Thread: First few shaves... not so good

JBone. THe best advice I got in this wa
FOCUS ON TECHNIQUE. DON'T WORRY ABOUT THE SHAVE
Yes this helped me the best. Clean up with a disposable or whatever works.
Look at the vids. Focus on stretching and contorting..
Most any shave soap will be good. PREP is sooo VERY important. Hydrate the beard.
Good luck.
and STROP..
Learn to strop....

Originally Posted by dregan

1) Preshave oil. I was surprised at how much this smoothed out my shaves. It seems to give a closer shave as well.

4) stretch out your skin and pay attention to your angle. Taut skin will lead to a closer shave and I find there is definitely a sweet spot to the angle.

Good stuff. Especially the preshave oil! The times I have used oil wielded dramatically better results.

Yo,
I read plenty of times about rookies having great first shaves and that sure is not how it went for me. Had my razor not been honed by Lynn I would have been sure that it was dull. It felt dull but I knew it must be my technique. I have been at it for about 3.5 months now and I can tell you that it does not come fast. I focus on one thing at a time. I have stopped caring about getting the closest shave I can for now. First I worried about the angle for several weeks of shaving. Once I got that down I worried about pressure for another couple weeks. After that I became engrossed with the direction my hair grows for the ideal cutting direction. Only now am I tying it all together into a good shave. Great? Not quite yet. I can still get much closer with the old mach 3 though the straight gives me no irritation at all. My only point is this: Read a lot from this site. All of the information is there. Focus on the angle. Don't go against the grain until everything else is adequate (3 months for me). Practice makes perfect, we will all get there some day...or die trying

Agree with everything already stated. +++ on the shave technique and prep - so important!

I'd emphasize the advice on the stropping. Were it my razor, I'd strop the hell out of it. This doesn't mean hours of stropping, nor 100's of round trips, just some good solid stropping using good stropping form. First with a bit of pressure on a canvas, then more lightly on the leather side. You may need to alternate between the two (always ending with the leather side) until you razor is ultra keen. It really helps if you have a properly broke in strop.

If you haven't watched the stropping video I did, it's in a sticky in the Newbie section. You don't have to go as fast as I do (in fact I highly caution against it if you are a begginer), but in time you will be able to speed it up.

Not sure of all the dynamics involved (lot's of speculation here) but faster stropping certainly does seem to produce superior results.

Good luck,

Scott

Originally Posted by yawdeuce

Yo,
I read plenty of times about rookies having great first shaves and that sure is not how it went for me. Had my razor not been honed by Lynn I would have been sure that it was dull. It felt dull but I knew it must be my technique. I have been at it for about 3.5 months now and I can tell you that it does not come fast. I focus on one thing at a time. I have stopped caring about getting the closest shave I can for now. First I worried about the angle for several weeks of shaving. Once I got that down I worried about pressure for another couple weeks. After that I became engrossed with the direction my hair grows for the ideal cutting direction. Only now am I tying it all together into a good shave. Great? Not quite yet. I can still get much closer with the old mach 3 though the straight gives me no irritation at all. My only point is this: Read a lot from this site. All of the information is there. Focus on the angle. Don't go against the grain until everything else is adequate (3 months for me). Practice makes perfect, we will all get there some day...or die trying

This is worthy of a QUOTE...
It's all here
Impatience is what will cause failure.
Well put.
Thank you yawdeuce

I went through the same problems when starting out. In the end, I am not sure where all my problems were... just mostly inexperience. I do know that I had a really crappy stropping technique and managed to completely destroy an edge that Lynn Abrams had put on a couple of my razors. However, I did not figure this out until I had destroyed an edge or two that I had put on a razor. It's all a learning process. One of the things that helped me was having a standard to compare my work to. You will hear folks saying to get a honemeister to hone your razor and use that as the standard. Unfortunately, I managed to dull those edges by rolling them due to improper stropping technique.
My real breakthrough came when I got a Feather Artist Club razor and used that as a fallback razor and a constant standard for comparison. While I still had frustration getting to the standard, I now had a constant standard for comparison of shave quality. Since then, I have come to really appreciate the Feather as a part of my regular rotation. In fact, I recently received a non-folding Feather to add to my collection.
Keep working at it. Good luck! The reward is in the journey...

Sorry I havent posted any updates to this (been busy).

First thanks for all the tips and insight.

I am now on shave #5 and things are looking up!! Last night was the best shave I had thus far. They seem to keep getting better. Ive been trying a few different techniques, including shave prep that have been helping. I think a big part of the problem was that I was not stropping enough. Although im not at the point of having a completely BBS shave yet, Im getting closer!

Oh and I almost forgot:

It seems like the lather I make sometimes "sets" and actually feels like a thick grease or putty. I really dont know how to describe it much better than that. Any tips???

sounds like you need more water also you might thy some glycerin Drop gssixgun a pm when it comes to lather hes the guy to talk to.

Originally Posted by vegard_dino

Hi, well, I think we all had that problem when we stared out. I did.

Just keep reading, keep trying new things like angel of the razor, the way you hold it, soap( yes, not all are the same) and so one.

Vegard_dino

OMG. I know this is an old post. I was searching for something else and came across this. That's what I've been missing?! The Razor Angel! How come nobody told me about this. Where can you find one?