Talk:Shaving

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[edit] Tutorial on wet shaving

There is a good tutorial on wet shaving at: Joy of Shaving A tutorial on wet shaving

For safety-razor shaving, see this comprehensive guide.

Montereyham 02:15, 14 April 2007 (UTC)Montereyham 02:13, 14 April 2007 (UTC)The above link takes the reader to a post that explains in detail the tools and procedures required for a traditional safety-razor shave. The information at the link seems relevant and useful and is not commercial. Perhaps Wikipedia should not be linked to it, but I don't understand why not.

The shaving technique described restricts itself to at most two passes: with the nap and against the nap. This is not a good idea. For a shave free of irritation, it's important to go for progressive stubble reduction. It would be much kinder to the shaver's face to follow a pass with the nap with one across the nap, and only then (if needed) against the nap. This is described in the comprehensive guide mentioned above.

If any of you believe this is helpful I will appreciate it if you add it to the list of “external links” I was recently scolded for adding my own site to the list. - --Lbeaumont 14:09, 16 November 2006 (UTC)

This site assumes one shave is enough and does not mention the direction razor strokes in the context of the direction of hair growth. I would not say it is a good one to cite. It has good pictures. I would rather Wikipedia develops its own set of pictures to illustrate shaving technique. Lumos3 15:20, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
not true - see step #4 where it talks about "shaving with the grain" - Also, at your suggestion I added mention that "Some men find that a second shave is required" --Lbeaumont 00:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)
Yes, and more than that, it engages in direct retail sales-- a major no-no. -- Mwanner | Talk 16:38, 16 November 2006 (UTC)
Just to be clear, I get no revenue from the site. I began it about 10 years ago when it was difficult to find supliers for wet shaving supplies. I continue to link to useful suppliers. --Lbeaumont 00:18, 17 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Lathering

I might be the only one, but I don't use a lathering agent to shave. Proff that it is not in the should catagory. I don't nessicarly argue that you should skip them though.

Knife sharpeners sometimes consider a sharp knife as one that they can shave with, and normally test on the hair of their arm, without any form of softening agent.

[edit] urban legend or not?

shaving makes hair grow back thicker

urban legend. I just added some medical citations. Jokestress 17:14, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

[edit] pic

hows the pic relevant to the article ? can there be a caption ? Jay 13:25, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The pic mentioned above was irrelevant to the article, so it was changed a while back. I thought I'd put this notice here so other people reading the talk page wouldn't be confused. DreamGuy 19:02, Mar 18, 2005 (UTC)
Sure... but as with every «medical» claim on the subject, no source was provided.

[edit] Stereotype?

Is the sentence about pubic shaving becoming more common among gay men true, or is it just a stereotype? Is it supported by some study or survey? -- Mjwilco 23:09, 12 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Grammar, Alexander the Great

Whew...I'm combing through this article to fix a lot of grammatical errors and apparently irrelevant discussion. I deleted the part about Alexander the Great, which seemed somewhat uninformative and rambling (Alexander was the King of Macedon, and I fail to see how that relates to a Roman emperor, especially over the trend of something as minor as shaving). The sentence "Alexander the Great made shaving popular." seemed very unsupported. All of my other changes are purely grammatical.

Hmmm. I wonder if they meant "Peter the Great". I recall from High School history that Peter would dry shave with any handy knife subjects who appeared in his court with a beard. Up until his reign shaving had not been typical in his culture. I won't put anything about this in the article myself because it is only a hazy memory from quite a few years ago, but I am quite confident that this was presented to me in that class. I do not feel authoritative on the matter. Perhaps someone else does. Moleskiner 18:12, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

beards had been the style in russia, and peter the great brought western traditions, including cleanshavenness. Night Gyr 05:53, 13 May 2006 (UTC)
Yeah, he was the big westernizer. The peasants were more or less ignored in this, but nobility was expected to learn French and ditch the notably "Eastern" beards. A modest "beard tax" was actually instituted to ensure this. Fearwig 02:20, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Styling

This article mentions nothing about styling your facial hair or such.

[edit] History

Could someone source this? Am I supposed to believe that every person on Earth who shaved their hair in any way used two sea shells to pull it out? That's not even shaving, per se. Fearwig 02:17, 10 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] trivia image

the image and caption within trivia regarding the number of blades on a razor nearing infinity by 2015 doesn't seem relevant. And furthermore, is based off only five different razors. If anyone can find a better source that conveys the same message, then feel free to add/suggest. BadCRC 01:59, 23 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] References

The external link http://www.howtoapplyaftershave.com/ seems to be mainly google ads and to have little actual content.

Two links have been removed from the references section, and (with the numbered references) I don't see how to return them. Since I believe the links are valuable, perhaps some editor could add them. They are:

Comprehensive guide to shaving with a safety razor

A beginner's kit for safety-razor shaving

[edit] Vanity image

Let's not be silly about this. The photo doesn't really do a lot for the article, and the upload history is pretty conclusive.

I'm not leaping to the defence of the Dalai Lama picture either, but it's ever-so-lightly less OR than taking a photo of onesself for an article... Chris Cunningham 15:29, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

This is not a picture of me. Sure I took it, with the intent of contributing to this article, but doesnt wikipedia encourage that sort of thing so that we can have copyright-free images? Personalcareposter 17:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)
To an extent. There's obviously a degree of nuance in deciding which images are appropriate. The concept of being clean-shaven really doesn't need random illustrations. This one happened to stick out as being, well, just a random image, as opposed to a particularly useful illustration. Chris Cunningham 18:43, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


I have added Telly Savalas as a an example of the results of shaving. He is famous without being controvertial, and maintained his image shaved throughout his career. Lumos3 10:37, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Blog tutorials, again

Look, anyone can write a how-to article on a blog. Unless there's some real justification for these links having encyclopedic value, they shouldn't be included in this article. Merely being "useful" is not a criterion for inclusion. Chris Cunningham 09:54, 16 April 2007 (UTC)

What were the criteria that enabled the inclusion of the shaving techniques in the article? In my view, the description there is incomplete, and my link to the longer post was to provide a more comprehensive (and, IMHO, better) introduction to shaving with a safety razor. In fact the comprehensive guide to shaving with a safety razor seems more informative and more helpful than the current external link. What about a link to a book on shaving? Is that allowed? Montereyham 03:35, 24 April 2007 (UTC)Montereyham

A book would be an excellent Reference to include. Also any links to web sites with "authority" such as those at established educational, academic, health , scientific or government bodies. Lumos3 09:27, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pfizer

I'm assuming that by Phizer the author meant the pharmaceutical company Pfizer and have altered it accordingly Wheatleya 15:25, 1 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ladyshave

There's no article about this object yet, nor is it mentioned in this article. James Blond 13:55, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

Somebody recently changed the sentence about this subject, by adding, that essentially there's no difference between razors used by men and so called ladyshaves. Well, the big difference is, that a ladyshave is the type of razor, barbers use to remove the relatively soft neckhair with men, but not the type of razor used by men to remove their beardhair, because this hair is much harder than neckhair. As there are very litlle men, who use to shave their legs, by use of the ladyshave type of razor, there is an essential difference indeed, between men's razors and ladyshaves. James Blond 03:38, 28 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Brandname

Under the picture in the section about electric shaving a brandname is mentioned. Think this is not necessary and maybe even against the W-rules. James Blond 03:55, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

The display of razors image also names them by brand name. Would you also remove these? I think named models and classic designs are perfectly OK to name in image descritions. Lumos3 08:07, 28 June 2007 (UTC)
The razors image shows several products with several brandnames. This is quite different from mentioning just one brandname. Braun could ask a W-user, to remove the Philishave and replace it by a Braun model. Later on Philps could offer that user more, to put the image of their model back, and so on. So if brandnames have to be mentioned from the informational point of view, than rather several other names too, at the same time. James Blond 03:13, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Gender disparity

This article seems very oddly gendered. It seems to have been written originally from a male pov, with female shaving added in as an after thought, esp. in the section on techniques. Ex: facial hair is most often mentioned, although that is mostly a male concern. The writing just seems strangely unbalanced.

[edit] Definition of clean shaven

A man is called clean-shaven if he has had his beard totally removed.[1]

Reference notwithstanding, surely a man has to remove his beard and his moustache to be regarded as clean-shaven.

Unless anyone objects I intend to amend the article accordingly and remove the (presumed) innacurate reference.

Roy Badami 20:38, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Less pain and redness?

Although I know personal experience can not be used as a source for the article, I am questioning the validity of the following statement:

"The primary disadvantage to electric shaving is (...). The advantages are as follows: (...), less pain and redness."

In my experience the opposite is true. Electric shaving is somewhat painful, even for a while after shaving, and sometimes gives me reddish skin, while 'wet shaving' has never given me any trouble at all. I realise the statement is sourced, but the source does not provide any verifiable grounds for this statement (no research is cited), are there any other sources for this statement? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.139.81.122 (talk) 11:52, 13 March 2008 (UTC)


[edit] Multi-blade cartridges

Current multi-bladed cartridges claim to improve shaving and have seen a design war with manufacturers adding greater numbers of blades than competitors.

I had the same reaction to this comment as the poster above had to the one about electric shaving -- doesn't jibe with my experience.

First of all, if you want to get pedantic about it, the cartridges can't "claim" anything, because they're inaminate objects. Their makers may claim it, but if so, this should have a cite, and it might be worth mentioning that safety-razor devotees would strongly take issue with that statement, and would argue that the rationale behind multi-blade cartridges was entirely economic (it allowed Gillette et al to avoid commodification of razor blades and lock consumers in to far more expensive purchases.) I'm not saying that's the undisputed truth (although it is my belief), but the issue should at least be discussed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.239.191.220 (talk) 03:15, 21 March 2008 (UTC)