Why So Serious? — Fri 12 Dec 2025

• Brush: Chisel and Hound – Screwdjriver with v28 Fanchurian
• Razor: SK式1 (6/8" extreme smile R. Saito-style blade)
• Lather: Noble Otter – 茉莉綠茶
• Post Shave: Gentleman’s Nod – Musashi

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So this razor is unlike any straight (?) razor I’ve ever tried. @gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social pointed this category of razors out to me and without it I would never have tried one. On first glance, these extreme smiles reminded me of modern fantasy razors with dragon tails, battle axe blades and whatnot. But as it turns out, these razors have an interesting story behind them, unfortunately one that seems difficult to google without reading Japanese.

Ryuichi Saito (斎藤隆) seems to have been some sort of barber celebrity in the 1950s and '60s in Japan, where he founded a network of barber/hairdresser schools called Saitō-kai (斎藤会) in 1950 and later a foundation for the standardisation and the advancement of barber education. In the process, he also designed two lines of standard razors for barber schools. On the one hand, fairly regular, heavy grind straight razors known as the Ribbon or Rosette 40 and 80 models, and on the other hand, the SK series (SK stands for Saitō-kai) with their smiling blades. There are the types (the “式” in the razor name means “type”) 1 (most smiling, and the one I have), 2 (medium smile), and 3 (slight smile). They were designed by Saito to be the easiest razors to use. Here, you can see how an SK式1 compares to an SK式2:

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and here you can see an SK式3 for reference:

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These razors were produced by many Japanese razor makers, including some famous ones like Kikuboshi and Diamond Hayashi, but I have no idea who made mine. (Most of the info can be found here, but all of the references mentioned are dead and only the second one has been archived).

This razor came blunt like a butter knife, but otherwise in great shape. I spend some time on the 1k stone to carefully set the bevel. I was worried that I’d grind some facets into the curved edge, and it took me quite some time until the rocking/rolling stroke felt natural, but I managed to get it to break the packing peanut skin in no time without creating any facets or corners. The bevel is still very narrow, which makes me think that this razor has seen very little use. And of course it also meant that refining the edge on 5k and finishing on 10k went very fast.

@gcgallant@sub.wetshaving.social had pointed out that this shape is actually great for shaving the hollow parts under the jaw, and while the geometry felt quite odd, it’s true that it fits really well into any concave part of the face. What a fun razor.

The shave felt good and went fine, but I obviously still need to learn the geometry better because I’m far from BBS.

Thinking more about the curved shape, I remembered having seen bronze-age Germanic, Celtic, and Egyptian razors with similar smiles (in the order I mentioned them):

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So straight razors seem to be the modern fad while smiling edges are the OGs, huh.