Thread: 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.

if nothing else, you could tie a string to a door handle and attach the strop to that. It needs hooked on to something so you can keep it taut

Goodonyamate! It does get less painful. I'm spending less and less time bleeding and more time trying to refine my skills. I'm still slow too, I'm not above grabbing the brush and freshening up an area before shaving it.
Good luck
G

Hi & welcome,
Sounds like an enthusiastic start!
It's very important to keep the strop taut. If it's not, you may roll the edge, leading to having to have it re-honed, & the expensive shipping you mentioned if it goes back to Lynn. Read up on stropping.
It's also important to keep the skin pretty taut. Read up on all aspects of the shave, including stretching.
Get the hot water sorted. That stubble will come off easier if it's softened. Read up on prep.
Concentrate on getting the angle right on just the cheeks, from ear to jawline. Don't progress till you feel you've mastered it! Two spines width is a good indicator of around 30 degrees. Try to stick with this till you need to progress.
The Wiki is a fantastic resource that's constantly being updated & improved by many dedicated members, such as Ben, above. Make good use of it & you'll be fine!

Welcome to SRP. As a fellow newbie, I made a lot of the same mistakes when I first started. I have received a lot of support on this site. The members are very helpful and this site contains so much information. Some of your questions can be answered by reading through the wiki section of this site. Best of luck and close shaves!

You'll get used to stropping and you will get better. Start slow, and keep the strop taught. I wouldn't lay a strop designed to hang on a table, although, I'm not sure it'll hurt anything. You should learn to do it proper. Use very slow controlled strokes until you get the hang of it. It will come, as will proper shaving. Stropping is important. You want to do around 40-50 laps IMO. Since your learning, take as much time as you need. Once you get it down, it'll go faster. and you'll be looking forward to your next shave...
Welcome...

check Wiki and video section on General tab. i think i have seen how to strop ,shave etc in there. it will help you to see with your eyes. gl

Originally Posted by zib

...Start slow, and keep the strop taught. ...

Yeah! Teach that strop and keep it taut while you're at it.

Welcome aboard.

I took 45 minutes on my first few shaves as I had to get use to everything - the razor touching/moving on my skin, tugging issues, how to make a good lather - WTG/XTG/ATG, weepers...etc. I did watch a bunch of Youtube videos, read lot on SRP - Wiki, and kept trying to do better with each shave. I did use my Mach 3 to clean rough spots as I had to get to work rather than play with my straight razor. After I was getting the hang of straight shaving, the Mach 3 started collecting more dust. Since I started straight shaving six months ago, I consumed 1.5 shaving catridges while I was learning to straight shave. Today, the Mach 3 feels so cheap, flimsy, and unimpressive. To think how I use to think it was great shaving tool.............How little did I know!

Just keep at it and it will come. The best analogy I can think of it that it is like learning how to ride a bike when we were kids. It just takes effort and determination.

My reason for switching to Straight Shaving was very similar to yours.

Welcome to SRP!

Pabster

Patience, patience, patience. This is a marathon, not a sprint. In real estate the montra is location, location, location. In straight razor use it's prep, prep, prep. Leave your ego outside and go very slow and you will be surprised at how quickly to will develop the touch memory to make this a fabulous experience.

Lewis