Day 2 With a Straight

Day two with the Wusthof-Dreizach 6/8.

I went with two WTG passes and finished with the mildest safety razor in my collection, a Merkur 1904 Closed Comb. Everything went well. Still no nicks, cuts, or blood.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but at this point, I should be focusing on control and not cutting myself. Right? I know that the razor is cutting. I hear it and I see stubble in the lather. After the two passes I would rate the shave as a SAS. I'm I right in assuming that the closeness of the shave gets better and better as I refine my technique?

Thanks for all of the support.

You are on the right track. Getting the motion and angle of the stroke down pat is where the comfort and closeness come from. Not cutting yourself is always a bonus. I am not sure that you can be too cautious, I'm sure we all find our comfort zone. As your techniques improves and you start to figure out the growth patterns of your face you can start to try different passes to get a little closer. For me at the angle of the blade and the stretching of my skin are paramount for comfort and closeness. Skin stretching also helps avoid blood loss.

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Originally Posted by RezDog

You are on the right track. Getting the motion and angle of the stroke down pat is where the comfort and closeness come from. Not cutting yourself is always a bonus. I am not sure that you can be too cautious, I'm sure we all find our comfort zone. As your techniques improves and you start to figure out the growth patterns of your face you can start to try different passes to get a little closer. For me at the angle of the blade and the stretching of my skin are paramount for comfort and closeness. Skin stretching also helps avoid blood loss.

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Thanks. One of the biggest disconcerting things is vision. Reaching over my head and then holding the razor blocks a lot of vision. For some reason this seems to be a bigger problem when I shave with my weak side (left).

You are right on the money with the blade angle. One of the most helpful comments came from Lynn Abrams video for beginners. I am trying to keep a very vertical angle to the face. I think that is what is helping my out as far as no cuts. The skin stretching is really helpful as well. Houdini must have been one whale of a straight shaver!

I'm glad you're moving forward and I agree with RezDog that going slowly is the right thing to do. A few tips on vision. 1) Turning your head in a strange angle to the mirror may help. I'm sometimes suddenly surprised when I can see an area I haven't seen well before. However, don't turn while the razor is on your face, or your nick-free time will likely end. 2) You can also try different grips to get hands, fingers or scales out of your line of sight. 3) you don't always need to see perfectly. I can tell when I have my razor at my right sideburn line and when the angle is close. Sometimes (and particularly when I'm using my left hand) the mirror image confuses me, I guess because I'm so used to adjusting the shaving angle of my right hand with other types of razors. there's some unlearning and relearning to do. If you've ever watched someone try to back up a trailer for the first time, you'll get what I mean.

Good luck as you move ahead!

Yea, slow and easy does it and keep your concentration. The shaves do improve over time. Do not try to remove all the whiskers the first WTG. They are slowly reduced over succeeding XTG and ATG passes. Trying to do it in one pass leads to using too much pressure and that leads to irritation/burn. I try and use a gap between the razor's spine and face of about 2 spine widths on the WTG pass. Make haste slowly and enjoy.

Bob

On slow & steady: Yes, it's much nicer to get comfortable, irritation-free shaves while still learning to cut closer, than to get skin-close shaves while trying to reduce irritation/rawness/nicks/weepers.

Or so I imagine. I started with poor shaves and high irritation, myself. :)

Go slow and see what your face likes. Go as close as is comfortable to you. Some can do 5 passes no problem or some like me get one wtg and one xtg and that's where the cut off is before irritation starts. Go as close and comfortable as possible not bbs and irritated and unable to shave for a week. Your shaves will get better with time and technique though but how close is relative to you. Good luck and happy shaving