Thread: My First Straight Razor Shave

I am starting this new post since my last post was originaly about buying my first razor and got off topic when I started talking about shaving with it. The razor is a Genco that Glen (gssixgun) very generously offered to me for free. Here is a link to the original thread http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...usable-sr.html

This is part of one of my posts from page 3 in the original thread where I first shaved with the razor.

Originally Posted by Alltracturbo

I did some last minute reading of the beginner wiki pages here, took a quick shower, and then started my first straight razor shave.

No special brush or soaps, I just used the bar of soap from the shower. I went real slow and just did what I was comfortable doing while always remembering to keep around a 30 degree angle. I ended up doing about 3/4 of both sides of my face. I didn't do any of my chin, neck, or below the jaw bone. The left side was a little harder. I tried to use my left hand, but it didn't feel right. It felt like I wasn't cordinated enough and didn't have enough control, so I used my right hand instead. I'll learn to use my left hand later on. It went well and was really comfortable. It felt better after the shave than the areas that I did with the mach 3. Actually it didn't feel like I shaved at all. I tried to tell which was closer, but it was hard to tell. I think the mach 3 may have been a little bit closer.

All in all it was a good experiance and I can't wait to try it again.

I atempted my second shave today. I didn't get any shave soap yet. This time I just used some Gillette shaving cream. I tried using my left hand again on my left side and this time I felt better about it and ended up doing the whole left side of my face just fine without using my right hand.

I did both sides of my face down to my jaw bone and in almost to the sides of my lips, but I wasn't able to go any farther. Everything up to this point went great and was very smooth, but when I try to shave the area where the sides of my mustache would be, down from there around my lips, and my chin, the razor gets stuck. I can't get it to move, it just tugs on my hair. I got it to move in one spot, but it felt like it was trying to pull my hair out and afterwords I could see that it didn't shave the area.

I don't think the razor is dull since it shaved both sides of my face and was very smooth. On the right side of my face, under my sideburn and the next spot over, I used one stroke all the way from top to bottom. It shaved close and afterwards there was no irritation where I used the straight razor. There's always some irritation where I shave with the Mach 3. It's useually very minor and I don't feel it after 15 or 20 minutes. I don't use any aftershave, just rinse with water.

Does this sound like something that would happen with too shallow of an angle? I tried to stay around 30 degrees again. When it got stuck I tried a shllower angle, but it didn't help. I didn't really wan't to go steeper because I was worried about cutting myself and I figured I would ask here first.