Journal of discovery, learning to use a straight razor
Hello all,
Like others in this section, I'm new to straight razors. I've enjoyed reading about other's learning experiences and want to document my own as well. Instead of posting a new thread with each insight, I figured I'd just keep a running mini blog of my learning experience in this thread. I hope this can eventually be of help to others looking to learn in the future, but I also want to document my own path of discovery and learning so that years down the road when I'm still using the cut throat I can look back with a smile and re-experience my learning process.
So here we are at the beginning. A bit of personal history to start off. I'm 32 years old, back in college studying to be a RN. I'm tired of spending an arm and a leg on disposable vibrating razors, and I've grown a disdain for disposable plastics. Its asinine to me to use a material that lasts forever in disposable products, but I've never really thought I had a choice in the matter when it came to razors.
That is, until I came across this thread in another forum I frequent. I learned that I don't have to use disposable plastics for shaving, and start looking into DEs. During my research, I come across badger and blade, and discover that people are still using straight razors! Now I start getting excited. Old school DEs are one thing, but straight razors had an instant allure for me.
I'm the kind of guy who likes learning as much as I can, so I start my research. What do I need, where do I get it for a good deal, what is the learning curve like, where do I get the knowledge I need before I put this blade to my face? BadgerandBlade is seemed to have more people using DEs, but from there I found SRP. So I think I have enough knowledge to make some decent purchasing decisions, and lastget the following:
From Lynn, a Dovo Prima and some bay rum.
From elsewhere, a twizzerman badger hair brush, Col Conk's soap, and a Fromm canvas/leather stropp. I decide to hold off on hone for a little while.
Now we come to today. I get my Dovo and Bay Rum in the mail from Lynn (including, thank god, a free honing certificate). A few minute later, my brush arrives! Oh its like Christmas! Unwrapping my new toys! Smelling the fragrant bay rum. Opening and closing the blade, getting the feel for it in my left hand (feels oh so clumsy), holding it up to my face making mock strokes (am I doing it right?!!?)
So now we come to it. I have a razor (sharpened by Lynn) and a brush and some aftershave. Col Conk's hasn't arrived yet, nor has the strop. I trust the razor is shave ready, but I'm not sure if my soap is up to the task. Oh decisions, decisions! I've put off buying a mug till my stuff came in, so I think I'll go down to the thrift store and see what they have mug wise.
Right now, I'm just basking in that feeling of a little kid on Christmas morning. I know this will pass, so I'm just enjoying it while it lasts.
4th shave, different beard prep
Did my 4th shave last night, and the shave was not as nice as last time. I used my Dovo Prima again, as my last shave with it was just phenomenal.
I changed 2 things in my shaving routines, and my shave was not quite as good as the last one so I'm wondering what it could be. My girlfriend was staying the night at her Mom's house and took the conditioner with her, so I didn't get to use it for my beard prep. I also used a different soap, Mitchell's Wool Fat soap instead of the Kissmyface.
The shave went okay, I did the whole face with no nicks, cuts, or razor burn, but the blade simply did not seem to cut as well as the last shave. I don't think its the soap, because it created a rich lather that lasted the whole shave, and the soap has been spoken of highly by others. Oh, and for those wondering, my scuttle kept it nice and warm the whole time as well :)
Its possible that the lack of conditioner made the difference. I usually let it sit on my beard for about 5 minutes while in the shower, and this time I only washed my beard and left it wet.
Also possible is my stropping technique. I preped my strop with 100 hand strokes to give it some nice oil and soften it up. I then did 30 on the linen and 60 on the leather. On the leather side it did not sound very even. Its like I was getting a good sound on the down stroke, but not a great sound on the up stroke. I also notice that sometimes my grip doesn't feel solid, usually on the up stroke. I'm not sure if its my fingers getting oily or what, but its definitely something I'm going to be working on.
Of course, it could be that my shaving technique is not good either. I notice sometimes I have to remind myself to lighten the touch. Normally I focus on what I've come to call, "the 3 ights," keeping the skin tight, the angle right, and the touch light, but I do notice that I'll occasionally have more pressure against the skin than I need. This usually happens in the harder areas, like my chin or parts of my neck. Everywhere else I'm pretty consistent on keeping a very light touch.
I'm hoping that of any of these, I hope it is either the lack of conditioner or the stropping. If I'm dulling the blade from my 3rd shave with this razor (2nd shave was with my John Williams), then I'm really doing something wrong.
As far as progression of technique, I'm finding the chin area is getting easier. I'm getting a better understanding of the curves and adjusting the angle as I shave it, and using both hands really does allow me to attack it in different ways. I'm still relathering multiple times to keep the area nice and wet and am only cutting a few hairs a stroke. The 'stache area is also a lot easier now as well. Not as easy as the cheeks of course, but hardly a problem at all.
The neck is also a bit of a pain. I don't find it hard per say, but I never get the smoothness that I get with other areas.
The left hand is also developing more comfort and coordination. I find keeping my hand and wrist locked with occasionally making angle adjustments with with my fingers and making the strokes with my arm gives me a lot better control. In contrast with my right I make more wrist adjustments as I shave.
All of this is only using one WTG pass. You may have noticed that I only shave every 3-4 days. I don't need to be clean shaven, so I'm afforded this time between shaves to let my face recover. In addition, I love taking off a few days of growth in a single whack. That said, I think I'll start shaving every other day and see how my face feels with that.
Till next time
5th shave, things are going well
So I decided to up my shaving frequency to every other day, so here I am with shave #5.
Here is the tl;dr version.
*Better Shave than last time, could be to a variety of reasons.
*Focused on strop technique to try and get a better edge than last time
*Beard prep: lathered in shower with badger brush and re-lathered just before the shave.
*Really focused on skin tight and touch light during shave to great success.
*Nicked off a pimple on my chin. First nick since my first shave. :(
*Shaved the back of my neck with little mirror assistance.
*Aftershave still stings like a mofo.
Reader's Digest version:
Again I went for the Dovo After my last shave, I wanted to focus on my stropping technique to try and get it to shave better than last time. Since it was the one I used last, I had to use it again to see if better stropping would make a difference. I feel kind of bad leaving my John Williams aside so I think I'll have to make it a point to use him next time.
All and all, this was a better shave. Here are the things I did different; I really focused on stropping technique, and getting proper contact between the edge and the strop. I did 100 hand strokes on the strop to give it a bit of oil and warm it up. I also held the strop higher which helped a lot on my up stroke. I find that while stropping, after 10-12 strokes, my fingers have slid on the tang a little and my grip is not where it should be. I notice this when I reach the top of my up stroke and when I do my roll, my wrist is getting involved. At this point I stop and adjust and start over again. In addition, sometimes when I do my roll, the blade slaps down on the leather too, which I'm sure is not proper. In any case, I did 30 on the linen and 60 on the leather, taking my time and focusing on the basics. I'm thinking about starting up my butter knife practice again to help get my muscle memory stronger. I figure once in the morning and once in the evening will really help my stropping coordination.
Ok, so beard prep. Turns out my gf left the nice conditioner at her mom's place, so I tried something a bit different. I used the badger brush and my regular soap to do a facial lathering in the shower. My reasoning was that one of the main effects of the badger brush is to clean around the base of the hairs getting both dirt and debris off, and also to strip the oils off the hair so they absorb more water. I figured if I do it in shower, then all that stuff washes away with that first lather instead of having it be a part lather I use to shave. Before the shower I filled my Tabasco cup with boiling water to let it sit and warm up while I shower.
Ok, shower done time to shave :). I've still got some MWF soap in my bowl, so I go ahead and use that. It really does make a nice creamy lather that lasts a long long time, and it simply feels soft on my face. I can easily see why its a favorite among shavers. I get a great lather going and really work it into my face for a couple of minutes. So so smooth.
Shave time! Seems like my stropping made a difference. While I really focused on keeping that touch light and the skin tight, I feel the razor was still sharper than last time. Things went quite smoothly, and I worked on getting skin tighter in different way. I figure, there must be a way to get the skin tighter with each stroke, so I started adjusting my stretching hand with every stroke. I also shortened my stroke, so instead of making large sweeps down my sideburns and cheeks, I did the top half, readjusted my stretching hand, and then did the bottom half. I also got better stretching on my jawline and around my ears, which before I was only stretching with head positions. I also got better at keeping the touch as light as possible.
The upper lip went smoother than ever, and so did the lower lip. The chinny chin chin still was a pain in the butt, but I got improved strokes around the flatter portions which left me with just the pointed area to struggle with. I also sliced off a pimple, giving my first nick since I started. I don't think I re-lathered as much as before, probably because I was better at shaving the flatter portions. I still did 3 or 4 lathers for the chin though.
The neck went well too. The shorter strokes and better skin tightness really pay off. I still love nice long strokes that take off bushels of hair, but it seems shorter and tighter gives me a better shave.
My left hand is improving with every shave. The left side felt more comfortable than ever and I even incorporated a few angle adjustments around my jawline that I hadn't tried before.
The biggest thing I did today, however, was shave the back of my neck. I haven't shaved it since I stopped using the mach 3 and it was getting really fuzzy. I inquired in another thread, and decided to give it a go. It turns out that shaving by feel wasn't that hard at all. The area is so flat and easy to stretch out that shaving it blind went a lot easier than I thought. I did find I had to rinse of my razor with every stroke though, because I pulled off such long hairs and loads of lather with every swipe.
Interestingly, I found that rinsing the clean side of the blade seemed to pull the shaving gunk off better than trying to rinse the built up side of the blade. Give this a shot and you'll be surprised. With the water flowing spine to edge, it pulls all the stuff off the back side much faster than trying to rinse the gunk straight off the back side.
So shave complete, one pass WTG, neck included. I used the remaining lather to give my face a good wash and rinsed with cold water. Splashed on the bay rum (OUCH!) and then cleaned the razor and gave it a quick post shave strop to get any gunk off the edge. I really want to get the conditioner back though. I know conditioner opens the cuticles of the hair up, making easier cuts.
In conclusion, I've still got lots of progress to make with everything. I focusing on better stropping grips, and finding better ways to tighten my skin, my touch is getting lighter, and combined with the tight skin and a well stropped razor, I'm getting good shaves still.
7th shave, still focusing on the basics
Had my 7th shave tonight, probably took me about an hour.
tl;dr version:
Razor: John Williams Damascus Sheffield. 3rd shave with it.
Stropping: 50 on the linen, 100 on the leather.
Beard prep: Using MWF. Lather in shower, conditioner, lather post shower, relather a few times during shave.
Shave: Better stretching, experimenting with opposite hand, left chin alone as still has some shave rash.
Issues: Lather is drying out, razor seems to dull down by end of shave.
Reader's digest version:
All right. GF (girlfriend) is off at work, last shave was 2 days ago, so time to go at it again. I decide to stick with my John Williams, give it a solid stropping and see what I can do with it. It doesn't quite have the edge the dovo does, as the razor is about 100 years old and the dovo is brand new and honed by Lynn. It still has a decent edge (I've been looking closely under a lens) so I want to see what I can do with it. I know my stropping technique needs work (which newb's technique doesn't?) so I really focus on my grip and keeping the right pressure. I gave my strop 100 hand strokes to warp it up first, and then go to town. I think I may be pulling the strop a bit hard, as that hand gets tired after a bit. Mostly I'm focusing on my grip and proper pressure as I strop. I find that as I start a stroke, I'm not quite done with the rolling of the razor, and since I bring the edge down softly it doesn't actually make contact with the strop until I'm half way threw the stroke. I feel I'm getting the pressure right so instead of trying to get it contacting faster, I just do extra strops to make sure its done proper.
Stropping done, I gather my equipment. Boil some water and put it in my scuttle and let my brush soak while I hop in the shower. I shampoo my hair, and rub some in by beard as well. Rinse that out, grab my badger brush, whip up some MWF lather and work it in my face for a few minutes. I then rinse it off and rub the conditioner in by hand really good and let that sit while I proceed to wash the rest of my body. Last thing I do in the shower is rinse the conditioner off well, I hop out, dry off, get some pants on and start to work up the lather again.
I'm unsure if I'm really working the lather up properly. I tend to get a good bunch of lather in my bowl quickly and start working it into my face, where the lather really thickens up. Problem is, the lather seems to be drying on my face within a few minutes. By the time I'm done with my right cheek, the left side (while still lathered) seems to not be as moist. So next time I'm going to try and make a wetter lather and see how that holds up. I ended up relathering more frequently, not because the lather was gone, but it simply didn't feel wet. I added some water to the lather and worked it around with the brush, but it still seemed to dry out quickly. I also noticed that as time went on, more of the shaving scum was sticking to my razor and that it wasnt' easy to rinse off. I got it off with light stropping on the towel, but I think that is a sign that my lather really wasn't wet enough. I may try the Kissmyface soap next time and see if that holds the water better.
So anyway, to the shave. I think my angle really has been closer to 45 degrees than 30 degrees, so I really lower it down. Keeping a super light touch and making short strokes with the super stropped John Williams gave me a nice clean shave. As before, the short strokes allowed me to more frequently adjust the hand I used to stretch my skin and this equated to a better shave. Another thing I did different was use the opposite hand for my lower cheek. This didn't necessarily give me better control over the razor (wasn't really worse either), but what it did allow me was better stretch of the skin.
I've been adopting the attitude that of each aspect of the shave, I can make it better. Before I was thinking, "my skin is tight enough this way," but now I'm trying to figure out ways to get it tighter. I thought I had a light touch before, but now I'm really trying to have that razor barely touch my skin. I figure I can get complacent and think that I'm doing good enough, or I can take the attitude that there is always room for improvement. Of the two, the former will get me no-where, the latter will make me better.
I did my whole face except the chin, which still had some remnants of the shaving rash (read here). I started to work around the bottom lip a little, as I did shave the top lip and thought it would be a shame to have a stubbly bottom lip for kissing the lady.
I also noticed that the razor seemed to be dulling by the end. It was getting a bit catchy at times. In that other thread I was advised to keep the shave comfortable, that its when it is uncomfortable that your are doing damage to your skin. So I just took my time and just made tiny strokes getting just a few hairs at a time. There is a desire to want that ultra sharp edge that will simply slice threw all hair in one whack, but the reality is I don't have the skill to keep that kind of edge for the whole shave, so by the time I get to my lips I need to just take it easy. This realization put me at ease and I was able to finish up comfortably, even though I had to take more time. By this time I was also adding lots of water to my lather, and having to relather a lot.
So anyway, I finish up around my lip and rinse off with nice cold water. I gave my razor a good drying with tissue paper, then gave it a quick 25 on the linen, 25 on the leather to make sure the edge was free of moisture and/or shaving remnants. I splashed on the bay rum (OUCH!) and sat down to write my update.
I did think of an analogy though that I feel is apt. In the past, I have spent a lot of time painting buildings. There is a saying in the painting business that 95% of a job is prep, and the last 5% is the actual painting. It seems the same applies to shaving. While good technique during the shave is of course important, it is more important that you have prepped well before hand; A razor properly honed and stropped, good lather with a good soap and brush, softened beard hair from a nice shower or hot towel. The shave itself is what we all look forward to, but we cannot ignore or rush through the foundation of a good shave to get to it.
So, till next time!
Lather well my friends :)
9th shave, really getting into the swing of things
tl'dr version: Pretty much same as the last one, tried a little ATG but was very tough so I stopped.
Readers Digest version
Got my 9th under my belt, and I feel my shaving technique is really starting to get proper and at ease. I did another long strop session, as the last one turned out such great results. I did my extensive beard prep in the shower of shampoo along with the hair, lather it good, let conditioner sit for the rest of the shower.
My soap bowl is made of soapstone, and it seems to impart a little color to the soap if I soak the soap with water while I shower. At first I thought pieces of the soapstone were coming off, but then I realized it was just the soap picking up the color. Who knows what else it is picking up, so in the future I won't soak my soap so much. I've gotten good results in the past without doing so, so I don't think it will be a problem.
Shave was wonderful. Used the dovo again. Short strokes and frequent readjustment of the skin stretching hand are really providing me with good shaves. After my first WTG pass, I decided to restrop before doing a second pass, which was nice. I relathered and stropped away and the 2nd XTG pass went very smoothly.
When I was done, I ran my hand over my face and felt a few rough spots, so tried some ATG over the area. It pulled very heavily though, so I just let it go.
After shave burns like a son of a b***h. I kinda like it though, makes me feel like a man.
10th shave, first ATG, oh so smooth!
Had save number 10 last night, but didn't get around to my journal till today.
All my prep is same as before. In shower, shampoo, lather good, let the conditioner sit, yada yada yada.
Stropping is kinda a pain with a lousy strop. Looking for a replacement as I type as a matter of fact. Maybe I'll turn this one into a pasted. I can still strop just fine, it just takes awhile because only a foot of the strop is flat enough to do the job properly.
I did a little experiment with my shave lather this time. I was running low on my MWF, and so after I loaded my brush up with it, I put a dob of kissmyface in my scuttle and mixed them together. It didn't really work any wonders, but I didn't hurt anything either. Doubt I will do it again though, as the MWF and Kissmyface have very different aromas, and when I mixed them they kind of canceled each other out. In the future I will just use one or the other. I've found both soaps to be great, but I think I like the MWF a little better.
Anyway, onto the shave. My normal pass is going very quickly now, and have a couple of XTG under my belt. I tried some ATG the last few times without much success. This time I did another really solid stropping before my ATG, and instead of going directly against the grain, I went at a 45 degree angle which worked much better. I also found I had to stretch the skin a LOT more than I had been. Its funny how I think I'm stretching as much as I can, then find that when I went ATG, I could find ways to stretch it more. :) My skin was sooooo smooth afterward, and SWMBO couldn't stop touching my face. I ended up getting a nice face massage simply because she loved how smooth it was :).
One thing of note, while I was doing my chin I had a single amazingly smooth and perfect stroke. Usually the chin is a pain to shave, but this one stroke just cut through every like a hot knife threw butter and left a nice smooth patch. Usually I need to do a lot of little tiny strokes to get all the hairs, so this really took me by surprise. More of a stroke of luck than intentional technique, but its nice to see what is possible. I wonder how long it will be until I can shave my chin like that every time.
One other thing I found interesting. I figured that since this was my first time doing 3 passes (WTG, XTG, and XTG) that my bay rum would sting more than ever. When I splashed it on, I was pleasantly surprised to find it hardly stung at all! I think this is from 2 things. For one, I've been straight shaving for almost a month now so my skin is probably adapting and thickening. Secondly my technique is continually improving, especially when it comes to how much pressure is against my skin. Now days its almost none, so I don't think I'm irritating the skin as much. For whatever reason, it was nice to splash on the bay rum and not have an OUCH!
In other new, I got a nice puma blade that needs some scales. I scored it off ebay for 21 bucks. It has a nice edge (although I will send it off for some honing) and not much hone wear.
Well, that's all for now.
Lather well my friends!