WetShaving
This is a community of enthusiasts, hobbyists and artisans who enjoy a traditional wet shave: brush, soap, and safety or straight razor. We are a part of the WetShaving community found on Reddit, Discord, and IRC.
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Be Respectful. Do not bully, flame, or harass others.
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Malicious comments are not allowed but heated discussion and salty banter is okay.
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Rule 2 - Content Guidelines
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Mail Calls, Simple Questions, and SOTD posts belong in the recurring weekly threads.
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Posts must have sufficient content to generate a meaningful discussion.
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Use [First Impressions] in the title if your experience with the product is limited.
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Use the [Review] in the title if you can provide comprehensive details with enough familiarity to answer follow-up questions.
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Disclose how the product being reviewed was acquired (e.g., PIF, loan, or purchase). If the product was provided to you directly by the maker or vendor free of charge or at a discount, you must disclose this fact even if the item will later be returned to the maker or vendor.
Rule 4 - Advertising
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
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Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
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I got myself a beautiful Thiers Issard straight razor from eBay. It's in great shape, but I don't know anything about the prior owner. What are the best options for sterilizing this thing? Will simply rubbing it down with alcohol do the job, or does it need a prolonged bath in alcohol?
Also, what would your approach be to using it? Try the minimal intervention (stropping ), and then try it? Or would you take it to the stones before doing anything?
Physician here. Sterilise in the strict sense you canβt without an autoclave, but that wonβt be necessary. The professional method for disinfecting razors would be a bath in Barbicide, but a good scrubbing with a non abrasive bathroom cleaner and a toothbrush should already take away most bacteria and their hideouts. A few consecutive dips in 75% alcohol after that take away moisture and kill the rest. The razor still wonβt be sterile, but it should be good enough.
Thanks for the tips! I will clean the blade and dip it into alcohol. The point that you cannot sterilize a razor is well taken - my only worry was that I don't know anything about the previous owner, and I prefer to err on the side of safety.
I perfectly understand the concern. I actually did put a vintage razor through an autoclave once - the Lady Gillette I gave to my wife, so she could rest assured it was safe to use. But that was massive overkill and the psychological point was mostly in the sterilisation pouch as gift wrapping.
Generally rubbing alcohol is fine. If you want to go beyond that, get barbicide and soak the blade for a while in that. Just be certain in both cases you're not subjecting the scales to such as the scale material may respond poorly to the aggressive nature of those solutions.
I ended up immersing the blade in alcohol. Thanks !
My post here talks through what's needed.
https://www.reddit.com/r/wicked_edge/comments/14qrvf6/comment/jqp4jmd/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=mweb3x&utm_name=mweb3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Presuming you picked something up that needs sharpening (unless you got a lot of luck and chose a particular rare ebay seller, it will need sharpening), that's your first step, mail to a pro to sharpen it. Stropping will not make a straight razor sharper, it simply aligns the microscopic metal frill at the apex. Sharpening requires steel removal, not just alignment.
Post some pictures and more details!
Thanks for your reply and the link!
The blade was in really good shape, but after giving it a soak in alcohol, I tried it on my arm, but no joy there. I thought I would give it a try to sharpen it myself on a Shapton 12k. It turned out alright, and I shaved with it yesterday evening - good enough for me!