Thread: Hello to all

Excellent advice here already. Beside the suggestions of things to buy, it may be a good idea to pay careful attention to those you can't buy. For instance, Lynn's anticipation and first shave threads suggested by BeBerlin. Perhaps the aspect of straight shaving that newbies find most difficult is stropping, read the section on the wiki for details. In addition to that, the lack of lathering skills and poor beard preparation perster newbies and seasoned members alike. I have found to be critical for obtaining good results is to use lather of the proper consistency. Lathering is a skill, which is often overlooked among wet shavers. This process can be divided into 3 stages:

1) loading the brush; 2) building the lather; and 3) hydrating the lather. It is important to pay careful attention to each stage.

When lathering, the most important thing is to be sure of finding the peak of the soap/cream (the point where no more lather can be produced). Both dry (before reaching the peak) and too wet (over the peak) lather can be problematic. Dry lather looks similar to cake frosting and can easily be detected by passing your brush over. If the brush leaves grooves, the lather is too dry. Lather has been obtained with too much water (past the peak) vanishes almost immediately after it touches the skin and can appear dry. These are very common problems among new and seasoned users. There is a good section in the wiki about lathering, if you have not done so already, a visit is in order:

Category:Lather - Straight Razor Place Wiki

Also, I think this that you may find this video (already recommended) useful:

YouTube - How To Build And Apply Traditional Shaving Lather