Thread: First shave (such as it is)

Lots of woulda/shoulda/coulda on this one, but it is what it is and I lived to tell the tale.

Comments/Observations:
1) I'm a total noob and don't know what I'm doing nor what I'm talking about, and it's a poor craftsman who blames his tools, but I question the shave-readiness of the DD Special I got in the classifieds here.
2) I'm aslo an over-excited nitwit and didn't wait until my strop arrived. It should be here *tomorrow*.
3) Porasso pre-shave + porasso cream and you may as well be shaving with epoxy. Or at least marshmallow fluff. I need some real soap.
4) Holy crap is it awkward to swing that blade around and know which part is going to hit your face first and where. And I'm supposed to learn to do this with both hands??? The downside fo the whole experience was when I just kissed my nostril with the toe of the blade. It grew a nice red blossom instantly! It's fine now, of course.
5) In the shoulda category: I probably should have stuck to the flat bits, but I pushed on and at least gave a shot to all of it (minus the goatee I'm sporting, which saves a lot of difficult areas). The neck is going to take some learnin'.

Lessons learned? Maybe one or two... I did mention that I'm a nitwit sometimes, right?

I'm not discouraged, though. I'll have a strop in mere hours. I ordered a kickass blade from Max. I've figured out that soap probably really is a good thing. And most importantly, even with my unstropped, possibly under-honed blade, skittering hands do to my giddy excitement, ****-poor technique, Fluffernutter shaving cream and everything else, I SHAVED STUBBLE OFF MY FACE WITH A STRAIGHT RAZOR.

Now I just have to get much, much better at it.
Thanks for listening, gang. I love this place.

Welcome aboard!!! Just stick with it the comfortability whipping the blade around will come with time. Someone else with come in and give you the usual A) cheeks first few times B) watch the angle of blade C) as light on the pressure as possible.

The key is to just keep trying you have to break a few eggs to make a omelette.

Jake

You need to lay off the double shots of expresso before your next shave

Just take your time dont try to do your whole face untill you get a little more comfortable.

welcome to srp

Originally Posted by jakoblah

Comments/Observations:
1) if the person who honed it has been at it for a while chances are very very slim it was the razor, there is of course the if.

2) very good.

3) thegentlemensquarter.com is good real soap, at least works really well for me.

4) it's only awkward until you get used to it.

5) i won't be arguing on that one.

I'm not discouraged, though. I'll have a strop in mere hours. I ordered a kickass blade from Max.
now that was just one smart decision.

unstropped,
that makes a big difference, most people who know what they're doing strop a razor before calling it 'shave-ready' and letting it out the door.

have fun

Thanks guys. I'm going to try to slow down a bit.
Or y'know, just keep being a nitwit until a learn better...

I wouldn't be too concerned you didn't strop it, the advice I used - and I'm glad I did - was NOT to strop it for your first shave to give you an idea of what a shave ready razor should feel like. Give you a baseline if you like.

Lots of people use two hands, the best bet if you're finding it awkward is to get on you tube and watch a few videos, see peoples grips and how they do their passes.

Good luck.

Welcome, I'm a newbi myself. I'm learning on my Grandfathers old blade aand his gear didn't include a strop. I've got my eye on one @Classic Shaving.com but you can struggle through with out one. I'm sure once this has been added to the routine the experence will only get better.

Originally Posted by lowrideriggi

Welcome, I'm a newbi myself. I'm learning on my Grandfathers old blade aand his gear didn't include a strop. I've got my eye on one @Classic Shaving.com but you can struggle through with out one. I'm sure once this has been added to the routine the experence will only get better.

Newspaper works apparently

Tried my second shave today with an exquisitely sharp blade from Max and actually did much better.
At least until I dug in for a nice crease on the left cheek.

I still gave a go at my neck and did *alright* there, but there's lots of work to do on technique, obviously.

The sharper blade definitely made a difference, so the first DD I tried was less than "shave-ready", I think.

Thanks for all the support, gang.
I'll work it out eventually. Hopefully without significant scarring.

No blood, but not a full shave (and I'm ok with that).

Switching hands actually makes things *less* awkward. Nice.
Practicing with a butterknife razor I got to learn honing with helped a lot, too.

The beard on my neck swirls and is going to take a while to figure out, I think...

In the end, I can report continued progress!