Second shave>First shave

Second time around with the straight razor could not have been a bigger improvement over the first.

First time my face was on fire with really patchy results, had to finish up with regular razor and it took forever.

Second time I went overkill on prep and had much better results. Obviously it's impractical to do all of this prep every time, but for the second go around I went for:

Super hot shower
Exfoliating facial scrub
Hair conditioner let soak on beard while in showe
Hot lather
Hot towel
Re-lather
Then shave.

Like I said, I don't think I can expect that level of prep everytime I shave. Setting up the steamer for a hot towell at 6:00 AM is out of the question, but I went from barely being able to get through one, bad pass with tons of irritation to three complete passes with much better closeness and much less irritation. I was able to do a full with the grain pass, across the grain everywhere but my neck, and full against the grain. I do have some razor burn, but nothing compared to last time. And if I tried three passes with my soon-to-be-forgotten fusion? You're joking.

Hello, Mathiasbostick:

You seem to have the general idea and are on a roll. Good for you.

As you hone your lathering and straight razor skills, you'll adjust your method and technique with a whole lot of improvised trimmings. That's the way to do it: one step at a time, with care and patience.

A job well done.

Regards,

Obie

Make sure your are not using too much pressure while you shave and is your blade shave ready?
GL

Pushing a bit too hard was the bigggest hurdle for me to get over. You've literally trained yourself for years, if not decades on applying a ton of pressure on those cheapo razors hoping to get a good shave out of them. Even seven months in, I have to remind myself to ease up on the pressure. These razors shave just as well with very little pressure as they do with alot, so why torment yourself. That said, practice makes perfect and you'll continue to make small improvements on your journey. At least for me, it didn't all start clicking in until a couple months in and a couple months after that to get consistently good shaves.

Congrats! It just keeps getting better and better..! :)

As others have said, keep the pressure light and dont rush. You'll get much better results if you take your time with the prep, the shave and the post shave treatments than if you rush through it.

If you are pressed for time, it may be better to switch to another method of shaving just for that shave (like a DE) rather than risking damaging your kit or yourself.

But its great fun, and its really satisfying when it all comes together!

Good luck!