I finally took the plunge and ordered a Dovo Tortoise 5/8 from SRD and a Tony Miller strop this week. Wooo!

I got the razor today and was drooling over it for a while. I took a hair from the wife's hairbrush and tried to cut it. Didn't do it as easy as I thought it would. Like a dummy, I tried to "slice" the hair by moving the razor across the hair. I had much more resistance than I thought I would and it took about a half inch before it cut the hair. I then realized that the edge was much more delicate than I anticipated. I was nervous that I messed up the hone it, but am hopeful I didnt?

Figure I would give this baby a go, so I put a hot towel on my face for a couple of minutes. Built a soap lather, applied, and whoa, what a shave experience! Definitely something that requires practice for me! Also, didn't strop the razor before hand for two reasons: 1) Read that from SRD I didn't need to, and 2) my Tony Miller strop didn't come in yet and I was waaaay to eager to try the Dovo out to wait.

My first step was to angle the mirror just right to see up close what I was doing. My counter is a bit deep, so I had to open the mirror cabinet door some to get it closer to my face. The next challenge was stretching the skin and getting my hand coordinated enough to not hit my eyeglasses screwing up the line of sight to the mirror. With the skin tight, I made my first swipe with the grain under my sideburn. It was a great feeling! BBS!

And thats when all hell broke loose.

I then tried out the other side under the sideburn. Went equally as good though I felt like an uncoordinated bafoon trying to hold the razor in a secure and comfortable way. The wife laughing at my quizzical looks trying to figure this out didn't help the situation. On to the neck, I felt the presence of the razor much more. I stopped and re-evaluated my razor angle, refreshed shaving cream application, and continued on. I managed to get the neck done, but it was a bit rough feeling with a bunch of missed spots. At that point I figured it might be a good idea to strop the razor, because of the rought feeling, so I stopped using the straight and finished off with my DE.

All in all, I had an absolute blast! I can't wait for the strop to come in so I can give this another go. I am extraordinarily grateful for this community as I have learned such an incredible amount from the folks of SRP so far.