Thread: Had my first shave at a shop

Originally Posted by MichaelRork

So, I had my first straight razor shave, given by someone else, and it WASN'T the smoothest, best shave of my life. In fact, there were a lot of issues with it that I wanted to ask you guys about.

First of all, I had a straight razor shaving of my neck and sideburns in July and those areas were very well shaved. Smooth, clean, and lasted longer than normal. This inspired me to do research for straight razor shaves in my city (I was on vacation when I had it done before). I found a shop that does them, and went in.

Before I get into the details of what she did, let's start with the outcome.

I was unimpressed with the shave because it was only smooth in some spots of my face. For example, my cheeks were BBS in some spots, but around near my jaw it was about what I'd get with a Mach3. Then my neck (throat) was worse than I've done myself with a Mach3.

Is this likely due to the shaver (European woman who's been doing this for likely 30 years), the razor, the lather, or my face? (Or something else?)

Here's everything I remember from the shave.

She sat me down and put a hot towel on my face. Then she lathered my face with a cream from a dispenser with her hands. My wife says it wasn't too thick. She then shaved me with the grain (for the most part) for most of my face. Then she threw another hot towel on, and then lathered my face up with an oil. She then did more shaving, much of which was touch up and against the grain. My face bled. Mostly around my neck where she didn't get a very close shave. My wife adds that she did a lot of across the grain both on the first and second shave.

I did the same thing last week; she cut me on the chin (very superficially but it still bled a little, like 4-5 drops), some areas were smooth, some still felt rough. Cheeks were smooth, rest was so-so. The lather she used was a horrible, mint and eucalyptus stinking, anesthetizing cream. I couldnt feel my face for half an hour. Which was probably not a bad thing after all LOL She used a Shavette, WTG and XTG.