But a straight razor shave isn't actually such a great embodiment of the Italian "hakuna matata" as it is the Italian "Gimmie the Gary Oldman from Hannibal!"
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Smooth.
Don't get me wrong; there are plenty of articles on the internet claiming that you can get a really great shave from a straight razor as long as you follow the proper steps:
1. Sharpen your blade before each shave
2. Apply a hot towel to your face to soften up those hairs
3. Lather a specialized foam by hand, using a badger brush
4. Train for 20 years on a Tibetan mountaintop with a master of shaving
5. Apply foam to face using the brush from earlier, making an effort to get your hairs to stand up (re-whip the foam if it's lost some volume during the decades of training)
6. Take your time shaving, concentrating all your attention on the divine task at hand
7. Find your master's dead body. You didn't notice he was killed because you were shaving
8. Vow revenge
9. Rinse off any excess foam
10. Dispatch leaders of enemy shaving academies one by one
11. Realize that your bloodlust has driven you to violate the very shaving principals you had trained so hard to learn, yet never understood
12. Apply a generous amount of skin-soothing aftershave because it's gonna sting pretty bad until your face gets used to its top layer getting scraped off.
So if you master those techniques, and also don't apply any of that care or expensive balm to shaving with normal razors, yes. You can absolutely get a better shave with a straight razor. But barring that -- and especially if you are having someone shave you instead of doing it yourself -- get ready to bleed a lot. If you don't believe me, just ask the many, many, many Freddy Krueger-looking guys who decided to get a straight shave one day because they saw it on TV.
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