First straight razor shave...

That could have gone better, and it could have gone much worse. I started out feeling pretty good about the shave I was getting on my cheek and decided to shave my jawline and neck too. I should have just stopped at my cheeks. Lots of little cuts and nicks on my neck. One pretty good bleeder near my lip.
I think the only good decision I made was to only go with the grain tonight. I used my disposable to shave against the grain afterwards. My concern is that I was expecting to get a much closer shave with the straight. I am hoping that technique and patience will pay off and I'll be getting closer shaves soon. I also think my lather needs work, it seemed too dry. I'll give it another shot this weekend and continue my quest for straight razor mastery! Who am I kidding? I'll settle for straight razor competence. If that.
Any nuggets of wisdom would be appreciated!

Sounds like you are on the right track. Just keep at it, and you will achieve mastery!

One thing that you might want to keep in mind is to use a feather-light touch - as little pressure with the razor against your skin as possible. Doing that, and with a low-ish blade angle should prevent most of the nicks from happening.

Good luck!

Jeff

Lather is fun to learn. I was raised on the mug & brush (not on canned gel), but never learned to really build a lather until I started straight shaving and read the SRP forums. For me, it was a revelation.

My piece of advice is to resist the urge to go over the same patch of skin over and over: just remove the lather with the razor's edge and go on to the next patch. If you have to clean up afterwards w/ a Mach 3 for a while, at least you can avoid irritation.

If you are still using the disposable while letting your face heal from the straight. Continue to practice your lather. You will pick up on it quick. When you shave with the straight make sure your angle is right, about the width of the spine away from your face. Then technique will help keeping the angle all the way through the stroke.
Make sure you stretch your skin to help.
Just curious but what type of razor did you get, and was it professionally honed. Or did it come "Shave-ready". Another problem could be that it isn't sharp enough.

My razor is a Dovo 5/8 half hollow. Bought it new and had it sent to Max Sprecher for honing. It's sharp enough, I'm sure the problem lies in my inexperience and technique.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by JButler

My razor is a Dovo 5/8 half hollow. Bought it new and had it sent to Max Sprecher for honing. It's sharp enough, I'm sure the problem lies in my inexperience and technique.

---

the 5/8 dovo is a good razor and when Max hones a razor you can split adams. it takes a little time to learn all the ins and outs to using a straight razor so don't give up your over the hump now that you've started. all that's left is learn the technique. it's a lot of fun

I use 2 spine widths for WTG, 1 spine widths for XTG. I don't need a third pass, but touchups I do with the spine nearly on my face.