Thread: First shave with a definitely shave ready straight...

... and I cut nothing. Not just my face, but whiskers as well.

First off, I know I must be doing something really wrong. Bombay did a great job on my razor and the blade is most definitely sharp. A couple of times an errant hair would fall in front of my face and be effortlessly sliced, and my rubbish goatee is now all the more rubbish for the small patch I inadvertently removed. So it's definitely not the blade. Being a clumsy individual, I just decided to do one cheek with the straight and one with the cartridge. I went with the grain and against the grain, and each time I managed to cut nothing with the straight. It's now apparent to me that the rasping noise I assumed to be the sound of whiskers being cut was in actual fact the sound of them cruelly laughing and mocking my technique.

I'm assuming it's an angle problem, but I also really wanted to complain about my ineptness.

That's a bummer.
Can you give more details, like skin prep, blade angle, skin stretching?
These details might help pinpoint the problem.

oh dear...

Originally Posted by Leatherstockiings

That's a bummer.
Can you give more details, like skin prep, blade angle, skin stretching?
These details might help pinpoint the problem.

It was shower, hot water on face, a nice thick lather, stretched skin, and as for angle, I was attempting to have it 30 degrees from my face as I'm sure I read somewhere that it was a good idea.

For further detail, my shaving mug was filled with hot water and left in a sink filled with same while I was in the shower. I used Tabac soap with an artificial brush to get the lather, and to get the skin tight I rubbed my fingers on my alum block to make it easier.

I'm alive to type this, so it's not as if I had the worst possible shave.

atg should be like 10 degrees by the way. the spine is almost touching my face when i shave atg.

hold the razor flat against your face the move the spine out twice its width. see if that helps, i think you just need more practice.

I use the fingertips on the hand doing the stretching as a guide for blade angle, which is about two spine widths like Bombay mentioned. For the WTG pass on the cheek my fingers will be about half an inch above the sideburn. As I begin my pass the spine of the razor is just below my fingertips so it is easy to line up the spine with my fingernails. I realize this is mumbling so I am going to make a link to a video that depicts this. Check out the positioning of fingertips and razor spine @ 45 seconds.
http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eqCgaw5...%3DeqCgaw5ioAk