Thread: N00bs First Shave....Almost

I apologize for the long rambling post... I'm not very good at saying what I mean to say

Well I had my first straight shave today... I couldn't finish with the straight ... I did both cheeks/sideburns WTG, I tried to do the neck and chin and below the nose, it just would not work.
On the Plus side, after taking the fusion (, Hoping I didn't have to go back to that thing) to the cheek I shaved with the straight, there was not many whiskers for the fusion to take away!

I've got a few problems/questions that I would like some help from you guys with. I'll post what I did then ask the questions...Sorry for the long post.

First I had a hot shower and when I got out I left my face wet and used Proraso pre shave creme, then I made up my lather using the proraso shaving creme and an Omega Boar brush. I rinsed my blade under hot water to warm it up, stretched my skin by pulling up on my sideburn and started the first stroke WTG. The blade seemd to get stuck and stick to my face, I thought that maybe this was a problem with the lather maybe it was too sticky, it was fairly think whiter and I could not see any skin through it at all.. It looks quite different from the lather shown in vids and on the wiki, but I found it to work great with the fusion.

You can see in the pics How much I used and what it looked like, but it completely covered my face in a thick coating and I could not see any skin or hairs..this lather seemd to make the razor 'stick' to my face.. so I thought maybe it was too thick and sticky...So I tried a soap lather

The soap lather looked nothing like the wiki, but I could rub my brush on the soap and then rub it on my face and I got a white coating that was semi see though. I could lightly see the skin and the hairs were poking out, this seemed easier for the razor to glide though.

So I kind of messed up by changing lathers I should have stuck with one the whole way through ... Ill have to work on my lather.

I guess the whole question is, what is the feeling of the razor going though the whiskers? should it just glide though?

Another Important note is that I did not strop... horrible I know.. I was too anxious to try my razor out and I don't have a strop for another week or so..It's in the mail.

There seems to be a whole lot of rambling above...

Would improper lather effect the blades ability to shave and cause it to stick?
How fast should the 'swipe' with the razor be? I was going fairly slow and cautious
How vital is the stropping on a shave ready razor?? I was thinking that If I did a poor job stropping that I would ruin the shave ready edge.

anyways.. hopefully what I said made some sense, and your not totally confused or asleep.

Thanks and if I left anything out please ask