First straight shave complete - followup questions

Continuing with my master plan:
http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...lan-check.html


I did a single pass, only the sides of my face from sideburns down. I didn't touch upper or lower lip.
It went pretty smoothly and no nicks. I wanted to push it a little more and do the flat parts of my neck. Right when I started though, it felt like it was tugging, as if the chin/neck hairs in that area were dry and not lathered or something and to get through I would have to apply some pressure. I just stopped there and finished up with a DE.

In retrospect, I probably did a couple no-no's, but it didn't seem to affect the DE shave, so not sure what happened. (I was trying a pre-shave and soap for the first time as well)


Here is a checklist of my preparation and please let me know where I might have gone wrong.


- Razors honed by Mr Bayamontate and received instruction to not strop on the first shave
- showered and washed face thoroughly
- rinsed face and put in the HTGAM/razorock lime pre-shave ATG as directed by the nick shaves video
- Lathered up with Mike’s natural barber shop.
- Started shaving. I used a very small angle. I think one of the videos recommended keeping the spine only one-spines-width away from the flat part of your face. Maybe only 15-20 degrees or so.


I think next time, I’m going back to a pre-shave/soap that I’m familiar with just to eliminate that from the equation. But unfortunately then I will be adding the stropping variable in there.

obligatory razor photo:
Attachment 168064

Sounds like a good first effort. On the neck, two possibles at least. 1. You took so long on the 2 sides that the lather was drying (or too dry to start with) and 2. The angle on the neck can be tricky to judge and stretching is more critical there. Keep going. Go slow on your stropping; speed doesn't help.

The checklist sounds fine. Proraso pre-shave is great, I always used it as a beginner. It sounds to me actually like your lather was too gluggy, that is, not enough water. Having a dry lather can cause that tugging feeling. The water content of a lather allows for 'glide', that is, the razor's ability to slip over the skin. The mixing of a lather creates bubbles, which provides 'cushion' which allows the razor to 'ride' above the skin slightly on a bed of bubbles. Too little water and you have no glide, too much water and you end up with a thin lather with no bubbles and hence no cushion.

This is how I make my lather:

1. Fill sink with hot water, put bowl in sink and water in bowl, place brush in bowl, so the brush is soaking in the water
2. Shower. I use no special prep in the shower
3. Empty water from sink and bowl and re-fill sink with hot water
4. Place some lather from tube into bowl, about 1CM or so length of lather (I like the convenience of tubes and would recommend lather in a tube rather than soap for a beginner)
5. Take brush (still wet from soaking) and raise it, bristles facing down so it is about a foot or so from the sink. Then, bristles still facing down, move it rapidly down towards the sink (like an elevator going down). I don't shake or flick the brush during this maneuver. I do this three times. This leaves some water on the brush.
6. Start to make the mix. If it 'feels' or looks gluggy, I place my fingers in the water in the sink and then allow just a few drops at a time to go in to the lather, making sure I shake the excess of my fingers so I don't add more than I want to add by water running down my fingers to the brush.
7. Apply lather to face. Sometimes I dip the brush into the water if I find I need more water.

When I use soap I make sure I load the brush really well and then I face lather, not bowl lather as above.

If I do a ATG pass (quite rare) I always add water for the second pass to make the lather weaker so I have more glide.

Hope this helps a little.

Carl

ok, second shave done.
With stropping, went slowly and did 15 back/forth passes on the poly side and 30 on the leather side. I'm not really sure how to tell if that is enough, but the blade seemed to perform the same as the first shave.

Instead of doing just cheeks, I did a full 3 passes with the dovo. I went super slow and didn't get any nicks. I am pretty sure my problem is the lather drying out. i could feel it starting to get sticky. I guess I just shaved faster with a DE and never ran into a problem. I did an ATG pass, which also went surprisingly well. very smooth, just missed some spots. As far as lather goes, next time I'm going back to basics with my old reliable boar brush and MWF.

Despite no nicks, the alum block had pins and needles all over my face, including my cheeks, which is the first part I shave and I thought I did perfectly. angle and everything.

I am starting to think a 5/8 dovo is too light for my taste, but I'll keep on with it for now.

If you think it is your drying out because you are trying to work slowly, simply re-lather.

I probably almost 'over strop' I do 30/70 canvas/leather. Sometimes I want to do less, but my OCDish behavior doesn't allow it.

It's worth mentioning that when you re-lather as advised above; you'll possibly need to consider adding a few drops more water to the mix. Simply lathering over top of a gluggy lather won't do a lot of good.

I've never used an alum block, but I imagine it's the same feeling as an alcohol based AS. Regardless of your technique, razor, etc I feel you'll get some sting, as the SR takes off some skin. Your skin will toughen up, though, and feel less 'raw' in a few weeks...