Glad to see you here hardheart! Straight razors give the closest, most irritation-free shaves so you won't regret it if you continue on your journey. Plus I strongly beleive that for a sharpening nut, the only way to tell the difference between super-sharp and ultra-sharp is shaving the face with the blade, short of using an electron microscope.

I would recommend some 1 micron diamond paste in between the Chinese 12k and CrOx. The Chinese 12k is actually more like 8-10k grit and jumping from that to CrOx is too much in my experience, would take too many laps to be effective. Both are already considered very slow compared to Japanese waterstones and diamonds.

Those canned shaving creams don't work well with straight razors, instead try some Tabac shaving soap. It glides much more smoothly and is more moist. I've found even Vaselin lotion to work better than the canned shaving creams. Then again, you know that the razor is sharp if it can shave dry, without any pull.