Straight Razor Shaving

A straight razor is a razor with a blade that can fold into its handle. They are also called open razors and cut-throat razors. Although straight razors were once the principal method of manual shaving, they have been largely overshadowed by the safety razor, incorporating a disposable blade. Straight razor manufacturers still exist in Europe, Asia (especially Japan), and North America. Antique straight razors are also actively traded. Straight razors require considerable skill to hone and strop, and require more care during shaving.

Benefits of straight razor shaving include better shaves, reduced overall costs, reduced environmental impact, and the caché of using an open blade. Basic equipment includes a razor, a brush, a strop and shaving cream or soap.

The picture below (from www.badgerandblade.com) shows the anatomy of a straight razor.

International standard paper sizes

Standard paper sizes like ISO A4 are widely used all over the world today, with the USA being the notable exception. In the ISO paper size system, the height-to-width ratio of all pages is the square root of two (1.4142 : 1). In other words, the width and the height of a page relate to each other like the side and the diagonal of a square. This aspect ratio is especially convenient for a paper size. If you put two such pages next to each other, or equivalently cut one parallel to its shorter side into two equal pieces, then the resulting page will have again the same width/height ratio. As paper is usually specified in g/m², this simplifies calculation of the mass of a document if the format and number of pages are known.