Thanks to all the great people here at SRP for all the great info and help getting started. This forum has been a boon of information for me and helped me make the plunge into straight razor shaving.

Ordering:
On friday, I ordered my first straight razor, a Dovo Forstal, from Straight Razor Designs with their wet shaving kit. I received my order on Monday. I'm extremely impressed at the turn around time between ordering the product and receiving it. I've never received that level of service from a site without paying extra for my order to be expedited. I received everything I had ordered, except the scent of soap I received was incorrect. I ordered the Lime scent and received the Lavender. I'm not a huge fan of lavender, but the scent is subtle enough that I don't have an issue with it. I have not contacted them yet to let them know about the error. Although I did use the soap this morning so I doubt they'd want it back.

Shaving Experience:

So, to start off with, I was terrible at making my first lather. I'm pretty sure the biggest culprit was that I forgot to let hot water sit on the soap for a couple minutes before starting the lather. So, it took me way too long to build a suitable lather.

The shave was great! I took my time because I was unsure of how to get the best angles for shaving. But it was the smoothest shave I have ever had. I have a Braun electric razor and Harrys/Gillete razors and this blew them all away. The only problem was that I was so concerned with getting the angles right and not cutting myself, that I shaved my face very unevenly.

I have a beard, that I like to let run down my jaw line and I keep my cheeks shaven. Well, while concentrating on not cutting myself, I shaved down quite a bit further on one cheek than the other and didn't even notice until I had cleaned up and my girlfriend told me to look at myself in the mirror. So I had to grab the electric out and fix my mistake.

Conclusion:

My first shave was a great experience. It was far from perfect, but I learned quite a bit that I'll be improving on. I don't think I would have ever done it without all the people here at SRP.