Hey everyone,

So after about 2 years of enjoying wet shaving with a safety razor I finally took the plunge and purchased my first straight razor, a DOVO Bergischer Love and a strop.
I purchased mine from West Coast Shaving and chose to have it professionally honed.

My first shave with it was as I was expecting to be honest pretty bad, few minor cuts but I had a burning sensation on my face that day, almost screamed when putting my alum on after the shave hehe.
The razor felt plenty sharp but the shave wasn't super close, I blamed it on technique really.

I've since then shaved 4 times (not a lot), stropping is going well, watched plenty of videos of stropping and even though I'm no expert I feel I'm doing it right, just going slow at the moment.

However my blade just feels like it's getting duller and duller with each shave. Just did a 2 pass shave just now and it just didn't remove any hair at all really. Was pretty annoyed.
Don't know what I'm doing wrong, it must have something to do with my stropping, can you really get the blade this dull so quickly?

It's not passing the falling hair test at all, I just tried shaving a bit of my forearm and really, it's not cutting very well. It cuts some for sure but it just passes over most.

Could it be that maybe it wasn't properly honed, seems unlikely. Or may I have done something wrong in this short time of owning it that may have dulled it this much?
Is it possible my technique is just that bad? Is the falling hair test and the fact I'm having a hard time shaving the hair of my forearm no indication that it's dull?

I live in a fairly isolated part of the world here in Iceland and to my knowledge there is no one here that would hone a straight razor, Wouldn't surprise me if I was the only person here that uses one really
If I need to have it sent somewhere to be honed I will, was hoping it wouldn't have to be in the first week I received it though


Any advise?