Thread: Whats the deal?

I have been shaving for about three months now, and have been fortunate enough to have never cut my self. My styptic pencil has been feeling neglected. But now I have a few pretty good nicks, not any on my face, but everywhere else. I keep hitting the knuckles of my stretching hand, am I just getting complacent? I even felt a slicing motion on my cheek yesterday, luckily I have gotten pretty close to the correct pressure so I was able to catch myself before I did any damage, but I think I was very close to a decent slice. Is bloodletting just something we have to do to remind us of the dangers every once in a while, or am I all alone in this regard and just need to buck it up and pay better attention?

My questions are more rhetorical in nature, Just a warning to other newbies like myself to keep paying the same amount of attention as when you first put that blade to your face. Great shaves come with confidence but so does blood, if your not mindful of the wherabouts of the edge at all times.

I went through the same phase when I started but the cuts/nicks were on my face. The greatest part of straight shaving is that you can not become complacent. If and when you do you will get a reminder in red.

Hello, Jason:

I think what happens in the course of straight razor shaving, especially somewhere in the beginning, is that we become overconfident and as a result lose our edge in the craft. That might have happened to you. I know it has happened to me, and to many others, I am sure.

Also, as our skill improves, some variations slip into our style and technique, which, in turn, themselves need to be refined. And, yes, that blasted stretching hand suddenly is always in the way like a drunken pedestrian on a freeway.

Step back and analyze your technique. Perhaps slow down a bit. Wash everything out of your mind and concentrate on the moment. This is just a phase and it shall pass if you continue to sharpen your focus.

Stay well.

Obie

My father tells the story, when he was a kid, and his father always shaved with a straight everyone knew when he was shaving because they could hear the yelling and the cursing coming from the bathroom and that put my father off from ever wanting to even try a straight.

The moral of the story to me is that no matter how long you use a straight you need to remember you are putting a very sharp object without any safety devices on it that has the potential to do alot of damage to your face and it requires concentration and focus at all times.

Unless you treat it as a lark you will probably not ever do any serious damage but slight nicks are always a possibility. However, this I will tell you. Most of us who have been shaving a long time use the same strokes day in and day out and it becomes routine. Just try a radically different type of stroke or try using a Japanese Traditional Straight and it will have you feeling like you just picked up the thing for the very first time again.

I would say that it took about a year or so before I got
my first real cut. The culprit was a dull blade, which
taught me to be extra-vigilant about sharpness.

- Scott