Thread: Journal of discovery, learning to use a straight razor

markevans,

I think we're going to be great friends here hahah..
I say that for 2 reasons:
1) We both have sweet Thrift Store Scuttles
2) We seem to be on identical learning curves.

I just had MY fourth shave last night and it wasn't quite as good as my third. (Coincidence?)

I believe both of us need to slow it back down and really take time to learn. I know in my case I've gotten a bit too comfortable and ended up with 3 knicks, one of them being nearly the length of the blade (ouch).

Your stropping issue sounds very familiar to one I was having. The downstroke sounded great, then the upstroke sounded way off. I solved this by slowing WAY down (slow-motion here) and watched the blade as I went through the movements. Doing this I realized that I was lifting the edge slightly on the upstroke causing the spine to drag and make a way different sound. The video you posted helped me out tremendously as I was stropping exaclty how he said NOT TO.

While shaving this morning I felt over confident and went faster than normal. My chin area, while not horrible, wasn't nearly as clean as my 3rd shave, as well as my neck. Though my mustache area came out quite nice (I'm noticing 2x XTG passes in alternate directions on my stache do excellent.)

After this last shave I had a good amount of irriation afterwards. The Brute aftershave doesn't help being mostly alcohol lol. I still need to pick up a good astringent and alcohol-free AS balm.

What I am going to do for my 5th shave:
1) Take it SLOW.
2) Use smaller strokes
3) Lighten up on the pressure
4) Concentrate on learning my hairs direction of growth
... and of course, concentrate on angles.

I'm very lucky as I am left handed but am almost as comfortable using my right hand.

Keep up the great work and remember that I'm right here with ya cuttin my face up trying to learn