Quote Originally Posted by KingOfBreifne View Post
I've had all my equipment & products ready to go foe several weeks, but today was the first opportunity I had to do the first straight razor shave.

I came down with H1N1 and was out of town for a bit, so today was finally the day.

I took the wise advice of doing only under the sideburns to start with. Since I am ambidextrous on most things, though, I went ahead and did both sides -- the right side with the right hand and the left side with the left hand.

Things went fine. I had some pretty lengthy stubble -- about four days' worth -- so the razor did catch a bit at first 'til I figured out I would have to put just a bit of downward pressure to cut through the stubble (does that sound right?).

In the end, I had just one minor nick on the right side. Not bad. Next time, I'll try the entirety of both cheeks and see how that goes.

But, I'm on my way!

~ Ryan
Congratulations on surviving your first shave! It only gets better from here. Regarding pressure, you want to avoid that habit. The neat thing about the straight is the length of the beard really does not change the shave, as there is nothing to get "clogged". More likely the issue is the angle-- you'll need to play around with that (no more than 30degrees). Later you'll likely develop some scything action which helps cut the tough parts of your beard.

Check out this section on the wiki,

Shaving passes - Straight Razor Place Wiki


-Chief