Thread: Another - first str8 shave

Well I did it, I removed most of the hair from my face with a straight razor.
How did it go? well to be honest it bloody hurt and still hurts. I somehow managed to get away without any cuts there is an inch long pinkish mark were it looks like I almost did. Never knew you could come so close to cutting without drawing blood.
The details:
After shower did not dry face.
Palmolive shaving cream.
Body shop brush.
Mappin's Shilling heavy wedge.


The shave did not feel smooth at all, the blade skipped and jumped across my face I found some improvement toward the end when I changed from approx 30 degree angle to 45/50 degree angle.

Any tips,pointers or suggestions and questions are welcome.

But hey I did it and that feels great.

Beard prep an lathering seem to be OK. Did you give the soap a couple of minutes to work on your beard?

Given your description and the fact that the results improved with a steeper angle, I'd say that your razor is dull to the point of being unusable.
Where did you get it?

Btw, did you strop?

If it really is dull you should have it honed. There are several guys on this forum that offer honing services.
I am one of them. Send me a PM if you are interested. I live in Belgium. Shipping between Ireland and Belgium is reasonably fast. 4 working days I believe.

Bruno is right on and very generous with his offer. Take him up on it. Here are a couple more ways to improve your shaves that will pay their dividends once you have a properly honed blade:
1) Get a different brush. Body Shop sells generic stuff, so I'm assuming the brush is at best boar and at worst plastic bristle.
2) Stretch the parts of your skin that you are shaving at any given moment

The razor is shave ready, I bought it from Islat/Ivo here on SRP and it passed the HPHT as shown on utube, no I did not strop as I was afraid if I did it wrong I could make it worse. I know I will have to strop now but as it came shave ready did not think it necessary for the first shave.

Ahhh that's where the problem lies. I get horrible shaves if I don't strop my blades. Just do it slowly and gently. Even if stropping takes you 5min the first few times around.

Hey Paul,

OMG - I cringed reading this... So let's deal with it:

I shaved with this razor and it was 9 first, then 9+ shaver out of 10 for me (this just for background)

1. I would take an expert honer to look at the edge. If he tells you it wasn't shave ready - I'd refund $, apologize, etc - make it up to you. (I firmly believe this razor was a good shaver, honed well. On the other hand - a razor can pass HHT and still be less than optimal for shaving - this just to point out that mere HHT is not that good by itself; this razor was tested, though)

2. Having said this - an unstropped razor would give a harsh shave, nobody would argue here. You can also mess up the edge with improper stropping. (I din't do it my first time, but few have). So you have a choice now - try stropping, test shave. Or don't try stropping, send it to someone to check the edge before you do anything else

I was just responding to Joe Chandler the other day who was saying sth like "you don't know what the Customs did to the razors" - and I responded that I have only heard one horror story. Well, it is a distant option - but I surely hope not. Nevertheless, if something's wrong I do assume the responsibility to fix it.

Keep us posted!
Ivo

ps a salesgirl told me the bristles on your brush are synthetic, but I don't know if this could be too much of a problem. Dry lather on the face, on the other hand, and not dipping the blade in water before a pass may lead to some roughness / skips

pss What you describe does not sound / feel great at all - it's probably purely the danger rush and the novelty of the experience that's keeping you high. It shouldn't feel like this, and you'll get tired of the pain pretty quick - we need to change asap

Some good points. the first stroke would have been with a dry blade but I did dip it more and more often as I went along. the lather was a bit dry which I rewet (is that a word), and maybe I just relaxed a bit.
The shave did seem to improve as I went along. I think by that stage my face was sore and I'd had enough. I will take what I've learned, strop up the razor and go again.

Someone needs to come up with a standardized sharpness scale and testing method.

Hi Mate,

I used a Body shop brush, ditch it and buy a Kent VS80 @ £3.95, it should be available from any branch of Fenwicks, Binns, Rackhams or Boots.

if you haven't already read it here's my account of the difference it makes and lessons I learned

http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=11098

Happy shaving

The only name that I recognize is boots I'll pop in and see if they have one.

Ok I made the second attempt today.
and I'm glad to say it went very well, I started with about 40 strops on the linen side and 40 on the leather.
then into the shower. then went to shave without drying my face.
The shave I filled the sink with hot water and dropped in my bowl and new pure badger bristle brush that I picked up from my local pharmacy. I tried boots and every other store that caries some sort of toiletries and was I surprised when the only place that sells shaving brushes also has badger. I guess its nothing fancy but its well made for €20.30 and what a difference. I put some palmolive shaving cream directly onto the brush and started working up a lather in the bowl the difference was immediately apparent creating a rich creamy almost oily lather that really gets into the hair on my chiny chin chin. very impressed so far, I proceed to do another 40 strops on the leather, and low and behold the razor just slide down my cheek taking my stubble with it. I continued down my face and below my ear, moved over to the other side and did the same without switching hands. The razor just does not feel right in my left hand. Then I did the bottom of my neck with an upward with the grain stroke very clean very nice. Then on to the hard bit the chin, around and under. I took my time and tackled one bit at a time trying to stretch and flatten were I could turned out still a bit rough but that will improve with practice. then the upper lip I was dreading this but I tried something I seen on youtube were the guy skews his mouth to one side and stretches a nice flat bit from just under the nose down past the mouth and on to the chin. it worked very well and I found the the upper lip was not problem.
I re-lathered and stropped again and went for a mostly xtg were possible and atg everywhere else. which is were I had my first nick, its about 1\4" slice just under my lip were I was trying to go atg and just paused to think. I wont do that again.
In summery
Very happy a clean easy shave without razor burn, not as bbs as I would like but I'm sure I'll get there.
Thank you Ivo the razor is perfect, I must admit it crossed my mind that maybe it wasn't honed right, Am I glad I kept my mouth shut.
I did find it better with a slightly steeper angle than the recommended 30degrees it feels best about 40-45 but that could change with more practice.
Thanks for all the advise lads and feel free to jump in if you see anymore errors, thats why there so much detail.

btw if you made it to the end, sorry its so long.