Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about history's most interesting dead people. In each episode, Alex and Kelly dive into the life of a famous person that you have heard of, but probably don't know much about. Our stories are about actors, entrepreneurs, politicians, musicians, inventors, explorers and more! We also cover things that used to be popular but have fallen out of favor. Things like pet rocks, drive in theaters, Jolt Cola, and many other trends of yesterday make up our "dead ends". But whether we are talking about interesting historical figures or past trends, the show is funny, light-hearted, entertaining, informative and educational. You will definitely learn something new and probably have some laughs along the way. Everyone will eventually move to Dirt Nap City, so why not go ahead and meet the neighbors?
If you love hearing stories from Dirt Nap City, please consider supporting us on Patreon. Here's the link: https://www.patreon.com/DirtNapCityPodcast
If you have comments about the show or suggestions on who we should cover, please email us at not@dirtnapcity.com - we really appreciate you listening!
Dirt Nap City - History's Most Interesting Dead People
Close Shave - How the Straight Razor Lost Its Edge
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
Step into the barbershop of history as we explore the sharp rise, dramatic fall, and enduring legacy of the straight razor. Long before modern multi-blade cartridges, the open blade—often called the "cutthroat razor"—was the undisputed king of men’s grooming. Rising to prominence in the late 17th century following innovations in Sheffield steel, the straight razor transformed personal hygiene from an occasional chore into an essential, sophisticated ritual. For over two centuries, men either mastered the delicate art of stropping and honing or trusted their necks to professional barbers.
So, why did a tool that dominated daily life for generations suddenly fade into obscurity? The shift began in the early 20th century when King Camp Gillette introduced the double-edged safety razor. Featuring thin, disposable blades wrapped in a protective guard, safety razors made shaving fast, affordable, and drastically less bloody. World War I sealed the deal when the U.S. government issued Gillette safety razor kits to millions of soldiers, cementing disposable shaving as the new global standard.
In this episode of Dirt Nap City, we examine how the straight razor compares to what most men use today. Modern razors rely on multi-blade cartridges embedded in plastic pivoting heads designed for rapid, foolproof shaving. By contrast, a traditional straight razor consists of a single, fixed steel blade attached to a folding handle without any safety barrier. It requires patience, precise angles, and ongoing blade maintenance, but rewards users with an exceptionally close shave and zero plastic waste.
Tune in as we dissect the evolution of wet shaving, the marketing revolution that made blades disposable, and why the ultimate "cutthroat" tool is making a surprise comeback among modern grooming enthusiasts.
Drop us a quick text and we’ll reply in the next episode!
Dirt Nap City is the podcast about the most interesting dead people in history.
Subscribe and listen to learn about people you've heard of, but don't know much about.
Someday we'll all live in Dirt Nap City, so you should probably go ahead and meet the neighbors!
Hey Alex. Hey Kelly, what's up? Knock knock. Who's there?
SPEAKER_02Razor. Razor who? Razor hands if you want to do a dead end. Ah. I wonder where you're going with this. You got me. Hey man, I want to talk to you today a little bit about something. It's debatable whether it's actually a dead end, but I think it is because it used to be something that was um the most popular way for men to shave, and now is just a very small majority. I'm talking about the straight razor. You know what I'm talking about? Continuation of our mini-series called um shaving. The best a man can get, the best a man can be. Oh, that's a terrible name for a razor. It is, it is. But if you think about it does, yeah, it does that though. If you think about where you are um shaving, right? Generally on the face and the neck, and you think about what you're using, and and you think about the fact that oftentimes you're being shaved by another person, right? A barber, another man.
SPEAKER_03Oftentimes?
SPEAKER_02Back in the day.
SPEAKER_03Oh.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So you think you think back then most people the only time they didn't shave at home. They would just go and get shaved.
SPEAKER_02No, so so it was called the Sunday shave, and most working class men only shaved once, twice a week, maybe, and that would usually be on a Saturday or Sunday. And they often went to the barber shop to get the uh shaving done for a couple of reasons. Number one, um, they didn't want to buy a straight razor, they didn't have to maintain it, they didn't want to sharpen it and do all those things. Uh yes, and we'll talk about strops in a minute. But they also um they also didn't have indoor plumbing, right? Back then. So it was it was a lot you didn't have running water, so it was a lot more of a deal. So just going to the barbershop was a much easier um piece. But also um it was one of those things where you know you didn't have to do it that often, and the barbershop was a bit of a uh social hub, right? You know, I think it still can be today, but it's a little bit that's a little bit of an old-fashioned thing. But I think you know, a lot of movies and plays and books have been written about the barbershop and how people would go there socialize and gossip. It was like the baby for women.
SPEAKER_03Black culture is still like an epicenter of like where people gather and and hang out. Yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ask Ice Cube. Um so but the these were the these were the working class men. The more well-to-do wealthy gentlemen often would have a set of it was called the seven-day set, and it was a box of seven matching razors, and each one had the day of the week engraved on it. And it wasn't just about boasting their wealth. This was also they believed back then that the blades had to rest in between shaves, and that that would actually restore the molecules of the of the blade. That's how you do your underwear, except yours is just Monday, Wednesday, Friday, right? Uh just just Monday, Friday. I I I I can't afford Wednesday anymore. Um Yeah, so so the the straight razor kind of emerged in 1680 in Sheffield, England, and then in the 1740s, a guy named Benjamin Huntsman uh changed the process because the first ones were actually made of well, early, you know, early humans used flint. Um clamshells were sometimes used to shave.
SPEAKER_03I wonder why people were shaving at all. Like when did why did people all of a sudden like when did cavemen be like start being like, you know what? I could use a trim.
SPEAKER_02That's a very good question. Um I don't know the answer to that, but but they would pick up a sharp piece of flint or a clamshell and scrape it against their face and it would cut the hair off. Well, eventually the Bronze Age came, that was replaced, and then in 1740s, like I said, Benjamin Huntsman revolutionized uh cast uh cast steel. Like he made started making strong uh high quality blades out of cast steel, and they were super, super sharp. I mean, these things, if they were if they were maintained properly, they they were very, very sharp. Now we talked about the the um the Sunday shave that the barber did and then the seven-day sets. Those rich guys probably had barbers too. But the maintenance of these things, you mentioned this a couple of times in our previous episode about King Gillette. Um the strop. Tell us about the strop.
SPEAKER_03The strop is a leather strap, and you've probably seen them. Um they just are like um, they look like guitar straps, kind of. Yeah, and about the same thickness, three or four inches thick. And you take the blade and you rub it against that and it sharpens and sharpens it. Although I don't think once a blade becomes pretty dull, I think that's it. I don't think you can ever get it back to where it was when you first bought it.
SPEAKER_02Some, as a matter of fact, most, I believe, of these straight razors, they weren't like a sharp um straight-edge blade. Some of them were a bit serrated. They had a little bit of serration. You know what serration is? Yeah, like a bread knife. Yeah, yeah, that's a that's an extreme example, like very big serrations. These were little tiny, maybe even like too small to see, teeth on this, on this um uh blade that would catch the hairs, cut them and or pull them off, you know. And so the strop actually wasn't wasn't sharpening the metal, it was realigning those teeth. Because those teeth would get bent. And so that was that was the difference between like a sharpening stone, a wet stone that people use to sharpen a knife, and and the strop was more of a way to realign those little tiny teeth on the blades.
SPEAKER_03Have you have you used a straight razor before?
SPEAKER_02I never have. I never have.
SPEAKER_03You know, I've I I've never used it by myself, but I've had them done like at barber shops, and it is it's really nice. Like it gets so close, closer than your they do that in the Polaris?
SPEAKER_02No, they do they have they have a barber that walks around in the first class of the plane and and then shaves it.
SPEAKER_03You can't feel any hairs at all, like, and they get it good, but you know that you know, if you try to do that yourself, you'd cut yourself.
SPEAKER_02Are you ever a little bit nervous and thinking of like Sweeney Todd or something? Oh yeah, every time. Every time. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03It's it's uh it's it's crazy. You have a lot of trust in a guy that's you know, a person that's you know, um, that you don't even know, not very make making very much money. They got they got you know, they're thinking about a million things, they got 15 other people to see that day. You get a lot of trust in you. They literally could end your life.
SPEAKER_02But but they have lots of experience, lots of practice, they've stopped their blade, it's it's in good condition, you've got the right kind of lather on your face. So that they they can do it in their sleep, right?
SPEAKER_03And there's it's yeah, and you can't accidentally probably these days, you probably can't accidentally kill somebody shaming them. I've never seen a story like that. Well, it sounds like an alibi, but yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Um unfortunately, you know, and why we're why we're talking about this with the dead end is um if if you haven't heard our episode about King Camp Gillette, um in the early 1900s, he uh democratized the safety razor with his um protective guards on the blades and the and the less expensive blades that you could put on the reusable handle, and then all of a sudden men could start to shave at home. And as we mentioned in the King Camp Gillette episode, um the government actually, the US government sent these Gillette blades and and razors to men in their kits during World War One, and this meant that the men used them, they became hooked on them, they became brand loyal to them, and then all of a sudden the straight razor just took a pretty steady decline.
SPEAKER_03And what we didn't talk about, and maybe this is for a different episode, is the crappy bic razors that that will cut somehow cut you, but also not remove your hair.
SPEAKER_02Right, right, right. They they'll cut your skin, but not your hair. Yes, those and they and they weigh nothing, like like they're literally they're hollow of plastic. Um, no, I I agree with disposable razor.
SPEAKER_03That's just the whole razors disposable, and rightly so. Throw it away before you use it. Save yourself.
SPEAKER_02I've got a couple of questions for you about about safety razors. I know we're talking about straight razors, but let's talk about safety razors for a minute. First of all, what brand do you use? You said you use the Gillette, the the Mach 3. I can't remember if it's the Mach 3 or the Fusion. I think I have both. Okay, okay. Yeah, and because they make them uh different. Um typically, um, how often do you shave?
SPEAKER_03Uh I shave every day that I need to see people in person.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so it could be a week, it could be more than if I I mean, you know, sometimes it's every day.
SPEAKER_03In a week, yeah. A typical week while I'm um during the the school year, I'm shaving, you know, five or six days a week. Um in the summer, maybe it's once every two weeks, you know.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. I I actually hadn't shaved in about a week and a half until today. Can you see my clean cloche shave ahead? Very clean. Do you shave your head? With a electric razor. So I use a I use a number one guard on a electric razor. It's called a peanut. It's like a little to like a little uh cream colored electric razor that Jody actually shaves my head to get the I mean it's not I don't shave it with a straight razor down to that point. It's a number one guard, so I have a little bit of a little bit of hair up there. Uh I also want to know how many times do you use a straight razor before you throw it away? Like like before you replace it. You don't mean a straight razor, you mean my gelette. The safe the safety razor. How many times we use the same blade?
SPEAKER_03I go way too long, probably. I yeah, I forget a lot of times. I just do it until like I'm like, yeah, this isn't shaving very well. Sometimes two, three months, probably. So it does be getting 50, 50 shaves out of something.
SPEAKER_02It gets really bad after a while, right? And then there a bunch of hair gets up in there and and it starts to cut your face more.
SPEAKER_03Very herstute person, though, if you've ever noticed. I mean, I what is her stute? It means you have a lot of hairy at all. Okay. Um, so you know, I I think I can let razors um, you know, I can I can extend the life of a razor pretty well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03I mean, I could go weak and you wouldn't even be able to tell that I haven't shaved.
SPEAKER_02Um the big thing with this is that now there is a revival. There, there are, and I and I think there's people that never stop using straight razors. I'm not saying they're completely dead, but I think a lot of people start to use um straight razors again for more of a eco-conscious idea, like instead of like wasting, throwing away a blade. Now it sounds like you you can use the same one for for weeks, so maybe it's not as big a deal. But people who are using um using them twice, I usually use it twice. So I'll I'll use it once, and then if it was on there when I started shaving, I'll throw it away at the end. Wow. And then the next time I'll put a new one on. So I know I know if there's one on there, I'll use it that time, and then I'll throw it away at the end and put a new one on.
SPEAKER_03You and do you also rinse leather and repeat? I do when it comes to shampoo. You probably don't need to do that.
SPEAKER_02You don't need to repeat. Oh no, I don't repeat. I don't repeat. And actually, I don't even use conditioner anymore. Um, and sometimes I don't even use shampoo. But this isn't a show about my hygiene. This this this every show is about your hygiene. That's why we do this uh remotely, so you don't have to be in the same room. So let's talk a little bit about the the modern revival of the straight razor. Um, you mentioned to me that someone you know actually asked for a straight razor for uh Christmas or something. Um why why? What was the what was the deal there?
SPEAKER_03I think I think just I don't know actually the novelty of it. He was real excited about it. Um and where did you get it?
SPEAKER_02Like where do you where do you where do you buy one of those and what kind did you get and how much did it cost?
SPEAKER_03I don't know any of the answer to that. I didn't buy it for him. I don't know. Okay, okay. Um did I don't know the um but he was real excited to get it. And and I mean I think you can really get a clean shave. I think the reason somebody wants a straight razor is because it just feels nice to have a clean shave. You know, it's very yes. The difference between you know 95% and 100% is palpable. Five percent. I mean you can really feel it though, and you just um I I know that a few times I've had a straight razor, I just can't stop like rubbing my face. I just like the way it feels, it feels so nice. Like it's just amazing how clean it can get.
SPEAKER_02Well, I do think that a lot of people like the idea of being you know reusable, right? They can buy it and take care of it and use it again and again. No more landfill plastic cartridges going into landfills. But I also think that um a lot of people like the ritual, right? It's it's kind of you you have to do this uh lather that you whip up, and then a lot of people use a uh badgered hair brush, you know, like a brush with uh I don't know, badger hair on it, is what what I was told. Um hot towel.
SPEAKER_03You ever do a hot towel? No, you know, I shave in the shower.
SPEAKER_02Oh, okay, okay.
SPEAKER_03Al from Austin taught me that college. Yeah, yeah, that's a good I mean we didn't shower together, but he was hey, hey, hey Alex, I'm gonna I'm gonna show you something. You mind if I get in there with you? No, he he was telling me about how much better because I was complaining about how my my face would always kind of dry out while I was shaving. Yeah, your your pores open up, right? Yeah, he and I tell you, I never went back. Like it was awesome. It's a great move. If you're if you're if you're out there and you're just getting into shaving, if you're uh um just going through puberty, welcome. Young gentleman. And uh, but I'm telling you, shaving in the shower, um, yet I think the downside is you there's no mirror in there, but I don't think you need one.
SPEAKER_02You can get one of those anti-fog mirrors, you know.
SPEAKER_03I don't think you need one.
SPEAKER_02Do you you just kind of feel it? You just kind of feel where the hair is, and and uh oh, okay. Well, yeah, there you go. I mean, I probably wouldn't do it if I was a real hairy person. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Um, yeah, I mean, we we know some people like that. When people shave their um their chest and their armpits and all that, do they use straight razors to do that?
SPEAKER_02Um so I do that. Um I use the number one I use the number one guard on the on the electric razor. Again, just just and and just kind of they call it manscaping.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but that's I'm saying uh uh um straight razor. Do people do that? I don't think so.
SPEAKER_02I I think I don't think anybody did any manscaping before like 1901 or you know safety razors. I don't know. I if if if you're older than a hundred. I bet kings did.
SPEAKER_03I bet monarchs did. You think they you think they made you see the pictures of kings, and there's only a few where you had beards. Back when everybody had mustaches and beards, kings always seemed to like be clean shaven. So that must have been a whole ritual where they would get shaved. Lathered, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02And imagine, imagine the fear, you know, you're you're a king and your crown's being threatened by the enemy or a usurper or something like that. And you've got to trust your barber, right? Right. You've got to trust that nobody slipped him a 20 spot and is is uh hey man, cut.
SPEAKER_03Well, this is probably why Rasputin had such a gnarly what do they call him? Like he smelled like a goat, right? He he didn't trust anybody.
SPEAKER_02I'm sure that that had a lot to do with his big old bushy beard. He would have never let Al from Austin in the shower with him. Well, that's uh that's a straight razor. If you enjoy uh you know shaving and and uh hygiene and stuff like that, you'll definitely want to check out our episode about King Gillette, who was the person that kind of democratized shaving. And if you enjoy episodes about interesting dead people or things that we used to do that we don't do as much anymore, you'll definitely enjoy our dead ends. Keep listening and thanks for tuning in.
SPEAKER_01Before the barber had a chair before the foam was sold. A fellow found a sharpened shell and thought, well, this looks bold. Ancient folks with flint in hand and shells from by the sea would scrape the stubble off their chins with prehistorically no little mirror, no warm towel, no sign that's dead. Please wait. Oh, baby, ghost, but mine and nose, and don't get fancy with the blade from flint and felt a barber spell, the fatal forest throw it way to stay. And what's quite the brand, the wall earned the crimson mark, one tiny step, one carlet step, and breakfast might be served in the dark. The came the street razors, crowd and writers, liver made of steel, it has nerves, the quiet aristocrat, confidence. You'll feel the bars, drop it, still it's dangerous and leaned to your teeth. Why you stand still at the time they am and try to best. Not the squeak, go straight close, but I just fancy with the baby, steady, and with quite the brand of several arts. And flame the bottom. But a finger let's add a better plan. Alright, so with a guard. Feel like toasting in your own backyard. Oak the crown with the potato and dust. I'm a man could take themselves each day. No more toasting, uncle dead. To sharpen the side the shed. No more braces of my son. No more cheeks that needed one orator. Got a safety page and taperator.
SPEAKER_00Now straight razors linger on in barbershops with flare. Or hipsters wearing twelve ounce hats and oceans in their hair.
SPEAKER_01They wheel them like a secret stored with oils and thousands teams. Then post a photo afterwards. Behold my vintage green. Oh David, close by my two place, build a man stair. So it's good.
