Hello, I'm new here and have no experience at all with straight razors, and very little with shaving in general. I always thought the concept of using a straight razor was pretty cool, seemed so much more appealing and classic than the Mach 3 I started out with, which just felt gimmicky.

I used to be terribly lazy with shaving, practically never doing it, until I joined the military. Obviously I had to be a bit more ontop of it from then on, starting with bootcamp. With time to prepare in the mornings being a big restriction I trained myself into dry-shaving, and very quickly. After 2 months of that it became a total habit and I continued to shave that way for my whole time in. Now that I'm out and among the civilian world again I'm beginning to think I should stop this practice.

I've found that those years of such brutal and careless shaving has actually left my facial skin almost leathery, excessively tough. Usually having a nice layer of hair on my face actually feels more pleasant to the touch than the bare skin underneath, something which obviously doesn't go over well in the normal world. I've now taken to shaving like a normal person however still something about it just feels off. Taking my time, actually using shaving cream, and a four blade razor since that's all the store had for me to pick from, things still feel worse when I'm done, like I should just leave the scraggly hair on there, even though it makes me look homeless. I'm now thinking maybe I need a real change to how I do things since I now have the time to actually properly prepare myself in the mornings and I've looked into straight razor shaving, in hopes that maybe that would be better. However I've been having trouble finding information that directly relates to what I'm looking for so I'm wondering if maybe I can find some more direct info here by directly asking.

So what is your guys' opinions and knowledge on the subject? I have no issues with ingrown hairs or any real irritation from brutally shaving like a caveman, but that itself is the real problem. Would using a straight razor and proper shaving materials make a significant change to the catcher's glove texture I've developed? I'm interested in there being any significant skin benefits of it, any feedback would be well appreciated.