Thread: SUCCESS! & Kudos to Josh Earl!

I had my first truly successful straight razor shave this morning, and am quite happy about it; especially since, as recently as yesterday I had entertained the notion of selling all of my razors!
All my shaves up to now have been rather painful affairs, with pulling, redness, irritation, nicks, and even bumps (which I never get with safety razors). I sent some razors to Josh Earl for cleaning and honing. Now they are very sharp and smooth, but my shaves still hurt. So this morning, I followed the advice given frequently on this board, to keep the angle very shallow. I got out my beautiful 100-year-old Shumate Admiral, some Honeybee Spa Strawberry Soap, and had the best shave of my life!
Of course, my technique still needs fine-tuning; I did clean it up a bit at the end with my Gillette Tech. But my face felt so good afterward, I toweled off and applied Pinaud Bay Rum to my dry face. No screams!
A big thank you to Josh Earl for his excellent honing and restoration work, and to Lynn Abrams and all the great guys on SRP for their advice and help to us new guys!
SALUTE!

Norm