Talk:Shaving

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.

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)

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.

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)

No you silly! The article says that is FALSE! 2001:5B0:4ED1:B98:69BC:BE23:8C41:54CD (talk) 20:20, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

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.

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)

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)

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

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)

Just got around to sourcing. I could not source for ancient use of shells for shaving/plucking, but I could source for use by Native Americans. I did not have book on hand, when I get home I will put the page numbers and the specific tribes she refers to. 128.208.36.169 (talk) 08:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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)

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.

I agree. There should be a picture of a woman shaving her legs. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.62.30.106 (talk) 07:10, 4 March 2011 (UTC)

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)

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)

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)

Fatuous use of "citation needed"
There's a call for a citation on the existance of a social stigma againsts female facial hair. I think this might be hard to find a citation for, as well as being non contraversial. Barring any arguments, I'm removing it. If anybody feels an overwhelming desire to see a citation, I'd love to hear why. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Cmsg (talk • contribs) 13:35, 7 July 2008 (UTC)

I do not see any need for a citation. I think the use of "citation needed" is sometimes overdone on Wikipedia.

John Paul Parks (talk) 14:42, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

More hair?
I've heard that if you shave, more hair grows back, and it's stronger than before. Is that true? Wether it is or isn't, I think it should be mentioned. 62.128.42.30 (talk) 06:49, 4 December 2008 (UTC)

I think that was covered in the "urban legend or not?" section above. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.63.69.193 (talk) 18:55, 11 September 2011 (UTC)

Why don't sharp razors normally cut skin while shaving?
I think an answer to that question would be a great addition to this article if someone knows or can find the answer. I also wonder if it is possible to have a blade that is too sharp so that you can't shave with it without getting cut on every stroke. Mindbuilder (talk) 23:18, 11 August 2010 (UTC)

I see links to forums & blogs being removed as not appropriate to link. I salute that. There are equally as many references to commercial sites, blogs, forums in the References section for all the shave related topics (Safety Razors, Shaving Brushes, etc) and I would be happy to see them all go. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.48.36.79 (talk) 02:46, 21 September 2010 (UTC)

Citation needed for cartridges costing more money than single blades? what?
seriously? 82.46.109.39 (talk) 12:42, 3 April 2011 (UTC)

It just seems a random and unnecessary thing to say. Also the line about the competition between razor cartridge companies. Maybe should be moved to another article/section. Wiseherb (talk) 08:46, 5 April 2011 (UTC)

Shaving in Religion: Eastern Orthodoxy, Mormonism, and Evangelical Protestantism
The shaving in religion section on Christianity seems to deal with head, rather than beard shaving, except for the Amish. However I'd like to raise two points:

1. Some adherents of Eastern Orthodoxy, or at least Russian Orthodoxy, consider beards a sign of piety. I'm currently too busy/lazy to do the research and find out and source the reasoning. Also, I'd want to do research on Oriental Orthodoxy at the same time.

2. I know that some evangelical colleges require students to shave, as does Brigham Young University. These regulations usually seem to allow sideburns to some point on the ear and nothing else, as well as require close-cropped hair. There are also some exceptions, for example students over 25 at Bob Jones University and religious (Sikh/Muslim/Jewish) at BYU. Further modern Mormons (though not the polygamist church fathers) and evangelical preachers always seem to be bare-faced. So my question is, what's the deal with hardcore Christians and shaving requirements? Is there some textual basis? Is it to distinguish adherents from heathen Jews and Muslims and heretic Eastern Orthodox? Or is it just because Mormons and evangelicals like to promote themselves as the protectors of traditional Western culture, and shaving has been common among the upper classes in Western Culture at least since Roman times? —Quintucket (talk) 03:49, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Should Rastafari not be included? I believe rastafari men do not shave in accordance with Leviticus.

That first image is questionable
The first image in the article, captioned "A man shaving his neck using a straight razor", uses the standard TV and cinematic trick of having the person whose image we see in the mirror not actually looking at his own image in the mirror, but looking at the reflection of the camera. In other words, he is not actually using the mirror to help with his shaving.

So, it's a trick photo. Should we really be using it? HiLo48 (talk) 08:52, 26 May 2014 (UTC)

Suggestion for improvement
I think it would help the article, and, more importantly, users, if someone could provide a comparison picture for the described unwanted effects of shaving (ie cuts vs razor burn vs razor bumps etc.). This would help clarify what is what, for users who are interested (as the descriptions are fairly similar). 46.239.250.137 (talk) 15:35, 26 September 2015 (UTC)

Conflict of Interest
LynxTufts is clearly associated with, http://www.lynxexpression.com, a site that sells shaving products. He puts his link on the page http://www.lynxexpression.com/grooming/shaving/tips-on-shaving (Source - 29) which contains products and is a commercial site. He then removes link I post and am not associated with. The link I post (source - 32) is a high quality blog post about razor burns. LynxTufts does not want other sources similar to his source (Source - 29) because he is trying to sell products on that page where as the link I posted does not. 2 February 2018 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Infoonthecloud (talk • contribs)