Hello friends,

I am new to straight razor shaving and I seem to be having a bit of trouble. I know that it is because of my inexperience, but I was wondering if it was also because the razor is not sharp enough.

I have only shaved with the razor three times. It is a Le Grelot 6/8 1/4 hollow razor that I had pre-honed by Martin at razurpur.de. Most people say he hones razors well, so it probably arrived nice and sharp. I don't know how common it is for the razor to become dull after only a few shaves, but I think it is possibly why I'm having trouble. I am using firm, confident strokes, but I get a lot of tugging, rather than slicing, on my neck and chin. It seemed worse the third time I shaved than the second time. The first time I don't remember getting to much tugging, although chin and neck hair were harder for me to cut. I just remember not knowing how to hold the razor.

The razor doesn't pass the hanging hair test. It also doesn't seem to tug at my skin when I try the thumb pad test. Because I am not an expert at the TPT I compared the feeling of the straight to that of a fresh DE blade. The DE felt like it was tugging at my skin but there was significantly less tugging with the straight. It was much smoother feeling.

Anyway, I was wondering what you guys thought about this. Maybe I did something to dull it. I don't think it's my stropping technique, because I have been doing it slowly and lightly while keeping the strop taut, and it makes the sound like you are supposed to hear. Maybe the way I was slicing at the hairs or pushing the razor against my face caused it to dull? Or dulled it some other way? Or maybe it's not dull at all, it's just my technique?

I recently bought a barber hone (pike swaty). Is this a good hone for keeping my razor edge sharp? How often should I expect to have to hone this razor, and around how many strokes do you estimate? If it's not such a great hone, what would you recommend?

Thanks a lot!