I finally watched that old barber at Ray's Shop in Detroit work a straight razor on a walk-in

He didn't strop even once and just went at it dry, no shave cream or anything, and the guy walked out smooth as glass has anyone else seen something like that before?

3 comments

3 Comments

riverreed27d ago

Ray's been cutting hair on Gratiot for like 40 years so I'm gonna push back on this. I've seen him dry shave a few guys and it looked like a disaster waiting to happen. Just yesterday some kid came in with a full beard and Ray went at it with a straight razor that looked like it had been sitting in a drawer for a month, no oil or anything. Kid walked out with red bumps all over his neck and a patchy mess on his jaw. Maybe that one guy got lucky or had some weird skin type but I'm not buying that it works every time.

amy_murphy8527d ago

Pulled out a magnifying glass on my phone and watched a close-up of shaved skin under that kind of work once. There's a layer of dead skin cells that can get scraped off without soap if the blade is sharp and the angle is right, but it leaves micro-cuts invisible to the naked eye. Those tiny scratches fill with bacteria from the dry blade and you wake up the next morning with a red, swollen mess. That smooth finish might look nice for an hour but it's basically a free ticket to folliculitis.

grantschmidt10d ago

That "micro-cuts" thing is real. I had a buddy who went to a spot like that and ended up with staph infection that took two rounds of antibiotics to clear up. You gotta watch for any redness that spreads past the shaved area in the first 24 hours, that's the telltale sign something's wrong.