gaining confidence .. a shave at a time

hello all, really excited to be here. Had a tough time for some reason getting the confirmation email. But now it's all ok. I am in. :beer1:

I really started shaving with straight razors around 6 months back, because the triple blades, 5 blades et al had left me with considerable problems on my skin in form of razor bumps and ingrown hair. So I decided to go straight razor shaving on the cheap and got me a ZY430+, a very curious blade from what I could gather. 2 weeks later got a leather strop, diamond paste & a gold dollar (heard it in forums) kit from China and decided to check my shaving and honing skills. In 6 months, I can say that I am addicted to this now. More than shaving, I am addicted to sharpening.

The ZY430+ it's a 6/8 #777 came as ready to shave, I didn't do HHT on it but it would really grip the skin on the thumb, so i guess it was nicely sharp. But there was a problem in that it had a prominent recurve behind the toe and that worried me as to how I could hone this well. So began to learn honing on what was a really sharp razor from factory. I feel now that this was a mistake. :banghead: and I should have just left that razor alone. To top it my gold dollar (208) too was really beautiful and sharp. It has needed no sharpening, passes HHT and gives beautiful shaves every time.

I had started around with a shavette so, I didn't have much shaving anxiety during my first Straight shave. In fact, it felt much friendlier and solid than the shavette which would cut me if I did a small mistake, the straight razor on other hand was very forgiving. I hope to share my various experiences in various forums. Thanks for accepting me.

Confidence is a good thing, but don't drown on it. Keep focus and read the thread "cut of the day".

already have 2 cuts on the left side with the shavette almost 2 months back. During those days I was exclusively using a shavette. But the thing is, with a shavette you really have no choice with a dull blade, just throw it away. And I never cut myself during my beginning stages, almost 4 months without a single cut. It was when I let my blades get dull and didn't change them that they cut me.

With a straight razor, I have shaved without soap and just moistened the face, and they still work fine. In fact that works better and face stays cleaner a longer time without soap. I feel. Since I was learning to hone, also learnt that stropping the blade once too many also dulls the razor a bit, just a tad bit, so that it is not as sharp as a DE blade that you split and insert into the shavette. I feel it is the stropping that has saved me when I was learning. This time I used the razor right after honing on a newspaper, without stropping, and the thing was too sharp.