You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk powered by Sharpologist.com where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host Joe Borrelli and today is March 11th 2024.
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Today on the Show:
Meet Up at Maggards Coming Up!
One Month with a Hart Steel Straight Razor
“How Failure Can Lead to Success” Interesting Article on Sharpologist
Superior Cuts 3-D Printed Razor. Is this the Future?
St Patrick’s Day is Next Week . Get your Green On!
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Meet Up At Maggards 2024
The annual meet up at Maggards is coming up! It’s a great way to meet and greet all of your favorite producers and a way to make some new friends.
______________________________________________________________________________A Month With Hart Steel
A few years ago I did a review regarding my Hart Steel Straight Razor. I decided to revisit my experience with it last month. I’ll tell you my thoughts.
______________________________________________________________________________”How Failure Can Become Success”
Not only is this article great advice for wet shaving, it’s good advice for life! I enjoyed it and I think you will too!
_____________________________________________________________________________Superior Cuts 3-D Printed Razor
Just saw this one. The stand, and razor are completely 3-d printed. Weighs 17 grams and has several options in terms of aggression, handle size etc. Reviews are positive.
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Our show is powered by Sharpologist.com, “What Your Father Didn’t Teach You about Shaving”
Special Thanks to:
Mark aka Mantic 59
Most of All……….YOU!!!!
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Please feel free to contact me at [email protected]
Subscribe to my You Tube Chanel for videos regarding some interesting wet shaving content.
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Next Show: 3/25/24
Until then… Shave Straight and Shave Safe!!
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Transcript (Machine-Generated)
You’re listening to Wet Shaving Talk, powered by Sharpologist dot com, where we’re dedicated to preserving the art and skill of classic shaving. I’m your host, Joe Borrelli. And today is March 11th, 2020 for.
Hello everyone, and welcome back to the Wet Shaving Talk Podcast and it is March of 2024. You know, I was thinking about it and I say this quite often, I like this year is going by so quickly I can’t believe it’s already March. But then it made me think, is it because I’m getting older? Is it because I’m getting older and time is just not as long? Or does it seem as long because I have more time on me? Or is it just because the years really seem to go fast, or am I just too busy and I’m not sitting and smelling the roses per se? Uh, I don’t know. You guys can let me know your thoughts. Maybe, uh, maybe it’s a little bit of everything. Or maybe it’s just like, hey, time to slow down. Just really enjoy, you know, the month, the day. Or is it really just going by really quickly? Who knows?
Uh, today on the show, we do have quite a few things going on in the wet shaving world. Uh, there’s a meet up coming up from from maggards all the way up in Michigan. Uh, this is something that happens every year. It’s a really big meet ups, really exciting. I’ll talk a little bit about that. I really wish I can go to this one. Not sure. I always say every year I keep missing it out and it’s just love to see that that beautiful building that they’re restoring over there to, uh, Maggard’s building and see, uh, we’ll talk a little bit about that and what to expect when you go to a meetup of that size and that caliber.
One month with the heart steel straight razor. So a few years ago, I think it was about three years ago now. I did a review on my hard steel straight razor. I actually owned it for probably about seven years now. I had it for quite some time, and I just want to talk a little bit about it, uh, how I revisited using it again. And I actually just, you know, haven’t used in some time and just I want to spend a full month with it together, not not only just another kind of, uh, review on the review, per se. Uh, just to have just some more experience with it and I’ll tell you my thoughts on it and what I thought about using it for a completely for a month.
How failure can lead to success. This is an interesting article on Sharpologist. That’s really cool and great advice for not only wet shaving, but also for personal life.
Superior cuts 3D printed Razr. Is this the future of wet shaving? You know, you’ve been seeing a lot more of this of AI coming out. AI content, AI stuff. Is this the future of 3D printed as well? Is this something that we can see that you can actually will you be able to just get plans or ordered online, have it 3D printed right for you? I’ll tell you my thoughts and what I’ve found out on this as well.
Saint Patrick’s Day is next week guys. It’s next Sunday. Get your green on, get those green shaving soaps going and a couple of themed shaving soaps coming up. We’ll talk about that as well. Without further ado, let’s get on with the show.
All right, guys, so the Maggard’s meetup is going to be on April 20th from 12 to 5. That’s going to be at the Maggards, uh, retail sale location, which is that that nice, beautiful antique, uh, like, uh, not antique, I guess. I don’t know what kind of era that building is, but I know that, uh, the Maggards family have been restoring it to its original glory. And that’s where all of the, uh, the magic happens. For what, shaving in that area? Uh, maggard razor meetup. I think they’re in there, like, I don’t know, seventh year, sixth year of doing a meetup.
And really, what it entails is it’s a huge meetup where you have a bunch of vendors just show up, they put booths out, and then they’ll have, you know, sampling. They’ll have items for sale. So a lot of them will have the actual producer themselves, the owner of the company, the artisan, there to talk about it. I know, um, a lot of artisans with, uh, software will be there. I know wolf raisers. Go Wolf. Um, excuse not wolf razors. Wolf shaving brushes will be there as well. Peter Wolf usually goes and it’s really great way to meet those artisans, meet those producers in person, and be able to get possibly a few things to bring home with you.
Now, usually this this, uh, meetup, these types of meetups include like lunch, which this one does. They’ll have snacks and food, and they’ll also have just like a lot of people talking, saying, I said many times, if you’ve been listening to this podcast for several years now, every year I want to go to these things. Every year I did get to go to one. I actually made the flight to Pasadena, Florida, Florida, look at me, uh, Pasadena, California, and went to the Big Shave West one year, which I actually really am thankful that I was able to make it.
And I did do the the long flight and everything here from Florida, because it was the last one that they had there, and it was really fun. And I got to meet a lot of great people and a lot of those, you know, those guys you see on YouTube and those producers that you, you know, have purchased stuff from and see you get to see them in person. It was great to meet them in person and just got to talk to them for even for a few hours.
I had a blast. I thought it was really fun. Everybody was so nice. So I do highly recommend going to a wet shaving meetup, especially the bigger ones like this, because it is just great. You know, it’s one of those hobbies that we do that the people are just awesome. There really are. So April 20th, that’s in a month. If you can make it, go for it. Guys. I’m high, I tell you, you will not regret it. Especially for some of you new guys out there. You’ll you’ll really get a nice feel of the wet shaving community and what it is. And, and in a whole, uh, being able to see everybody in person. So highly recommended, I if I can go, I will be there, trust me. Uh, but, yeah, uh, there’s already over two dozen vendors going to be there. I think, uh, there’s going to be some, uh, some speaking or something like that. It’s it’s just really cool.
So it’s already it’s kind of one of those meetups I’m pretty sure is not 100% capacity yet. There’s still some spots left and some tickets left. And, uh, I think vendors are still being added daily. So check it up. Check. Excuse me, check it out on their website and, uh, for updates. And you can go if you’re in the area. I highly recommend it. A month with hard steel.
So as I previously said, guys, in the beginning of this podcast, you know, a month with the hard steel razor, I just I use my. So just to give you a little insight of what I’ve been doing in 2024 so far, I have only used straight razors this year. And I’ll tell you why. I went a long time using safety razors. And you know, I was, as you guys know, if you know me, my what shaving journey started with, you know, a bunch of things that probably shouldn’t have happened. So I used I use a straight razor first. I used it where it wasn’t sharpened, corrupt properly, it wasn’t honed properly. And I used safety razors kind of after that. And I tried doing everything and just kind of had a bad experience.
And that’s why I came to the forums and I came to, you know, a lot of groups and I got a lot of help with it, but I kind of, like have gone back to my roots a little bit. I have I used to straight razor shave primarily for about five years, and then I started getting the safety razor razors because of my friends, and they were into it as well. My wet shaving friends, which are my friends, my regular friends as well. I try to start using them and I just really enjoyed the safety razor aspect because there’s so many different types out there vintage, new everything, different styles, and they all shave differently. A lot of them shave differently.
So I started getting into safety razors for a few years, and now I’m like, you know what? I’m going back to my roots. I haven’t really picked up straight razors primarily for a long time. So last I want to say November, like around Thanksgiving, I grabbed my my old Dover straight razor that my wife gave me back in 2011. So that one I’ve had for a long time. I honed it up and I started using that one and I used a couple. I have another one too. That’s a no name vintage straight. That’s awesome thing. Shaved so great that I don’t even know what the name is. I don’t know where it’s from. It’s it’s an extra hollow grind. It’s honed perfectly. And it just really just the the whiskers just run away from fear with this thing. That’s how sharp it is. And it never had an issue with it. And it’s very comfortable.
So I like I love that I keep that my rotation. So those two razors are primarily my rotation. And you know, I looked at the heart steel sitting there in my drawer and I said, you know, this is a great razor that I used several years ago. I did a review on it. I actually owned it for like two years before I even used it, which is sad. You know, I just bought it. I got a great deal on it from Classic Shaving, and I kept it for a while and I just so I grabbed it. I said, you know, I’m going to use this for a month and just have fun. Have fun with it, enjoy my stuff and I’ll tell you my thoughts on it. I heart steel, you know, some guys have had some quality issues with these things.
I luckily didn’t, so mine was honed up pretty well when I got it. I still have the original bevel on it, so I haven’t really honed it completely from like a from a bevel setting from a very, very high or low grit stone. Sorry. And going up. So I still just maintaining it on the cuticle, which is just, you know, basically maintenance. And then a paste is drop when I use it. And I did that only a couple times. The razor solid. Man, it’s just really a nice razor. It’s nice to use the quarter hollow grind on. It really gives it that weight. It gives it that real like wedge feeling when you’re shaving with it. Like it feels like an older razor for you.
Straight razor guys out there, uh, you guys know, uh, safety razor guys, you might be you might be, uh, like, hey, what does that mean? A wedge razor means it’s just got a thicker grind. So it’s it really, like, plows through. It’s like kind of using like, like a heavy axe on your on your face, if that makes any sense. Right. And it’s heavier. It feels heavier. Even if it not if it isn’t. And it does. Just a quieter shave like it just comes through. You don’t hear anything like a hollow ground. We hear ding ding, ding. This thing just goes right through. And I really enjoyed it and I had a great time using it. I’d say the only thing I have with mine that gave me a little bit of an issue is that hex screw started getting a little loose. So I went online.
I found a few guys that said, hey, I found a way to do it. They put a notch in the actual screw so you can put like a screwdriver behind it and then tighten it up a little bit more. And that seemed to have worked. So I like the hex screw area. Reason because you could take the the blade off the scales off the handle and then clean it. Right. But I mean, I think it’s probably not necessary. I think most of my straight razors, I’ve owned some of them vintage. There’s no rust or anything under there. If you just clean them properly and use it right, you won’t have any issues. But that’s the only gripe I have with this razor. Everything else is good. Uh, the scales on it. I have the plastic scales again. A lot of guys say they’re a little cheap. Uh, they are. It’s plastic.
So, I mean, I do prefer wood or or another material bone or something like that. Or horn. Uh, first. Actually, I really do like wood. I think solid wood is the best. Uh, but it’s okay. I mean, I can just get another set of scales eventually and do that. And that’s what kind of brings the price up and down is scale material on those type of razors. So I just really wanted to get the nice the blade. So I had a good time with it. Guys, I think it’s really still very solid. I’m going to keep it in the rotation.
And with straight razors I kind of like my my goal is to keep like, uh, I guess. A seven razor like a seven day set, but keep it like a custom one. I’ve always wanted a seven day set, like I wanted to get, you know, a set or something brand new. They are kind of expensive, but they’re listed and, you know, they’re like, you know, marked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. All of them together.
So that’s something I really wanted to do. Use it. I thought it was really a cool thing to have. But then I said to myself, why just buy one type of razor like that in a box? Maybe I can make my own set with different razors and use them every day. So that’s kind of like my I guess that’s on my radar for now. I plan on doing that, and I think that if my seven day set. I said, first off, the hard steel is going to be in there, right? I’ll put the hard steel in there.
My double will be in there as well. And that of course had no name with, I guess it looks like green, kind of like tortoiseshell scales, but it’s plastic. They’re not real. It’s the nice scales. I just don’t know the name of the brand razor. And it just shaves so nicely. I got it in a set that I bought online on eBay. Just there’s like I bought like a, um, a whole, like, box full of straight razors for, for nothing. And I bought it like ten years ago or something. And I just kept that one. And for some reason I used it one time, I just all I did was strop it and it started passing the hanging hair test, and it was just awesome. So I started I honed it up a little bit, and I’ve been using it and I’ve been really enjoying that razor as well. So that will definitely be my seven day set. And I’ll talk a little bit more about that in a future show about how to build a seven day set and everything.
So not to go off to too far off topic, so start still had a great time with it. Still love that that um, deerskin sheath that comes with it to keep it in there and still recommend this razor if you’re looking for something sort of on the custom line without that huge or crazy price tag. So how failure can become success. Now this is an article that was on Sharpologist, I guess. I don’t know when I think it was recent. Yeah, it was like last month and I just saw it and I said, hey, wait a minute. This is not just about wet shaving.
This is about everything. You can really use this everywhere. So it’s great for personal growth, for success embracing buy. So basically in a in a nutshell, this article goes, embracing failure. You can value, you can gain. A lot of positive things from it, right? You learn how to accept failure, you learn how to learn from failure, and then you know your strengths and weaknesses and ultimately how to. Conceive the desired outcome. Right.
So looking at fear or failure. Example with with wet shaving is hey, you get a new straight razor or a new safety razor and you have a terrible shave at first, right? And understanding where you screwed up or where did you mess up? Hey, my neck is all irritated, right? Or underneath my nose I cut myself or something like that. How do you learn from that? How do you keep doing? Well, you know what? My technique is different. Let me learn how my hair grows on my neck. It’s different. Like in my personal situation, my hair grows the opposite way on my neck as it does on my cheeks. Right? It grows up so I have to go.
When I go against the grain, it’s almost like going with the grain, right? It’s like to the side. Some guys are like that, some guys aren’t. So that’s something that I guess that’s an example of what shaving on how failure can lead to success is. When I learned how to shave my neck the hard way by getting irritation, and then eventually I learned the way my hair grew and I was able to succeed at practice. And it came through it. Right. But I would never have known that unless I failed and made and had irritation and I would never have learned, um, the way my the hair grows on my face. Right.
So that’s another thing about what shaving and how you can bring that. But overall, this article is really interesting. It is a great, uh, it does work for a wet shaving, but it also does work for general life too, right? You got to fail at life. You know, we my job, we talk about failing fast, right? We say, hey, fail fast, meaning try something. It doesn’t work. Move on to something else. Right? But if you don’t try and fail, then you’ll then have you really tried hard enough. So the same thing can go with wet shaving. Same thing.
Go with any hobby out there, you know, RC cars or regular cars or something like that. Watches, you know, you you have to learn the hard way. I know I learned a little bit of a lesson I learned from failure by buying a used vintage watch and not not going through the proper protocol and saying, hey, you know what? I saved a few bucks, but it ended up costing me money later because I had to get it fixed or or I didn’t follow the advice of others. So I learned my lesson the hard way, that way. So I guess that’s in general that can be, um, the saying of this, this article learning the hard way on how failure can be successful, it can lead to success. That is, uh, it’s true in everything.
So link for the in the show notes for this article. Really interesting. Really great. Uh, you know, give it a read when you get a chance if that’s something that you’re looking for. Superior cuts. This this small wet shaving company has come out with a 3D printed razor with a bunch of options. Now, I saw this on Badger and Blade and a guy posted it. He said he’s having. You know, it’s actually really nice. He’s having a good time with it. The razor weighs only 17g. So give you an example. My BZ one weighs over 100g. This one weigh 17g. It is 100%, I guess plastic, right. And it’s 3D printed to order. And you can print out, you know, you can do, um, you can ask for it comes with the stand.
You can say I wanted aggressive. I want a longer, you know, you choose the the length of your handle. So one thing is I was looking at this and I thought it was really interesting to see how these 3D printed razors have, have become. And they’re very this one in particular is very detailed. And I know that there’s 3D printing with metal, there’s 3D printing with different items with different types of material. This one seems to be very basic.
So one thing in this new AI slash incident culture that we have right now, right eye is becoming huge. You’re going to be able to do you’re going to see people doing YouTube that are and there are videos out there now that they don’t even have to do it. They could just type what they want to say. And they can have. I do that as well and a video will actually produce them standing there talking about this item without them even videotaping themselves. That technology is out here. And that’s kind of what this 3D printer, I guess, reminded me of for some reason.
So 3D printed razors are coming to the point where you may be able to get a 3D printer at home, and you can actually print out a razor by buying the plans from another company. Basically, they’ll email to you or instantly will send it to you, and then you can just, you know, upload it and it will print out that exact razor and you don’t even have to ship anymore. That’s where this technology is coming from eventually. Eventually, from what I’ve seen and what I’ve talked to a few people about that are in the 3D printing is this kind of stuff will be with any material when it gets more mainstream, but you won’t even have to worry about shipping anymore.
With a lot of stuff you can replicate a, you’ll be able to replicate a three piece Gillette razor at home and not have to ship it. And the guy and the person that you purchase it from can instantly just have it available for download. So I thought that was the technology is very interesting. It’s definitely up and coming. 3D printing has been around for some time now, but it’s now getting more mainstream. It’s getting it’s getting easier to acquire these printers. Right. So in the meantime, this is a Croatian Razr that’s 100% 3D printed from a synthetic material and reasonably priced. And it’s been getting really good reviews. You can customize again, the gap that you want, aggression level. And you can also get, you know, different handles and stuff and you can get them pretty quickly.
But um, what are your what are your guys’s thoughts on actual 3D printing in general, like, and all this AI stuff? You know, this is something also I’m going to be talking about in the future, and I’m doing a little bit more research on it for wet shaving. Like, how is AI going to really help and how is AI going to going to affect the YouTube scene? Right. Can a YouTuber just go and type in what they want to be said, what they want to say, or upload a review from a razor or the description and just create a review out of it and, you know, ten minutes with them talking about it and maybe even shaving with it or shaving in general without even doing it right. Is that possible in the future?
We’ll talk about that in a future show, and I’ll tell you my thoughts on it, too. It’s like kind of takes a little bit of the fun of the wet shaving world and the video making world as well. If you’ve ever done a three, uh, YouTube video. So 3D printing is definitely a wave of the future, I think. I think it’s coming, they will be more mainstream soon. And I think this Razer’s actually really interesting, and I’d like to try a 3D printing razor in the near future myself. So be on the lookout for one of those reviews.
All right, everyone, Saint Patrick’s Day is next week. Get your green on. This is a great opportunity to use green. Anything and anything that’s like an Irish Spring smell because that’s usually, um, one of my favorites, actually. I like I love Irish spring soap, I use it, I love using it’s green. It’s great for Saint Patrick’s Day, it’s great for every day. But I it’s one of my favorites. And there’s a couple of, um, you know what, Shavers? What?
Shaving, um, vendors that actually have Saint Patrick’s Day stuff. I know, uh, Phoenix Arts and Encroachments. They have, uh, the Tweed they call it. And it was like, basically like a, like an Irish Spring type scented soap. I still have mine. I always use it this week. So what are your Saint Patrick’s Day shaves coming up? If you’d love to. If you’d like to excuse me, share your your pictures with me and I’ll post it on the show in the next show. But get your green on guys this weekend. It’s on Sunday this week, this week coming up this year. So, uh, you know, hopefully you don’t have to call out sick on Monday from having too much fun on Sunday.
So have a blast, guys, and show us those green shave of the days. All right. So that concludes our show for this week. Uh, just remember our show is powered by Sharpologist dot com, which your father didn’t teach you about shaving. Special thanks to you guys, the listeners and Mark Mantic59 for everything he does with the wet shaving community. Uh, don’t forget, guys, check out my book. It’s available on Amazon. The Modern Guide to Straight Razor Shaving in both Kindle and paperback form. I love the support guys. Really appreciate the amount of books that we were able to sell that I was able to sell. Uh, completely done by myself. All my all the writing is mine. Original. There’s no AI or any of that generated stuff in it. All the pictures to our are 100% from me. So if you want to see an old school kind of book in a modern way for straight razors, check it out if you can. Also working on another project as well, hopefully coming out in a in the next year or so. Next show will be on the 25th of March. Until then guys shave straight and shave safe. Bye bye now.
