Hello,

I actually write this as a kind of false beginner, took up str8 shaving on a regular basis some, hm, half a year ago - basically thanks to finding this great site with so much information.

I have a vintage grandpa's razor, which I started using, together with Omega shaving soap (OMEGA, shaving brushes, accessoires, shaving cream, neck duster, brushstands, razors - oddly, they describe it as cream, to me it's rather a
kind of soft soap) a neat badger brush, a vintage strop - well, a basic set.

From the very beginning, having bought another razors (yeah, this RAD creeps in really easy, you hardly notice it...) it still felt a little uncomfortable, there was this (audible, too) scratching, uneven sensation - I managed to shave, even quite close, but it just wasn't that. So I figured - after spending some time and money on a Chinese waterstone - well, time to follow advice and have these babies finally honed by someone who knows how to do it Ha ha, yeah, none of them had been prepared earlier...

Okay, so now I've had them back for a while, I was very excited and enthusiastic about them - after reading all these posts about "freshly honed str8 sweeping hair off" and so on. Well, guess what, it hasn't been bells and whistles at all. There is still this uncomfortable scratching sensation, I haven't been able to pass a HHT with any of them, although they have a visible bevel set, which wasn't there before at all. I noticed them being definitely sharper, one moment off guard cost me an instant cut right under my nose

I took some time yesterday to prepare really well for a shave - bath, preshave lathering, oil (ordinary baby oil, nothing fancy, but still works much better), did some 100 laps on a leather strop, too. Well it was a certain improvement, but again, nothing extra nothing like "OMG, the hair is vanishing!" - just a little easier. Still, ATG pass is completely unthinkable, the resistance the hair make would require me to force the blade across the face, and I'm sure it's not the way.

I should mention that my facial hair is really tough and thick (not so much in terms of density, but, well, thickness of a single hair , so is the hair on my head, so it may be another reason. Maybe it was also why HHT didn't want to work. Dunno. Still there may be something with my technique, I'm still learning. Any advice, though?

Sorry for being lengthy.
Matt