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first shave review: am I a natural?
Or just plain lucky?
Whatever the case, I just had an awesome first shave, YEAH!!!!
After a week of happy anticipation (and some more months knowing I was going to go for a straight razor) I received my first straight razor by mail, a Dovo 5/8 full hollow ground silversteel, satin finish, with ebony scales.
The package came with dovo strop, a small thiers issard badger brush (so I can get a taste of Thiers Issard before buying a razor from them) and proraso soap. They added a manual too, as if I needed it after browsing this forum for a week ;)
I loved it all, how cool is it to hold your first own razor... very cool!! It felt more solid than I expected and the way it opened was with a good kind of friction. I didn't want to go for the celluloid handles because I thought those might feel too light or not solid enough. Whether they are or not, the one I got was a good choice.
I was excited like a puppy and treated myself to a beer to celebrate, but just one, I was going to shave later and wanted to keep my face :mace:
In the light of the setting sun, I set it all up, put hot water in the sink, soaked a towel in it and put it in my neck to begin the preshaving treat. After it felt nice and warm I was in the mood for some good stuff.
My heart was pumping to the drum of a mix of nervousness and joy as I dipped my brush in the water, dabbled in the soap and started soaping my beard. I enjoyed the feel of a really good brush, what a difference to having used a cheapo brush for my canned foam and gilette razors...
Now, the time had come to prove I could do it, or bleed out while trying...
The first cut... careful, nothing happened. Again, little more pressure, watch your angle (at least I know those, being a knife guy who likes to sharpen).. go for 20, 30 degrees..now down.. and don't go through when you feel resistence and then... all of a sudden I saw a clear spot about half an inch wide and an inch long. woohaaa, It seems I might actually succeed :) Hair and lather on the blade, hairless skin on my cheek, yup, this is how it should be!
Happily I carried on, going right hand only, a quick try on the other side with my left hand was clearly a bridge too far. Then I had to take on the neck, right side first. I decided to go against the grain, which for me is down and the easiest move to make with the razor with my motor skills. And amazingly, it turned out to be scary, but not painfull and I pulled it of without a nick.
The sound of the razor is a great sound, the feel of the razor when doing a longer stroke then the previous one is great, the way it glides over your skin is like riding a wave, awesome..
Now here comes the much anticipated first nick: I went for the moustache before the chin and a little northeast of the corner of my mouth was the first nick. Not so bad. I decided to fully go for it with all kinds of cuts, WTG, XTG, ATG, but taking it slowly and careful: right under the nose (nick)moustache and upper lip (ok), chin (nick), left cheeck (ok), adam's apple (ok), left jaw line (nick), birthmark on northwest corner of mouth (nick). In the meantime I was reapplying lather or water where necessary al the time. I'm now already probably taking 45 minutes to do it.
Obviously, you're enjoying the heck out of your first shave, but you're also putting off doing that final spot, of which you know it will give you major trouble hehe
just left and a little up from my adam's apple was the spot I could not reach with my right hand AND it was also the most difficult part grain wise. I had no choice but to do it with my left hand, but even though this was the part where I actually failed the most, I was still rather proud I had pulled it off.
So now it's time for the septic stick (? not sure) after I cleaned my face with a wipe of a towel and some after shave lotion. Wow!!! that was it, what a great experience!!!
So I'm running down the stairs with a wide grin on my face telling my girlfriend the good news. She loved it, she told me it was way smoother than a gilette shave :D
So, after blabbering about the shave for a couple of minutes, I can see in her eyes she'd rather watch the end of sex in the city and I decide to make a couple of pics for you guys and to write a little (well not so little turns out) thread about my experience.
I don't say this often, but it was even better than I expected and I had high expectations, YEAH BABY!!!!:rock:
I'm happy, cleanly shaven, face intact and only some minor nicks. A great experience for me!!
So here are 2 pictures with evidence.
thanks for reading
cheers!
