******
- Verified Buyer
You will absolutely, positively, 100% regret buying this! The more time I spend on this earth the more I realize that you get what you pay for. The reason I bought a straight razor in the first place was simply because I am fed up with spending 50 bucks for a months worth of blades. No matter how nice they are, it gets ridiculous. So, what do I do? I hop on amazon and see the first razor that comes up. 15.99 and it comes with a handy little stand and brush. "Heck yeah", I thought as I clicked add to cart, imagining the glorious old fashioned shave I would use to tame the week old growth on my cheeks. It came in the mail and within moments I was standing under the near boiling hot water, prepping my face for the most exciting experience of its short 20 year life. 45 minutes later, 3,000 curses, and half my right cheek finished I was seriously questioning my decision. I'm pretty sure you could do just as well of a job with your average steak knife. After about an hour of continually scraping this cheap piece of inferior chinese steel over my face, I gave up, washed my face, walked to the gas station and finished the rest of my face with a disposable razor. I'm well aware that straight razor shaving is not a "quick" undertaking and should not be done in the morning when you have limited time, but I also know that it doesn't take the barber more than 2 minutes to shave the back of my neck. So I decided to bite the bullet and headed over to "The Art of Shaving", that ridiculously overpriced shaving supply store you find at nearly every mall across the country. After a few short minutes of conversation I caved and spent just over 100 bucks on a German made straight razor. Which, when I thought about it, will pay for itself in 2 months. It works amazingly well and actually cuts the hairs off rather than catching and tearing them out. So, in short, you can either spend 16 dollars and get a chinese pile of junk, or spend a few bucks and get a quality prduct that will do a quality job. Your call. Going to have to agree with the other postings saying "You get what you pay for." Buy this if you want to know what not to buy next round.Pros:It will let you know what things you need to consider when you buy a good quality product.Cons:Blade isn't sharp enough to use, and it's unlikely a straight razor novice (like me) will be able to sharpen it with the provided strop no matter how many videos you watch on YouTube. (Yeah, I watched, tried, watched, tried, etc...)No stop pin in razor handle.Brush is pretty cheap... like me, it's losing hair way too fast...The stand holds the brush but not the razor, not sure what the slot is for.Strop has no actual hook, just the rectangular piece, so it was hard to find anything to connect it to for my sharpening attempts.But now I know what to look for while shopping for a quality product.Came VERY dull, wouldn't shave a hair for its life. However, I used some sharpening stones on it and it shaves great! If you want something ready out of the box, this isn't it. But if you have some time to put into it then the cost makes it very good. Also the wood finish in the pictures looks better than as it came, might try to fix that too. Overall not bad if you got extra timeI love the razor set, the razor is pretty sharp, nice wood handle and have great edge on it, but it has few ruffled edges..I think the handle and pivot pin could be tighter..Im going to send this Razor set back to see if I can get replace one..I would really like to see how well it cuts..It's alright, could be worse, but definitely could be better. Only pocket-knife sharp out of the box, and took a while and some effort to set the bevel an edge right. Overall, I'd give it a 3. For those without the proper sharpening and honing stones, I'd say it's a no go.The plastic stand that came with the order was broken when I opened the package. Is it possible to get a replacement for this. I love everything else I would like to have the stand for a complete setPlastic stand doesn't fit the enclosed razor (the slot is too small). The strop is fine and works well, as does the brush. Razor required honing prior to use. Not bad for the price, but not great.It makes good low - cost kitchen knife not a razor to shave with it, could not shave hair off my arm. After sharpening 4 hours with 4 stones coarse to x-fine 2000-8000 and diamond stone was not able to produce a razor edge though it looks of good quality. I have been able to produce a razor with an old timer pocket knife 440 steal. You could produce a razor with a LASER maybe I did not expect too much for the price. What happened to the old Roy-razor I used in my foot locker?
