I had my first straight shave tonight and honestly it reminded me a lot of the first time I had sex. Not to be rude but it's true.

At first I was scared and nervous of the blade and didn't know what to do with it. I did lots of reading before my first shave, watched countless videos on how to shave and how to strop so I THOUGHT I was pretty confident. HA. When I started my shave I had no clue how firmly to hold it, how far to stretch the skin. Not to mention the intimidating sound of my Genco, 5/8 full hollow square point.

All this made me quite the nervous Nancy. At first I thought I'd shave my whole face. YEAH RIGHT. After fumbling around for about 5-10 min I cleaned off the Poraso lather that started to dry out and resided to shave first the right side of my face (I'm right handed).

This seemed like a better idea. I was able to actually cut some hair this
time. So I re-applied some lather and found that I was more successful with an XTG pass rather than a WTG. I then felt confident enough to work on the right side of the mustache.

I continued with this method (shaving in sections) until I had no choice but to tackle the chin. In working on the chin I found I was most successful with XTG & ATG passes and after lots of re-lathering a few nicks the chin was finally done.
(One good thing about shaving in sections and this shave taking so long most of the nicks had time to close on their own )

I found the neck the easiest part of my shave and had built up enough confidence to shave the neck going ATG. All in all it was a great experience and it left me wanting more. I ended up with an almost perfect shave only needing to touch up one place. Not to mention the hand full of nicks I gave my self didn't need a septic pen and couldn't be seen after a splash of cold water.

I also discovered that like shaving with a straight stroping is pretty tough. I didn't strop too much because in the starter kit I got from Gugi my Genco was shave ready. I did a few passes on the canvas side and a few on the leather side and called it done.

So like I said it reminded me very much of my first time having sex. Awkward and intimidating at first but my confidence grew with each pass and I cant wait to do it again.