Thread: First Shave - Please check out videos - Please help I am doing something wrong.

If your first shave had been perfect we would be asking you for advise My opinion your shave went very well. As for the shave not being as close as maybe you expected, that comes with time and practice. You will have spots that need more attention than others and as you shave more and more those spots will disappear. Keep at it you are doing fine.

Impressive on the left handed go! Im right handed and my left hand chickened out on my first few (well, more than few) SR shaves. Did you try an ATG off camera?

I watched the stropping vid 3 times. I have to agree with Oz you are flipping and leading the stroke with the thumb putting the pressure on the edge. I do a bit of the same thing but I torque lightly toward the spine. This is a bad habit I picked up early on. The camera angle was not great but it looks like a bit of dialog in on the angle will help. For a first run I think you did phenomenal.

Watch your angles to as you shave next time. It almost looked like you were a little too vertical with the spine almost touching your face on the left side.

Nice job for first time out.

Have fun.

Just to add my 2 cents here. You have been given some great advice from some pro's here and along with that advice remember that you are also doing remarkably well for your first time (or two). The razor is not going to give you a baby butt smooth shave with one pass going with the grain. All I would be looking for on a first pass down the cheek is shave readiness which is pain free pass with hair removal. That blade looked and sounded REALLY sharp in your video. I mean, if it wasn't sharp you would have made it half way down your cheek and been howling from the razor yanking the hair outta your face. That razor seemed to sing right on through the hair smooth as butter. As you get better you can add an across the grain pass and then finally an against the grain pass and your shaves will be much smoother by then. All in all it looks like a huge success plus you got some great advice on how to move forward and improve your stropping and your angles shaving. The less pressure you use on your face, I have noticed, the closer the razor seems to cut the hairs.

thanks for the advise will look at stropping videos again and try to get this down. A thread said the sound of the blade stropping was a give away what should it sound like. again thanks guys for all the massive help

When stropping, you might give the hardware on the near end of the strop a little more leeway. You don't want to run your edge over it or collide with it. Great start!

No I did dry and an against this morning only on my right side and it hurt like hell! going to leave that for a while.

Originally Posted by onimaru55

Hi there.
Way too much wrist in your stropping. You need to practice rolling a pencil or your razor in your hand but use all your fingers to get the 180º rotation.
Your shave seemed to go quite well.

Good stropping vids here:
Straight Razor Place - Stropping Video

Interestingly enough, if one compares Mr. Davis's stropping video to the vast majority of those in the Stroptober thread it becomes clear that 90% of stroppers are using the wrist to turn the blade and not the fingers. The fingers can do a better job because they are more precise than wrist movements are and because less pressure is naturally applied.

Originally Posted by JFriendly123

thanks for the advise will look at stropping videos again and try to get this down. A thread said the sound of the blade stropping was a give away what should it sound like. again thanks guys for all the massive help

I think you will find sound varies from different strops. Just concentarate on contact IMHO.