Thanks, everyone, for the advice. It seems like skin stretching is much more important than I realized. I hadn't paid that much attention to it on my first few shaves, a mistake I will NOT duplicate.

I'll also work on stropping more. I thought I doing it properly, but from what you're saying, I'm probably slightly off somewhere, so thank you for giving me specific things to look for.

BeBerlin- yes, it's the TM vegan strop. I've heard it's not quite as good as a leather strop, but I'm a vegetarian, so it's the only game in town. The reviews I read on it seemed to say that, while not as good as leather, it would still be very serviceable. Is this not true?

This may sound strange, but I'm glad to hear a bunch of things I could be doing wrong... I couldn't believe this was what it's supposed to feel like, and these are definitely things I can work on.

One thing I'm still not clear on: What is the shave supposed to feel like? I know with a DE, the razor moves over the face pretty smoothly, with a very slight vibration (not quite scraping) as it slices the hair. Should I feel something similar with the straight? Is the blade supposed to glide smoothly over the skin? I've read that straights give more feedback, but I wasn't sure what this meant exactly. Does that mean the hair cutting/ vibration sensation will be more pronounced, or does that mean something else all together? I feel like that's the key I'm missing. Maybe I should go out and get a professional straight shave so at least I'll know what to shoot for.

Thanks again for the help guys, I really appreciate it.