Thread: First Shave experience

Hi everyone. this may be my first post here though I have been lurking for quite some time.

So here is a run down of my first straight razor shave experience, I wanted to get everything that i needed together before beginning so i did just that with the following items;

Vulfix badger hair brush
Mama Bear 'marauder citrus soap
SRP 2 inch red latigo and webbing strop
and my own no-name Russian straight razor that i bought in a flea market in Moscow when I was there in 2005.

Before discovering this forum and becoming enlightened in the ways of shaving i had my straight razor sharpened by a local knife shop that claimed they do them all the time. I take my other cutlery to them and I always had good results so i thought there was no problem.

I just received the rest of my shaving outfit this afternoon so I was eager to give it a shot.

So i broke out my Strop and did my best to follow the recommendations of those on this site, and things seemed to be going well enough.

I didnt need to shower so i simply wrapped a hot towel around my neck area as that is where I shave most often. I am not a fan of being fully shaven most of the time.

So i wet my face really good and go to work getting some marauder citrus lather going, its working out well. Lathers up good and goes on easily.

so now it comes down to it.... and I notice that starting at the outskirts of the neck i have no problem shaving it,(Most of the hair on my neck grows downwards so that is the natural first pass) but when i get into the tougher hair near my jawline and under my chin it becomes a nightmare, the blade it sticking immediately and i have to put excess pressure and use many many strokes to get any hair off at all.

I tried re-wetting my face and lathering again and that helped somewhat but there was still the sticking problem throughout.

I had to essentially go through this ordeal so that i could get my wife to let me purchase a shave ready razor sometime soon - we are on a pretty tight budget though.


The good: Experience is worth a thousand times more than reading testimonials for me at least. I had a fun time trying out a number of different razor holding techniques, had a nice sensation using a brush and hard soap for the first time (Cant wait to throw out my Gillette shyte cream). I can now look forward to a better shave next time, hopefully with a better razor eventually as well.

The bad: ended up with a little razor burn but not much - i got a pretty close shave even though it took a long time to achieve, The wife doesn't like marauder citrus as much as she thought she would when we bought it (she is pregnant though so her senses are broke).

The ugly: I think I just barely tapped my razor on the drain plug in the bottom of the sink one time when I was rinsing it and I ended up with a chip near the point - Which i didnt notice until i was practicing stropping after the shave and scratched my new strop.

Good times.

welcome

i guess i would recommend that you have somebody else resharpen your razor this time. unless you think your local shop indeed does a good job at it. it's hard to tell as you're only shaving a difficult area without too much preparation (or am i reading it wrong?), so it's unclear what are all the factors that contribute to the subpar results.

Yeah dificult to tell if you problem is tecnique or blunt blade. But if its chipped now i sugest you send it off to one of the honemeisters on this forum look in the clasifieds. Thats also a great place to buy a great and well priced shave ready razor. Or you could get yourself a presharpened Wapi. I have a couple and they are superb and dirt cheap! good luck!

Welcome Stifle,

Well with that chip you need to get it rehoned anyway so I would just send it off to a honemeister..

In the meantime you could get a shavette to learn how to shave with a straight. It has some drawbacks and some advantages.. but one thing is a sure thing.. it will always be sharp and shaveready..you could read some more on the shavette here Shavette - Straight Razor Place Wiki

or you could get a second shaveready razor..

whatever you do dont shave with your razor until you have it honed up again by a pro..

Have fun!

Maarten

I appreciate the replies thus far.

I am pretty sure that i could use more practice and i definitely chose the harder area of my face to start on.

I am not sure it is worth it for me to send my Russian razor off to be honed for $20 or so, I don't think that it is much of a razor in the first place... Ill do some posting of pics if i can get my camera working, see if there are any glaring flaws that I don't see.

You need to get your razors honed, Guys!