Thread: What am I doing wrong?

Originally Posted by papaface29

So after a couple of shaves with my recently purchased razor off of the classifieds, I'm still left with a five 'o clock shadow once I'm done and I would appreciate any advice from you guys as to what I'm doing wrong.

1) I shave right after taking a shower
2) Before showering I soak my brush (boar hair, I know this might be part of my problem) in hot water
3) I keep my face wet with hot water while lathering (I use Williams Mug soap)
4) I build the lather in a bowl, which I keep floating in a sink full of hot water to keep warm for a second pass

Now for a few more observations:

After I make a swipe, I notice that my face is left almost completely dry in the area the blade contacted.

The hairs don't feel softer to the touch than before I took a shower, especially around my chin area, which is very tough. When going ATG on my chin, the blade pulls quite a bit.

One last thing, I believe the blade is sharp enough to shave with, I got it from the classifieds here, it is a 15/32 Engels Sculpture, vintage, and it shipped shave ready.

Any suggestions, thoughts, advice etc is welcome, Criticism won't hurt my feelings either.

First off, there is nothing wrong with a Boar brush. I use my omega boar more than all my badger brushes.

I will show you my prep and you can try it out if you want. I have a very tough beard.
I shower with my brush soaking in hot water. I also put a drop or two of hot water on my puck of soap while I shower. I should also mention that Williams soap totally dried out my skin and I haven't used it since then. I find it not so good. I like Tabac a lot more. I was my face in the shower, but I do not use conditioner, since it makes my facial hair stronger (a lot of conditioners strengthen hair).
When I am out of the shower I squeeze my brush and dump the puck water. I then cake some soak on to my brush. I soak a cloth or towel is almost boiling water. I then apply the soap to my face and face lather the soap into my face. I think lathering in a bowl is a waste of time, but that's my opinion. Once lather is on my face I apply the hot towel and press it into my skin for awhile. Make sure you don't burn yourself and squeeze some of the water out.

I then strop and lather again. Make sure your stropping it right and then it sounds like the draw is on the razor. If not, then you may be stropping wrong and that can ruin any shave ready edge in a few days. I also see you don't mention stropping at all, which is a mandatory part of straight razor shaving.

When I shave I put the blade almost flat on my face, especially on the ATG pass. make sure you're stretching the skin super tight (it won't come off don't worry).

Hopefully some of this helps you out. I seriously wonder why you didn't mention your stropping? Make sure you get one with a fabric side and a leather side. Keep us posted.

Thanks for all of your help, guys. Sorry it took so long to get a reply, I've been caught up with moving my stuff out of my dorm room lately. I will definetely keep playing with the angle of the blade, and beard prep.

I completely forgot to mention stropping, you're right Disburden. I usually take 40 laps on each side of the strop (linen,/leather). Of course my stropping technique is nil, but I'm still working on it.

One more thing, I didn't want the tone of this thread to sound despairing at all, I'm not in the least discouraged with these few setbacks. Your advice should help a ton. Thanks to all!!

One thing to consider. Your razor is acting like a squeegee with the lather, and any water. So, no, your face and lather aren't drying out per se. Rather your a scraping the moisture away. If I have to make more than one pass (like XG and ATG) I have to apply more lather.

After my prep, I'm not sure I could be 100% certain that the hairs actually feel softer to the touch - I just know they must be. So I wouldn't worry too much about that if you're showering etc.

Also, it's quite difficult to do ATG on the chin, to keep the angle constant around convex and concave curves is difficult, and it's not made any easy by the fact that the skin on your chin is difficult to get really taut.

I would just keep plugging away, you will start to notice improvements, don't be afraid to try different grips or angles of attack either - it will all help you decide what works for you and what doesn't.

Ya got to make absolutely sure you are rolling the razor over on its spine when stropping and and not lifting the spine up and rolling on the sharp edge.

Yep, that was the first thing I made sure I found out before I started stropping.

One thing that I have heard others on the forum say is that their edge actually feels dull compared to other knives, as the edge of a razor is much smoother. Do you guys (and gals) find this to be true? Is this what I am striving for when I strop?