Thread: Would it be wise...

Been wet shaving with a DE for 2 months and I'm learning the lay of the land on my face so to speak. I'm thinking my transition to Str8 is a few months off, perhaps even a winter project. I am chomping at the bit though and the AD's have me. So would it be wise to purchase a strop and a razor just to practice stropping? I'm talking beginner strop and cheap or even scrap iron razor.

I reckon that if you're interested, just get a razor and strop and dive right in! If you want to practice stropping at that point, then take a butter knife and practice with that on your strop.

If you go and spend the money on a useless razor and lousy strop, thats just money that you cant spend on the razor and strop you will actually be using. Get yourself a good quality starter kit that contains all the necessary things, and comes with a shave ready razor, and then practice your stropping with a butter knife. You'll have it down in no time..!

Good luck!

Your probably right. Me knowing me, diving right in is probably the wise bet. On a subject I was knowledgeable on, I would be the first guy to advise someone: "Don't waste your money on junk and quit fooling around". Thanks, I was leaning that way just have to wait awhile until SWMBO forgets about all the other shaving stuff I've bought.

I'm with Stubear on this. If you are going to do it, do it, there is no point in buying equipment just to practive the stropping. Besides, you should buy a shave ready razor from a reputable dealer to start and not strop it for your first shave.

If you follow the process to learn the shaving techniques described in the wiki, you will not be doing your whole beard for really a couple of weeks. So you need that DE for completion and cleanup for a while.

David

Yes, you guys are right. I'm starting to research starter kits.

Hello, gesurko:

Stuart speaks wisely. Forget the junk. The quality starter kit is a good start.

Regards,
Obie

Great advice from these guys.

One other point, don't get too attached to your first strop. There's a decent chance it'll get nicked up. I hope your practice goes well and you don't run into this!

Originally Posted by Blue

Great advice from these guys.

One other point, don't get too attached to your first strop. There's a decent chance it'll get nicked up. I hope your practice goes well and you don't run into this!

Oh Yea! I expect this to happen.

Originally Posted by Stubear

If you want to practice stropping at that point, then take a butter knife and practice with that on your strop.

Butter knife?!? Why didn't I think of that? *face palm* Great advice, Stubear! That would have helped to save my strop from all those unneeded lacerations!

Why leave it as a "winter project"? Just get the stuff and shave. Buy or make a cheap, but decent strop and a good vintage razor. Unless you break it, the worst you'll do to the razor is dull the edge which can be fixed but the strop will take a beating. When I decided to straight shave, i bought a used strop locally for $40 and a nice dubl duck for $65 that was shave ready. I threw out or gave away all my gilette razors and started off doing my whole face right away. After 2 shaves there was no more irritation and I got the hang of it. Although I learned to shave with a straight, I moved to the Mach 3 and such after a few years and recently switched back to straight blades. Just don't think of it as a "project", becaus it isn't.