Thread: A Directive Easy Approach

Great post, Alan.

I thought I would add a few things:

1. Quality Lather - most folks find it easier to start with creams rather than soaps. Whatever you decide, buy one of good quality, instead of having a drawerful of so-so products. I know you are eager to experiment, but the quality of your lather makes a huge difference. You can have the sharpest edge, but if your lather is not slick, your shave will be so-so, if not so... panful.

2. DON"T SKIMP - So now you have a good cream or soap, use it. Many people try to use the least bit of soap and stretch it to three or four passes. Remember, your first pass is usually WTG, the easiest pass, yet that is when you have the best lather. By the time you are going WTG, your skin is already starting to get irritated and your pass is the toughest. That is not the time to use the last bit of lather squeezed from your brush knot. A puck of triple milled soap will last a long, long time. Don't be stingy.

3. Pre-shave prep - Spend the extra few minutes to pamper yourself with hot towels. There are also pre-shave creams and soap. Especially when you are starting out, you want to make everything just perfect, so the only variable is your stropping and shaving.

4. Post-shave - buy a good aftershave. Again, that is better than having a drawerful of cheap stuff. When you are starting out, there is greater tendency for you to irritate your skin. When you are no longer doing that, then experiment with the less soothing, alcohol based stuff. But for now, you want that face to "heal" for your next shave. If it is still sore, then yeah, your shave will not be great.

5. Alum stick - just buy one. If you are irritating large patches of your face and neck, get a $5 block of alum deodorant (obviously, do not use it for anything else). For nicks, a small clubman alum stick like Lynn uses on his video is handy to keep in your drawer.

6. Paste - Alan talked about the touchup hone. A lot of people find it easier to touch up with a pasted strop, since you will be using the same stropping motion you have already learned, instead of a new (honing) skill. If you decide to go this route, get a good flat paddle strop. Pasted hanging strops are good, but do that later. A slight error in your angle or strop tension will ruin your edge very quickly. About paddles, you only need one, at most two, sides for touchups. Diamond 0.5 or 0.25, or CrO are good choices. You don't really need one of those many-sided paddles. If you need to go lower than 0.5, you are better off going to a hone.

Being rookie about six weeks in let me respond to your excellent advice.

1) Start with a razor honed by someone else

Done. bought and honed at SRD

2) Buy a high grit hone

Done. my Chinese 12k arrived early this week. It's a lot more difficult to keep the blade flat on the hone while keeping a very light touch than one might imagine. I tend to either lift the toe slightly or the heel as I move from one end of the stone to the other. it's not much, but enough for me to notice. Practice, practice, practice.

3) Learn to lather.

A work in progress. A little too wet is better than a little to dry, IMO.

4) Strop with Confidence

A rookie's downfall. Here's where most rookies probably drop the ball, I did at least. My first strops had too much pressure, lifted the spine, bad transition, even after I had read Wiki and watched videos and read a couple dozen threads. It just isn't a easy as it as it sounds or looks. It's not good advice wasted it's just tough to get right at the very beginning. I've got the hang of it now, but my razor suffered from my inexperience.

5) Deal with you dull razor

My razor is back to shave ready but to took about 120 passes on the C12k to even out my stroke on the stone. It's still not as sharp as when I first received it but, the razor now glides across my face without dragging or pulling.

6) Shave like a Pro

Great advice and encouragement, but you still have to do it yourself. It's like learning how bowl or golf. You'll probably be lousy at it in the beginning but patient practice will render constantly improving results. And you definitely need to keep your razor shaving sharp. A razor that has trouble cutting down whiskers will have absolutely no trouble at all in nicking and scrapping and cutting skin. Other than working around my chin my last few shaves have gone very well. In fact, I'd say my last one was a Damn Fine Shave!

Rob.

Well I thought I could find something in your post to criticize, but I couldn't. Great post and excellent advice.

Where were you when I was a rookie?

If ever a post deserved to be a 'sticky' this one is it.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

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Where were you when I was a rookie?

I think I was a rookie too!