Let me start off by saying that I am an occasional shaver, at best. My beard is not very thick but it's probably an 8 out of 10 on coarseness and grows fast enough that I have a shadow by 'noon'. Couple that with very sensitive skin, allergies to fragrances, and a compulsion to be lazy; it's not hard to see why i keep a beard. I've been through lots of beard trimmers, which also irritate my skin, and the best I've come up with is using an Oster 76 'hair clipper' with various all steel blades and none of the plastic combs. This solution is the 'winner' as I basically only have to pass over any area once or twice.

When I do, or should say 'did', shave. The best solution I'd used were Shick Tracer Diamond FX blades. The diamond coating makes them wicked sharp with good durability. By good durability, I mean I could get about 3-4 shaves out of a head before it was dull enough to be seriously pulling my hair. I only used simple generic shave soap because it's all I could find without fragrance in it.

I probably hadn't shaved myself in the last year. I did however recently move to an area of the country were there are still lots of barber shops (the southwest) and decided to give a straight razor shave a try. It went 'OK' with only moderate irritate the first time. The second time I let the barber keep going and do my entire head, which went OK on my face but really irritated my head.

Anyways, for some reason, I decided to give it a try with myself after about a month of reading various forums and watching videos on youtube. I ordered:

Straight Razor Designs
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1 x Dovo Best Quality Black 6/8" Straight Razor & Strop Set
Front Strop Variation 3" Black Latigo Leather Back Strop Variation Matched Webbing
1 x Shavex Alum Blocks
Classic Shaving
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Classic "Gold" Hypo-Allergenic Shaving Mug Soap
Pinaud/Clubman Styptic Pencil

and I already had an "burma shave" mug and nylon brush.

Everything arrived this evening. I unpacked it all, attached the strop to a towel rack with a carabiner, and stropped the the razor about 30 strokes. I tried doing the hanging hair test with some of my significant others hair and it didn't do a very good job of cutting hair when just being drug across the blade... it took a jerk to pop it. I'm sure the first couple of laps were with too much down pressure on the razor but I got the hang of it pretty fast (thank you youtube). I trimmed my beard down with a '000' blade on my trusty Oster 76. Lathered up and went at it for mostly a single pass with the grain. To my amazement, I had to really drag the razor across my face... it was really catching on my hair. I know my technic is *terrible* but the shave was pretty poor with lots of missed hairs here at there.

And the razor burn... OMG... worst in my life. It took the alum block, a shower, and 3 different moisturizers (finally aloe) to get it half under control. I will not be repeating that experience.

OK, so going forward, my questions for the community:

1) It seems like the razor is just not sharp enough! Is that correct?

2) If #1 is true, did I mess it up stropping or did it just not come sharp enough of my wire beard?

3) Is it possible a specialist could put a better edge on my Dovo than Straight Razor Designs did?

4) What, if any, products could I try to improve lubrication that ARE NOT SCENTED and do not contain so called 'botanicals'? I thinking about maybe trying Baby Oil 'gel'...
Thanks in advance gentlemen (and I suppose face hair removing women...)!