Kewl! I have been shaving a bit longer than you. I used to use those plastic safety razors for years. I finally got tired of the razor just bouncing along the beard with out really cutting the whiskers off smoothly. I graduated to a very nice twin handle that was heavy enough to prevent the bouncing. However, two things led me to the straight. First, there were some areas on my face that the twin couldn't reach no matter how much I contorted my face. The second reason was because the sharpness was inconsistent for the safety blades. There were wide variances in the sharpness of new ones, even with nice Merkur blades. I quickly found out that the straight razor gave me consistent sharpness each and every shave (grand total of 7 today). It's like having a very nice, new blade for each shave without adding to landfills with materials that won't biodegrade!