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.
New subscribers welcome!
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🪒 Community Rules
Rule 1 - Behaviour and Etiquette
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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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Low effort replies and complaints about content will be removed.
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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Images, links, or videos must include additional text that summarizes the topic.
Rule 3 - Reviews and Disclosure
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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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Vendors are to keep marketing within the biweekly Deals/New Products threads.
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Non-vendors may post topics about products if it will foster a compelling discussion.
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Do not solicit donations or share fundraisers without mod approval.
Rule 5 - Inappropriate Content
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All NSFW/L content must request mod approval and be flaired appropriately.
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Non-shaving related NSFW/L content is not allowed.
Rule 10 - Moderator Discretion
- The rules may not apply perfectly to every situation. The mods have final 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 can’t without an autoclave, but that won’t 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 won’t 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.
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 !