Thread: a great shave with a couple of changes

I was going to post this in the 'shaving' section but as a newbie of 2 weeks to the straight razor , I thought I 'd post it here.

I made some changes to my shaving routine today and I bought a new Kent brush to replace the hog bristle I have from 'Bodyshop'.

my shaving eqpt:
Dovo Astrale 5/8
Dovo canvas/Leather strop
Kent Brush
L'Occitane shaving soap.



So a brief run through of the shave:

a hot water wash with a moisturiseing Coconut soap from Asda ( now owned by Wal-Mart),
dip brush into hot water and then rest in shaving bowl on top of soap,
strop razor on canvas side slowly & controlled for 30 passes,
10 passes on Leather side slow & controlled -concentrating on keeping razor level and flat all time.
Lather up brush from shaving soap,
apply in circular motions all over face starting at neck taking at least 15 seconds,
shaving bottom of neck at difficult / hard bristle areas going with grain, then shave rest of neck, cheeks, chin, under nose and along jaw line applying more lather everytime it starts to dry out on my face.

I repeated the shaving method for across the grain, then did 10 passes of the razor on the leather strop, re-lathered and went against the grain.

then finished of by rinsing with hot water and a final extremely cold rinse. Nice and clean although a little tight initialy for about 30 minutes or so until the skin seemed to relax, but extremely smooth with not a bristle to be found, although a little sensitive under left side of chin where the bristle grows extremely coarse.

the changes today were :
1. the new brush which created a terrific lather
2. stropping slowly ensuring the blade was kept flat on the strop
3. re-stropping between 2nd & 3rd passes on face.

It has made a massive diffence, I shaved at 3pm and it is now 1.50 am and I still am not showing any stubble on my face - that's almost 11 hours .

Way to go, Wayne!!!!!!!

Stropping is soooo important to a good shave. Looks like you're doing great. Keep it up

The last two shaves I had I did in fact strop midway and it made for a much better finish. Just once though, I do the whole face then do a touch-up pass after stropping, I think unless I'm in a rush and grab the DE I'm going to stick with that.

usualy I do 2 passes, but I wanted to see if I could get that 'extra close shave'

it's now 9.54 am and I have a light stubble - what I would call a 5 o'clock shadow - which is great for a shave done 19 hours ago .