserts: they have three inserts that you can flip over to give you six different blade 'bites'. I am using a #3 right now but plan on trying a #2 (less bite) Sunday or Monday. I bought an assortment of blades, got like a dozen different five-packs to evaluate, so pretty much a year supply. The razor itself came with five blades, but apparently they're regarded as crap blades. And Rockwell has a sale right now on a J. Crew edition of the razor that came in a nice box and is very nice looking. Their insert model is made in the USA, which I like.

I also bought a tub of shaving cream, a synthetic beaver brush (for making foam of the cream), and an alum stick for possible bleeds - none so far. The cream is Taylor of Old Bond Street, their basic scent which is predominantly sandalwood and is very nice. Takes a little practice to whip it into a nice foam, but not too hard.

The one issue is that you take more time shaving. It's definitely not a 'slap on foam and hack away with your Gillette' shave. You have to pay attention to what you're doing, but the end result is a very good shave. Smoother than any electric or Gillette that I've ever had.

You can see the Rockwells at https://getrockwell.com/

I got the rest of my stuff at https://www.westcoastshaving.com/

And there's an excellent Reddit for advice at https://www.reddit.com/r/shaving/