Pre-shave: Dr Bronner’s Liquid Peppermint
Lather: Mama Bear’s Awakening
Brush: Vie Long 13051M pure unbleached horse
Razor: Cadet TP-01 Open Comb with a fresh Astra Green Blade
Post-shave: Cool water rinse, alum, and Krampert’s Finest 80 Below
Pre-shave: Dr Bronner’s Liquid Peppermint
Lather: Arko Ice Mint Cream
Brush: Turkish No6 “horse”
Razor: Cadet TTO-11 Twist To Open / Open Comb with a Feather Blade
Post-shave: Cool water rinse, alum, and Krampert’s Finest Bay Rum
John Monk’s “pig scraper” – ergonomics was apparently not invented in 1874…
I do like the simple design though – this razor can be made from a simple piece of bent sheet metal. For someone with access to a sheet metal hand brake, some stainless steel and time, it should be pretty straight forward to construct a modern, cheap, simple razor for a modern SE blade.
Pre-shave: Dr Bronner’s Liquid Peppermint
Lather: Proraso
Brush: Vie Long 14033 mixed horse/badger
Razor: Cadet TTO-11 Twist To Open / Open Comb with a Feather Blade
Post-shave: Cool water rinse, alum, and Thayer’s Original Witch Hazel
Pulling a dragnet across the web brings up some interesting titbits now and then, and the 1762 Perrett’s safety razor is one of them.
By placing a wooden guard around an ordinary straight razor, in such a manner that only a sliver of the edge protruded, you were at least sure not to slice your ear or nose off while shaving. Still a far cry from the more modern DE and SE razors, but from what I can tell it was the very first baby step towards the razors we know and love. The basic idea was copied and expanded upon for the next hundred or so years.
Pre-shave: GzD shave stick (shave sticks works for pre-shave too)
Lather: GzD shave stick
Brush: Semogue TSN 2012 LE mixed badger/boar
Razor: Cadet TTO-11 Twist To Open / Open Comb with a Feather Blade
Post-shave: Cool water rinse and BodyShop Maca Root Face Protector
Pre-shave: Dr Bronner’s Liquid Peppermint
Lather: Wet Shaving Products pre-production sample
Brush: Vie Long 13051M pure horse
Razor: Cadet TTO-11 Twist To Open / Open Comb with a fresh Feather Blade
Post-shave: Cool water rinse and Krampert’s Finest Bay Rum
I have stumbled over the existence of a razor manufacturer I didn’t know about previously, along with a fairly unique razor. What caught my eye was the very interesting system for fitting the blade, which seems to be at least partly reliant on the springiness of the blade to ensure a solid lock. Markings shown in the pictures I found online includes “DIXI” (probably the brand name) and “D.R.P.a” (a German abbreviation meaning “patent applied for”).
Apparently the brand and style of razor was around from at least 1910 – I stumbled over a reference to the 1910 model being of brass at a site that sells antiques and hand-crafted items.
One I spotted over at an action site the seller claimed that that this was a:
…antique (WWII) Germany (signed D.R.P.) military field gear safety razor brand “DIXI”.
Apparently, this later model was made between 1940 and 1944 if my google-fu isn’t failing, and most likely from either white metal or zinc.
A very similar razor was sold in Italy under the trade name Folgore, but I’ve not been able to find much about when or from what material that was manufactured. I did score a few photos though, and it looks like brass:
No time to shave (or get much sleep), but mountains with a rustning of snow on top are damn pretty and calls the mind in much the same way as a shave…
Inspired by my recent acquisition of a WW1 Gillette Khaki, I have looked at what other military razors there are out there… these are supposedly Imperial Japanase razors from WW2, spotted on ebay.
This straight was described as “JAPANESE ARMY WW2 ISSUE STRAIGHT RAZOR”. Length 13 cm, it looks almost like a number of modern shavettes – from the photos it looks like a folded over piece of sheet metal gripping a SE-blade.With a metal press and some other tools one can probably start manufacturing similar bi-metal straights today with relative ease – whether there is market or not is a different question.
This was described by the seller as an “Original and very scarce JAPANESE ARMY WW2 ISSUE FOLDING ALL STEEL RAZOR”. Length closed 8 cm open 14 cm. It was held in the open position by holding down the thumb catch . It did not lock nor have a spring.
Over on my favourite shave forum the points was raised that the grind would be wrong for a straight, and similar folding knifes are still popular in Japan as utility blades. Still, the seller listed this as a folding straight… caveat emptor I guess.