Straight Razor Shaving At Home

[MrZippy]

When I was at Clark Air Base, in the PI, there was a little barber shop in the tower building. Just a couple of chairs. But they gave a fantastic straight razor shave. Hot towel, cup full of foam all over the face, a few minutes later, after a few tense moments when there was a very sharp blade on your throat and face, another nice hot towel, some nice after-shave, and away you go. Great shave. Smooth as a baby's butt, as they say. Add on a really good hair-cut, and you looked STRAC!
Total cost was about $4.50 (US). At an exchange rate, when I was there, of 20 pesos to the dollar, it was steep by local standards, but not bad by American standards. Not for what you got.
Great little cafeteria/snack bar right next door. Served fantastic food. Those Philippino chefs could COOK! I had to do a lot of extra excersizing when I was there. Even the chow halls scattered around the base had some amazingly good food, and plenty of it.
I got lucky. I met a couple of Air Force girls that lived in a barracks across the parking lot from a chow hall. They let me move in with them. Apparently, all the American men were going out in town (Angeles City), and picking up LBFMs, and the Air Force girls were lonely and frustrated. The liberty bus stopped there too. A great set up! A whole lot better than living in the condemned barracks they put us jarheads into.
Sorry, I ramble...
Pat☺

Was there a "Happy Ending" after the shave and haircut? Subic Bay/Cubi Point had a great chow hall and enlisted club with some pretty good steaks, frog legs and beer!

[Panther_99FS]

I started shaving with one of those old "safety razors" with the double edge blades you drop inside it. There wasn't nothing safety about that thing in my hands. I was a bloody mess everytime I tried to use it.

These days, I use a cheap disposable in the shower with bar soap. The one I'm using now, is still cutting fine after over a year.

Willy,
It **appears** to me that you had a safety razor with a rather aggressive setting. That's one thing I like about my new Occam's, it gives you 3 levels of aggressiveness to choose from.

[Panther_99FS]

When I was at Clark Air Base, in the PI, there was a little barber shop in the tower building. Just a couple of chairs. But they gave a fantastic straight razor shave. Hot towel, cup full of foam all over the face, a few minutes later, after a few tense moments when there was a very sharp blade on your throat and face, another nice hot towel, some nice after-shave, and away you go. Great shave. Smooth as a baby's butt, as they say. Add on a really good hair-cut, and you looked STRAC!
Total cost was about $4.50 (US). At an exchange rate, when I was there, of 20 pesos to the dollar, it was steep by local standards, but not bad by American standards. Not for what you got.
Great little cafeteria/snack bar right next door. Served fantastic food. Those Philippino chefs could COOK! I had to do a lot of extra excersizing when I was there. Even the chow halls scattered around the base had some amazingly good food, and plenty of it.
I got lucky. I met a couple of Air Force girls that lived in a barracks across the parking lot from a chow hall. They let me move in with them. Apparently, all the American men were going out in town (Angeles City), and picking up LBFMs, and the Air Force girls were lonely and frustrated. The liberty bus stopped there too. A great set up! A whole lot better than living in the condemned barracks they put us jarheads into.
Sorry, I ramble...
Pat☺

Uhm...I'm retired USAF (2013) but when your story has some rings of familiarity from the old timers tales from when I first enlisted....

[PhantomTweak]

I am an inactive Marine. Once a Marine...
I went to Clark on a det when we were on det (you figger it out!) to Iwakuni for VMFA-333's last Phantom det. I think I just over-detted
We transitioned to the F/A-18 when we got back to Beautiful Beaufort by the Sea. I am being sarcastic, by the way.
Anywho, out of our 6 months at Iwakuni, we went to Clark for 2 months, and Osan, Korea for 2 months. I really enjoyed Clark. Beautiful base, although Angelese City wasn't the greatest I ever saw. Lovely country-side, though. Great food at the street vendors, too. They called it monkey meat. Whether it was or not, I dunno, but for 5 pesos you got 2 skewers full of meat, bar-b-que'd in the most incredibly delectable sauce I ever did have. I had to run an extra 2 miles and do 2 more hours in the gym every day to keep the weight off. I did enjoy the food, maybe a bit too much...

I was sad when I saw that Clark had been abandoned because Pinatubo blew her top, shortly after we went back to...the States. Although there was a pretty respectable rumble in the ground while we were there. Pinatubo getting ready, I guess. I grew up 35', literally, from the western edge of the San Andreas fault though, so a little shake like that, about a 6 or so, didn't bother me much. Great det for a Marine. Lotsa great food, pretty Air Force girls, really nice Air Force barracks. A lot nicer than the condemned ones they put us in. We had to pull the tape and Condemned signs off the doors when we arrived, that's how I knew.

Osan wasn't bad, but the South Koreans fertilize their fields with raw human waste, and the whole country has a certain...pong, if you see what I mean. They didn't even put us IN barracks at Osan. They made us set up a tent city on the far side of the golf course, up against the perimeter fence. There was a ROK Marine det right on top of a hill above us. Those are some tough little buggers. They get along with US Marines great, though. They still remember the Korean War.

Some of my Far East fun times
Pat☺

[n4gix]

In the late 60's I was stationed at Camp Casey, Korea. The barber shop(s) on base gave terrific hair cuts and shaves, and some girls there would also offer manicure and pedicure services for a very modest charge. IIRC, the total for a full experience was about $5 script dollars. Yes, we were paid in script rather than real US dollars..

Every few months we went through a "script exchange" where we would have to exchange our remaining script for new script. That frustrated the hell out of the Korean villagers who then would have a shed load of worthless script...