Thread: Straight Shaving Newb is looking for some advice

Just wanna throw out there that ruprazor makes quality stuff and would be a great strop to learn on. The Gold Dollar he sells is probably good too (never used one but I trust him and other people sell them too so...)

Here's some advice:

When you get your razor, don't strop with it until you do a shave first. Chances are your stropping will dull the blade, since new guys don't have the muscle memory developed for stropping, so see what a good edge feels like for the first shave.

Stretch very tight so the hairs stand up, not lie flat.

make sure your lather is acceptable.

don't use a very flat angle, this will result in a bad shave that will discourage you, use a steeper angle, but not too steep or you'll get burn.

Watch and read about stropping, stropping is the #1 killer of edges for new guys. They either roll all the edges they have, or they dull the razor by shaves number 2 or 3 and think that the whole Straight razor thing is not for them.

Thanks for the advise!

I just bought a straight from the classifieds. I bought this one:
5/8 Bengall Hollow Ground Straight Razor - Straight Razor Place Classifieds

Hopefully this will work well.

I haven't ordered a strop yet, so I won't be dulling the blade that way yet. Since I only plan to experiment with the straight on the weekends for now, the "shave ready" edge should last a few weeks, right? How many shaves can I expect to get before it needs to be stropped? Don't most folks strop in between every shave?

I'm probably going to go ahead and get the starter kit from Ruprazor also, so I'll have a strop then.

Now that I have a razor coming, I'm getting a little excited to try straight shaving!