Thread: Who's Face is this????

I've said this many times before but here goes again...

If you have acquired a shave ready razor from a reputable vendor who declares it to be shave ready, YOU SHOULD NOT STROP IT BEFORE YOU SHAVE WITH IT.

Sorry for the "yelling" but this is critical. A beginner has so many other new things to deal with, but a mis-stroke on a strop will roll an edge faster than you can think of anything to do to compare to the speed of doing some fast thing.

For the FIRST shave, just shave with the razor as is. Shave with the edge created by the honer. No decent honer is going to leave a razor unstropped, so it is ready to shave as you have received it.

Strop before all subsequent shaves. That way, if you notice a diminishment in the quality of the second shave, then you know that your stropping is at fault. If you strop before the first shave, then you don't know if a bad shave is the result of a bad edge or a bad shaving technique.

End of lecture. Congrats on surviving your first shave. Apparently no surgery will be required so it was a huge success!