Thread: Preparing for straight razor shaving

well, then you're doomed. but as you said, it was meant to be. welcome to the club
ah, colleen's soap is addictive - not sure what she puts in it, but it is some goood stuff
no wonder she had the biggest thread on this board...

Well, she is about to receive an order from me... It's funny because I NEVER used to shave on a weekend unless there was a wedding or something similar that I had to attend... Heck, I tried to shave as little as possible during the week, and now I find myself shaving almost daily just as an excuse to use my creams (and soon soaps)...

Well, I thought I would add a slightly humorous update. I received a razor from heavyduty last night and so I finally needed to find a place to hang my strop. I don't have any hooks yet, so I took a clothes hanger and a pair of pliers and snipped it more or less in half, making a hook at each end and attaching one to the towelbar and the other to the strop. Well, the cutting pliers I used weren't the greatest and so the end that I clipped had a rather sharp point to it (you can see where this is going...) After I had twisted it into a hook and attached the strop, I brought my hand down and the palm dragged over the sharp end. It opened up a nice 1-inch gash across the top of the palm.

So, the first blood drawn was not on my face at all, which I found a bit ironic and humorous... Needless to say I am looking for a better means of attaching the strop. Tomorrow I will actually use the razor (I was in a hurry this morning and did not want to rush it). I did do a little stropping.

More tomorrow, after the shave...

welcome and best wishes for your adventure ahead. remember it takes time to learn this skill. don't go too fast or try to tackle too much on your face at the begining day 1.

soap vs. cream is very much a personal choice. my opinion is that creams are easier to use, produce very thick rich lather and cushion a tad more, especially for beginers. i think thats a good place to start. after about 4months i started buying soaps and havn't bought another cream since then. i think soaps produce a closer shave but in doing so i'd say on average there's a tad less cushion which is good as you are starting to give a slight more forgiving shave. soaps come in more scents which is part of this adventure. its what you want to smell like, how you are feeling or to put you into a feeling.

glycerin/triple milled. i don't put too much into these in the comparison on how well the soap work as they both work very well. you will eventually use both kinds and make that choice yourself. glycerin is much easier to make lather, it poofs up fast. tripled milled will last much longer then glycerin becuase its a harder soap. you can make great lather with both kinds. soap lathering takes some time to get right, eachsoap maker is different and lather techniques are slightly different for each soap... amount of twisting, amount of water, amount of soap applied to the brush. the 1 advice i'd give when using soap is to load your brush with plenty of soap. if you want cream like thick rich lather then you need the soap. don't under do it. do 20 twists on your soap till it starts making lather in the soap bowl just a tad, then move to your mug/face however you'd like. remember you can always add water to the mix to get more lather, add lubricity..but you can't really remove water so start with smaller amount of water and add 4/5 drops as needed.

for touch ups to the razors i'd agree with the above. it depends on your stropping technique as you can roll your edge if you angle your razor. ofcourse how bristley your beard is will come into play. after lynn puts that bevel and edge on your blade you will be good for a long time and won't need to touch the lower grit stones for up to a year. however, like stated above, only you can tell when its getting uncomfortable, pulling and you want it touched up. some do it as much as once a week to a paste to keep that velvety smooth feel, others go a month. one thing ill add is that when people do their first straight shave it does feel like its has a slight tug feeling. thats' becuase you are cutting more area per movement and becuase you and your face are not used to the feel of the razor and its feedback you get thru it. you and your skin will get used to this and wont even notice it going forward. so expect a little bit of it starting but it shoudln't be uncomfortable enough where you feel like you are ripping out your whiskers.

i also store my razors in the bathroom. you need to wipe down your razor to get off soap residue and water as those will cause you to lose your edge and lead to rust. thats what you need to worry about. clean it well before putting it away. i let mine sit out for a few hours before closing them but i don't have childer or anyone i need to worry about touching them. just clean them well. i use some toilet paper and gently and precisly wipe them down.

good luck, keep at it. don't get discouraged in week 1. i'd suggest you start using both hands as there are angles and movements you just cna't do using 1 hand only. learn early and it becomes very easy and second nature real fast.

~J

Indeed, I'm far more concerned about cutting my hands than my face. Do be careful while handling the blade (and the hangers, of course ). Good luck and let us know how the first shave goes.

Jordan

another victim MuHahAHA

PuFF

Well, here are the details of the first attempt.

My razor had arrived, honed by a member of the forums. I hung up my strop in the bathroom (got an actual hook to replace my palm-slicing coat hanger arrangement) and so I figured I would give stropping a shot. In retrospect this might not have been necessary, and possibly was a bad move... That being said, I tried to be very careful while stropping, doing my best not to apply pressure, not flipping the blade over on the edge, etc.

I prepared with a hot shower. I had my hot water in my shave bowl and also in a mug in which I put my brush. After I got out of the shower, I dumped out the water from the bowl and mug, squeezed the water from the brush and ran it under some fresh hot water. Gave it a quick shake and then put some Trumper's Violet cream in the bowl and began to work up the lather. I unintentionally put a little more water in the lather than I intended to, which might have been another mistake... It seemed like I got a decent lather out of it but perhaps not as "cushy" as normal.

Anyway, I took out the blade and prepared to shave WTG on one cheek, based on the pictures in Moss' "Art of Straight Razor shaving" PDF. I had a couple of days of beard growth. The razor scraped down my cheek - the lather didn't seem to provide any sort of glide or cushion, which is why I fear that it had too much water in it. I adjusted the angle, re-lathered and gave several other attempts, but there was still a very strong "scraping" feel and the razor sort of bounced along.

I tried some other spots on my face - the other cheek, the neck, chin, etc. In retrospect this was a bad idea, but my intent at the time was to try adjusting my technique and see if it made a difference. Right away I was rewarded with a couple of nice nicks on the chin that wept for the rest of the shave. Not a big deal. I actually seemed to do OK down the middle of the neck. In retrospect I should have mixed up a new batch of lather to see if it made a difference - the razor went through the lather almost like it wasn't there and then scraped along my comparatively dry skin.

After some more experimentation with blade angles, etc. and a few passes in different directions, I finished up with my cartridge and put on some Trumper's CSF.

Now, I want to make it clear that I'm sure the problem was mine, and not the blade itself. I'm sure that it arrived with a good edge, but one or more of the following must be the culprit:

1) I somehow messed up the edge while stropping
2) My lather had too much water in it
3) Shave technique (angle, etc.)
4) Something else I've overlooked

So, I will let my skin rest a bit and give it another shot. I also just received my World of Straight Razor Shaving DVD, so I will watch that and see if it helps to point out some of my problems. I also should have another razor on the way that has also been professionally honed, which I will probably not strop at all before giving it a shot and see if that makes a difference.

Wow - congratulations on the first attempt.

I was also puzzled after my first shave last week, but it's getting better. Seems like you have pretty good idea what may have been the problems. I think the lather definitely needs to be thicker (you can see Lynn's on the DVD). My first few shaves were with pretty thin lather too, but I wasn't even sure this was a problem. As far as dulling the edge - I was afraid I did that as well, but it turned out I didn't. You say you were very careful with the pressure, so I'm inclined to think you didn't either. I found that having a bit of momentum is quite useful, and in my case it is mandatory for the tougher beard on the chin.

Good idea about switching to a real hook

Keep posted what you find and what works for you

I watched some of the sections from Lynn's DVD this afternoon. What a great and comprehensive resource - I'm a very visual person and it's great to actually see various techniques demonstrated. I didn't watch the entire honing section (saving it for later) but did watch the whole intro, the stropping demonstration, pre-shave and shave, etc. Lynn makes it look effortless. Based on watching him strop, I'm going to work on my "x-pattern", which I know will also be needed for honing. The razor seems to just glide over his skin, with the characteristic sound that indicates shaving is happening... So, I have to figure out what is preventing me from getting to that point.

One thing I considered is that I had several days worth of beard growth, and I would consider my beard to be relatively coarse/tough, so this probably did not help.

Tomorrow morning (actually this morning, as I just realized it's after midnight) I may try to do just the cheeks again, hopefully with better lather, and see if it helps. I don't think I will go beyond the cheeks (as Lynn and others recommend) until I can get things going fairly smoothly in that location.

My generation is certainly at a disadvantage, not having dads who practiced the art and could pass it down. But, assuming I can succeed, I can show my son the ropes many years from now.

I had the dvd running in the background for the honing section - paid attention at the begining, but then it was too much i think that was the most comprehensive section, which makes perfect sense, 'the honing' being particularly strong with Lynn


Yeah, he does make shaving all effortless, doesn't he
As far as the sound goes, I am pretty sure this is very razor and beard specific. I've read in one of the old threads about this. If your razor doesn't make that sound it doesn't mean you're doing it wrong. In fact come to think of it, most razors will make sound at a steeper angle, but you don't want that.

Anyways, I think you're right on on mastering the cheeks first. The one time I nicked myself was on my upper lip, while just trying to position the razor - the shaving wasn't even happening at that time. Didn't even bleed - just had a red slice for a day.

Anyways, good luck with it tomorrow/today