Thread: First SR Shave

Congrats! Glad to hear you received your razor and are off to the races! It is a fun and very relaxing ritual shaving with a SR.

Originally Posted by Robini

Congrats! Glad to hear you received your razor and are off to the races! It is a fun and very relaxing ritual shaving with a SR.

Not relaxing yet, but I can see myself getting there, when I'm adept enough to not worry about slashing myself...

I understand. For my first few shaves with a SR, I had sweat pouring down my face!

Congrats on the successful start. Remember it is beard reduction with wet shaving hence multiple passes. Good luck with your shaves

Originally Posted by eddy79

Congrats on the successful start. Remember it is beard reduction with wet shaving hence multiple passes. Good luck with your shaves

Thanks for the tip. I hadn't thought of it that way, since I've only made it to one pass thus far...

Had my 3rd shave today. Definitely a lot easier than the first two. Adjusted the angle of the razor to one that was a little more aggressive (still under 30 degrees)...I guess I was really tentative in my first two attempts after hearing about the #1 newbie mistake of using too sharp an angle.. The cheeks were a breeze. Even the neck went relatively smoothly, but it got tricky on the cheeks as I got close to the mouth (I learned to puff up my cheeks a bit). My chin took a lot of time and many, many baby strokes, and resulted in an Ok shave, but not as good as the cheeks.

Where I had a lot of trouble was above the top lip. Either my razor was too wide (6/8") for my skill level, or my nose is too big, or both! After receiving my first nick, I called it a day and used my electric above the top lip. I was pretty happy with the quality of shave all around. Pretty smooth; in fact, it was smoother than my electric even at my current SR skill level and with only one pass. Going to have to find a solution for the top lip though, so I'll look around for some videos.

Stropping was more comfortable today as well, more rhythmical with repeatable sounds. The lather was definitely much better also, and I think that it really made a difference in the smoothness of the shave compared to my first two shaves. Watched a bunch of videos to improve my face lathering skills beforehand and made a makeshift scuttle (until mine arrives). With the number of re-lathers that I did, the lather on my brush was kept warm, and it felt good. Had never used face balm before (had only used after shave) and found it to really help. In fact, my face had a nice glow afterwards...

Overall, good day. Skin was not beaten up with the number of strokes that I made over the same area. Face felt smooth. Looking forward to the day when I can try going across/against the grain to see just how smooth things can get.

I'll give my face a break tomorrow and see if a day off helps with shaving above the top lip.