Shaving
Until recently, in my opinion, the Gilette Mach 3 was the best shaving method by a country mile. The two-blade Gilette Sensor isn't quite enough and the Wilkinson Quattro is just too big. The 5-blade Fusion thing is so wide it just drags.

Complaining about the price of them, my mate got a Gilette Safety razor, the chrome things that you fit a razor blade into the top and screw it into place. He demonstrated it when I met him at his house before going out on the lash. It seemed quite cool, but I wanted something more bad-ass.

So I bought a pair of cut-throat razors and strop off eBay. They needed honing a bit and not having a proper whetstone, I used a kitchen knife steel to sharpen the edge, and then sat at my desk and stropped a keen edge to the blade for a good half hour making me look a bit of a serial killer, as my wife pointed out.

I prepared my face with hot flannels, soap and so on and then went to make the first pass whereby I jabbed myself in the cheek with the edge of the blade. 10 minutes later, standing in a bathroom that now resembled a slaughterhouse I finally stopped the bleeding and had another go.

It was ace, and apart from the leading edge of my chin it was pretty simple. Apart from slicing my face open, I only nicked myself twice. It takes maybe 2 or 3 shaves practice before you can avoid drawing blood. However, Mrs Sandettie can't watch and refuses to be in the room at the same time.

Oh, I will add that the only way I'd get a closer shave would be to do it from the inside.

Obligatory length joke: About 4 inches, surgically sharp like a brand-new scalpel and held inches away from your eye obscured from view behind your hand.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 16:25, 21 replies)

Click for "standing in a bathroom that now resembled a slaughterhouse"
And I think you are mental for using a straight edge for anything other than gang fights.
( BrokenCoccyx doesn't mind if you grope on, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 16:34, closed)

What about
using a belt sander? The principle is the same, nearly.

Let us know how it goes.
( Not Pineapple anymore, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 16:36, closed)

Nah
I use a sander for the hard-skin on my cracked heels. Works like a charm.
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:23, closed)

Clicking for nothing but pure courage!
I get a couple of weeks off every three or four months and let me face fuzz grow: I'm also doing it for Movember this year. It's become ritualistic (almost) that when I'm getting ready to go back to work my last activity is, on the morning of return to work, to go to a barber for a hot-towel, wet-shave.

Ridiculously indulgent given that the barber charges £55 for it but really gives me a lift before I go back to work. The rest of the time I use a Gilette Fusion which, despite having wide blades (as described by SLAV, above) is satisfactory for my needs.

Comedy sign off: "signed, Ethel Jones (Mrs)"
(Wibblist Last said "Wibble" on, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 16:44, closed)

Alrite Craig
Which dangerous fantasies are you currently acting out? Also do you think that you’ll go all the way one day and start murdering prostitutes for body parts, in order to create your ‘ultimate wife’ tm
( Light In Chains maker of the ikea sofa, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 16:45, closed)

I have a straight razor too
Fuck spending £8 for four razor blades!
(Miraclefish How appropriate, you fight like a cow, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 16:59, closed)

Having received a real shave
from a NOVICE barber and yelped more than once as they endeavoured to re enact the scenes from Silence of the Lambs and Reservoir Dogs only to then slather my bleeding visage with what can only have been sulphuric acid I can but admire your knackers at seeing this through.

Have a brutally sharp click.
( number5 has been fighting tramps and losing., Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:15, closed)

I have one as well
I wanted to use it to give myself a nice tidy edge to my beard. I didn't get over the pain and blood stage so now it hides in my sock drawer to taunt me every time I go for some socks.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:17, closed)

practice makes perfect
My friends grandad was a barber and apparently he used to get his apprentices to practise giving a shave on a balloon covered in shaving foam - if it pops you lose!
(bryo, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:22, closed)

Paradoxically
The sharper the blade, the safer it is
( sandettie light vessel automatic New Twitter - @bollocksreally, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:28, closed)

Also
It's probably easier not having to shave around a beard. I had to contort my hand in all sorts of odd angles to get the blade just at the right place to shave the tiny bit of face I wanted shaving without shaving the rest of it.
(BearWithLittleBrain, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:35, closed)

^
For some reason, I misread this as 'baboon'.
Feck me, I thought, that's some hardcore apprentice barber training . . .
(SalRossi Laughter the best medicine? Nurse, penicillin....., Mon 8 Nov 2010, 12:07, closed)

I gave up shaving a few years ago*.
Now I just run hair clippers over all my head hair every week or two -- keeps my head cool and avoids the horrid slimy skin I get when I shave.
Still, if I ever do have to shave for work I think I owe it to myself to try a cutthroat.
*in typical me fashion I did this shortly after buying a job-lot of twin-blade Gilette heads on two for one.
(Me, I'm not... in any way intoxicated, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:42, closed)

I'm told...
...that the strop works for cartridge razor blades too, making one set last forever. Not tried it. I use an Azor and love it.
(Rilux might be pregnant and has bum-aids, Fri 5 Nov 2010, 17:45, closed)

I *think* it was sandettie
who told me that you could strop yer basic cartridges against the skin on your palm, by moving it in the opposite direction to 'shave'. Whoever it was, it was about four months ago minimum and I'm still using the same Fusion.

Which is alright, but I would love to get a proper cutthroat razor though. Nobody trusts me with sharp things.
(Falstaff's Spiritual Successor, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 8:48, closed)

I've started doing that
works a treat. I am contemplating the purchase and usage of a straight razor though- might do a bit of the balloon and foam practice first...
( uncle bastard is twanging a dan moi, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 8:59, closed)

Fuck, that
made me feel faint, just the thought.

When I was a kid, the local barber used to strop the cutthroat in front of you while grinning maniacally. All the kids said that he had cut someone's ear off. I still hate going to get my hair cut
(Cotsan, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 2:27, closed)

May I recommend reading
"The Man from Ironbark"
(M61A1 CUPID- STUNTS, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 8:04, closed)

I'd love to trust myself enough to try this.
Despite being a (sort of) pianist and a keen cyclist, though, and thus combining dexterity with balance skills, I'm still a notoriously clumsy bastard. A little voice in my head would never let me near a real cut-throat.

Maybe when I've mellowed and have become an old git.
( .Yeti. El amor en los tiempos del cólera, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 9:16, closed)

straight shaving is recommended here too
easy peasy
( lordsaccharine b3taing is well retro mate, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 11:27, closed)

I would love to try straight shaving, but getting nervous whenever I go near my throat with a stupid Gilette means I'm going to wait a while to slice my face open.

Also, click for actually making my face feel weird whilst reading this.
( Trogdos The Raging Cuntmuffin, Sat 6 Nov 2010, 21:17, closed)

I had a three piece razor (so-called safety razor) some time ago...
... most frightening experience of my life was having the then gf shave me with it. Took fucking ages, too. My grandfather had a Rolls razor. Now that looked interesting.
(barbedwiretumbleweed Fast 'n' Bulbous!, Sun 7 Nov 2010, 1:05, closed)