Thread: First Shave!

Hey guys,

I had my first shave today. There were definately some ups, downs, and laughs. I started off stropping my Dovo special with my newly purchased Illinois #127 strop. I took it slow and I think the razor sharpened up pretty well after around 25 strokes. When I applied the soap my girlfriend bought me for my birthday (Geo. F. Trumpers in a wooden bowl) everything went well for half of my face, then the lather started to fade. It turns out that there was a residue of soap that gave the illusion that there was no plastic on the soap. The residue was enough to lather up half of my face and it took me a good 5 minutes to figure out that I needed to remove the plastic (this is where we laughed). My sideburns, cheeks, and chin all shaved very well, and I only got one small nick on my chin. My neck was a whole different story. While shaving my neck, the razor became more ackward to hold and the changing hair directions on my neck made some strands hard to get to. After all was said and done, the skin on my neck was red and irritated, and there was still a lot of scruff (looks like I need more practice). I think overall the shave went pretty well as any skepticism that I had about straight razors went right out the window. I was able to get a really good shave on my face (better than expected). After the shave, while stropping, I got a little overconfident and strated to move quicker on the strop, and I knicked my strop pretty good...oh well. I have to say thanks to everyone for there advise thus far, and I look foreward to learning more.

Santiago Flores

Congratulations Santiago ! Here is a great post to read on starting out in straight razor shaving. There are videos here that will be instructive and helpful as well.

learrning to strop does take some time i did not start rolling my razor on its spine until i was about a month into shaving needless to say my strop looks like it wend through a war zone but thats a good excuse to buy a new strop

Originally Posted by jszabo

...but thats a good excuse to buy a new strop

I like it!!

I did exactly the same thing with exactly the same soap - the plastic is hard to see. No, it is. What?

Congrats on the first shave being a success!! for me the neck took time to get irritation free and is still a little touchy, but much better then anything else i have tried. the soap things is funny and something would probably do! ha! definitely check out the videos on here. i am just getting to the point now where i feel really comfortable stropping, and yet i still have nicked my strop a couple times. like you said , oh well right.