I've been pondering this a long time I suppose. I got a badger brush about a year ago and used that with a body shop shave lotion (pretty good stuff) and recently began using it with a sandalwood bar soap and I like that even better. So far so good. This has all been with 2,3, and 4 blade razors.

Whether I knew it or not when I first got that badger brush, I suppose the logical endpoint for all this activity was to try a straight razor. This is where I've been making every mistake in the book so far. I bought a razor on ebay, having no idea what would be involved getting it "shave ready". Once i saw the condition of the blade I just put that one in the drawer for now and then got a replacable blade type just to give it a try without having to muss around with sharpening, stropping, etc... That arived yesterday and today I shaved with it this morning.

After action report:

Need a lot of practice to really nail this but so far relatively few nicks and overall happy with the results. Most facial regions are as close or closer than I got with my fusion (especially under nose where the large head of 4 blades is hard to fit in).

I'd say the places where I nicked were in 2 categories:
1. not being careful enough ( a real no-no with a sharp blade) and
2. the sharp corner on my replacable blade razor seems to exacerbate the tendency to dig in the edge. I may be better off with a rounded corner blade, at least in the beginning.

Item 1 I can address with practice and slowing down. For item 2 I want to go to a blade with a rounded corner to see if that helps. Any suggestions for which brand of replacable blades has a rounded corner would be most appreciated. What I used today was a "derby" blade. Other possibility is to just send in the one I got on ebay for sharpening. I spend a bit of time sanding the nicks out of the blade and it may be to a point now where it can be resurrected.

Appreciate any tips or advice. Thanks.

Charlie