Alive to tell the tale... Just!
Gday Gentlemen.
I am a 26 year old from Western Australia and as of this morning I am officially a cut throat razor shaver! Albeit a pretty terrible one (think the Joker from Batman).
I have chosen to start shaving with a cut throat razor for a number of reasons. Firstly, I am looking to reduce my consumption (especially of goods that are designed purely for the sake of continuous consumption - such as razor cartridges). I have coarse facial hair that grows quickly and would like something that gives a superior shave. And i like the idea of learning an old world skill - the nostalgia of it.
I purchased a Dovo Best Quality 5/8" razor from Straight Razor Designs (SRD) along with a 3" strop, shave mug, brush and some Trufitt & Hill shave cream. While shipping from the US to Australia is relatively expensive I chose SRD because of the sharpening service offered on all new razors. The customer service i got form SRD was excellent.
I was very excited to get started this morning and in my haste I made all the rookie mistakes.
MISTAKES
1. Most crucially I forgot to read Lynn’s thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/newbies-corner/38137-first-straight-razor-shave-read-first.html
2. I forgot to wipe the oil off my blade before i stropped it and lost track counting my passes. Also, I don’t have a proper fastening to hook my strop onto and as i held the strop, at times, it was not taught enough causing a slight bow in the strop and resulting in a loss of contact with the razor during the pass.
Q. If the blade looses contact/does not contact evenly with the strop do I need to start again? Tomorrow i will try lying the strop flat on a table and doing it that way. Is this ok?
3. Not enough hot water! As if it was taunting me at my feeble first attempt at shaving, my tap ran hot then cold so I did not have access to consistent hot water during the shave. Tomorrow I will fill a bowl with hot water from my kitchen tap which is more reliable.
4. Too Long! I was in the bathroom for nearly an hour this morning (I am currently on R&R so I had the time) and my face and lather had dried by the time I had finished my first cheek! I had to reapply the lather repeatedly to moisten my face but it had lost that 'just out of the shower' wetness. By the end I was pretty much dry shaving and it became quite uncomfortable with allot of scraping and pulling.
5. I tried to do the whole thing at once. BIG MISTAKE! other newbies please note that this is a terrible idea. I did ok on the cheeks but once I got to the neck things started to get ugly and by the time i got to my chin I was out of control. I got turned around with my grip and which hand to use and I am lucky not to have decapitated myself. As well as this my face had dried out.
END RESULTS
I only did one pass with the grain and my cheeks came out about on par with my normal shave (using a mach 3) the neck and chin look like I shaved with a rusty meat cleaver.
LESSONS
Tomorrow I will be making sure I get proper contact during stropping and I will also be following Lynn’s advice and starting with one section of my face to begin with. I will make sure to have a proper hot water supply and will stop if my face gets too dry.
To the other newbies. Follow Lynn's advice - it might look easy when he does it in the video - but baby steps are definitely the way to go.
Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
