Blog · the shave · 8 min

One blade, at the surface.

Everything people believe about shaving, including the belief that more blades are better, comes down to one question: where along the hair does the cut happen. The answer changes everything downstream of it.

Heritage & Sons / Blog / The straight razor

The difference Cartridge
3–5 blades
cuts below
the skin line

Straight
one blade
cuts at
the surface

Six hours
closer

Two days
smoother

What a five-blade razor actually does

The blades are stacked in sequence behind each other for a reason, and it is a clever one. The first blade catches the hair and pulls it slightly out of the follicle. Because hair has some elasticity, it is still being pulled when the second and third blades pass over it. They cut it there, extended. Then it lets go and retracts below the surface of the skin.

That is the whole mechanism, it is in the patents, and it works: the first morning after a cartridge shave is genuinely closer than anything a single blade can do.

It also has two consequences that nobody puts on the packet. The hair now has to grow back through skin before it reaches the air, which for anybody with curl in their beard is the exact recipe for an ingrown hair. And four blades dragging across skin to remove one hair is four times the abrasion, which is most of what people are calling razor burn.

What a single blade does

Cuts the hair where it meets the skin, once, and stops. Less close on day one. Nothing cut below the surface, so nothing growing back through it. One pass of steel instead of four, so a fraction of the irritation.

By the third day the cartridge shave and the straight shave are the same length of stubble, except one of them arrived there without inflaming anything.

The four things that make it work.

Heat

Three minutes, minimum

Hot water and time soften the keratin in the hair measurably. Softer hair takes less pressure to cut, and pressure is what causes nicks.

This is why the towel is not decoration and why a shave that skips it is not the same procedure.

3 min

Lather

Why a badger brush beats a can

The value of a badger brush is not the lather, it is the brushing: sixty seconds of bristles lifting each hair away from the skin so the blade meets it standing up.

Canned foam sits on top and holds the hair flat. It is the single biggest difference between a home shave and this one.

60 sec

Angle

Thirty degrees

The blade rides almost flat against the skin. Steeper and it scrapes, shallower and it slides. A barber holds that angle for eight minutes across a curved face without thinking about it, which is the skill you are paying for.

It is also why learning this at home takes about a hundred shaves.

—

Direction

With, then across

With the grain first for the length, across for the closeness. Not against, on most faces: the marginal smoothness costs more in irritation than it returns.

On necks, where the hair grows in whorls, against the grain is how you produce a week of bumps.

2 passes

Should you do this at home?

Honestly, probably not with a straight razor. A hundred shaves of learning curve on your own throat is a real commitment and the failure mode is blood.

A safety razor is the sensible middle. Single blade, same principle, fixed angle so the geometry is solved for you, and blades that cost about ten cents each. Add a brush and hard soap and you have most of what is described above for perhaps forty dollars of equipment total. The brush is doing more of the work than the razor is.

What you cannot do at home

See your own neck. That is not a joke: the hair under the jaw grows in several directions at once and mapping it in a mirror is genuinely difficult. It is why almost every man who shaves at home has irritation in exactly that band and nowhere else.

Which is the honest argument for coming in every few weeks even if you shave every day. Fifty dollars, thirty-five minutes, and somebody standing where they can see all of it.

Heritage & Sons Barber Company·1471 Court St, Brooklyn·Updated August 2026

Asked often.

Why do multi-blade razors cause ingrown hairs?

The first blade pulls the hair out of the follicle and the ones behind it cut it while it is extended, so it retracts below the skin. It then has to grow back through skin to reach the air, which is exactly how an ingrown hair forms.

Is a straight razor shave closer than a cartridge razor?

Less close on the first morning and smoother by the third day, because nothing was cut below the skin line. It also causes a fraction of the irritation, since one blade passes instead of four.

Why do barbers use a brush and soap?

The brushing is the point rather than the lather. Sixty seconds of bristles lifts each hair off the skin so the blade meets it standing up. Canned foam sits on top and holds the hair flat.

Should I shave against the grain?

Not on most faces. With the grain first for length, then across the grain for closeness. Against the grain buys marginal smoothness at a cost in irritation, and on necks it is how you get a week of razor bumps.

Can I learn to use a straight razor at home?

You can, over about a hundred shaves, and the failure mode is blood. A safety razor is the sensible middle: one blade, the same principle, and the angle solved for you.

Come and feel the difference.

Fifty dollars, thirty-five minutes, no clock in the room. Walk in like everything else here.

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