my 7th and 1st 'you have to perform' shave
So this morning was the first day I had to perform on a shave.
A regular working day get-out-of-bed-early type of thing. Help my gf with our 3 kids to clothe them and find some time to shave before I'm off to work.
Up till now I have taken it easy, taken my time for each shave. But today there was a clock ticking...
To make it a little less dramatic, I'm the company's owner, so I can pretty much arrive 8 hours later if I want to :) but still, it's about the idea.
After reading a very interesting thread yesterday about stropping and Verhoeven's research paper, which I know because of my other hobby (knives), I got a good tip to use the canvas side of the strop more for a little sharpening action and less time on the leather side as the effect is not really noticeable on leather after about 20/30 passes. So Yesterday I did some stropping on the canvas, about 60 times, finished by 15 on the leather. Didn't test for sharpness. To celebrate my newly gained knowledge, I bought myself a 3" red latigo strop from srd. well deserved ;)
Back to today, I put on the radio to get in the mood, made myself a good cup of cappucino, and I did about 50/60 on the canvas and 20 on the leather while my face was covered in the lather.
I started shaving and immediately felt the difference in sharpness, a much better experience. I'm not sure if it was different to the first 3 times, since I was paying a lot more attention to other things, like not cutting my jugular, but is was definitely sharper than the previous shave.
I doubt it's because my stropping technique got better with the razor, since I'm used to stropping knives and understand sharpening. Granted, razors are something different, but understanding what you're doing and what to look out for has made it easy for me to strop so far.
No, to me it feels like the difference is probably in the light abrasive action on the canvas side of the strop as noted in the thread mentioned above.
I'm not yet putting Cr2O3 (chromium oxide, the green compound) or my jeweler's rouge on there yet, since I first want to get a good feel about 'pure' stropping with a str8 and it's effect on the str8, but as I said, I know the difference between sharp and scary sharp. The canvas helped.
Of course I'm only beginning and so forth, but just read the article here (http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...g-article.html) and see for yourself and give it a try, it's always worth to experiment. In the meantime, I'll see if I can repeat the experience and use the stropping to my best advantage.
The shave went very well and it was again a very satisfying experience. Left handed went very well today, I did my left cheek with my left hand and in a dangerous spur of the moment also did an against the grain pass on my right neck with the left hand and I pulled it off.
It's so nice to see your technique improving and learning new stuff. I also learned a bit more about the chin by watching one of jockey's videos where he demos a str8 shave. I will try the japanes style grip for the ATG pass on the neck next time. If you don't see another post of me by the end of the week, you can count on it that it wasn't a succes :D
The proraso after shave lotion is nice but as I said earlier, it's not so moisturizing as the nivea AS balm, so for my next few shaves I'm switching back to the nivea, as my skin is still getting used to str8 shaving and can use the extra care at the moment.
I cleaned up and checked my time on this shave: a whopping 20 minutes only, including full preparation, 2 passes and total cleaning of the altar of hairlessnes (the sink and all shaving stuff used, nicely put back in it's place for display). Wow, that's a big improvement, compared to earlier 45 minute shaves.
The good thing about it: I definitely felt the calming and relaxed effect on the way you start the day and I totally did not have the feeling I rushed on the shave! Another awesome experience. And 'on time' for work too.
So on to the next shave, I'm slowly wondering when this 'awesome experience curve' is going to flatten and when or if I will get less enjoyment out of it.
So far, it seems like that will be a long looooooong loooooooong way ahead somewhere in the far future.
take care
