Thread: HELP!!!!!!!!!

I like you am a beginner even though I have year of straight shaving experience. I was surprised by how long it took to get comfortable with my straight razor. There are several skills you have to master starting with developing the necessary muscle memory so that you can complete a shave. There is no substitute for experience, and learning is part of the process. I can tell you that the U-Tube videos did more harm than good lots of bad technique and misinformation.
Not to plug any product but Lynn's video helped me more than anything else. I needed to understand the story of straight shaving and see good technique in practice. It also helped me to understand how the razors edge geometry is created. Oddly enough I learned to hone before I learned to do a good straight shave. I think understanding the process helped me. Thanks everyone at this site especially Lynn for his tips.
It is important that you respect your razor but do not fear it or you will cut yourself. My alum block is never far away. When I started I had all the problems you have and considered giving up. However I started to get better only when I practiced every day " muscle memory" . I think that I still have much to learn but I am proficient now with 9 different straight razors.
The only time I pick up my DE is if there simply is not time for a proper straight shave. Trust that you will learn be patient, develop the skills, relax and enjoy the learning process.

Hello WineGuyD

Welcome to SRP.

If Lynn sharpened the str8, you can bet your mortgage that it's sharp .

In my "limited" experience, it's ALL about:

1. Angle, Angle, Angle and
2. Pressure, Pressure, pressure

Plain and simple

If it's any consolation, I had the same problems...If you get those things wrong, especially the angle, your blade will skip and hop. You may think you have the angle/pressure right, but chances are that you probably don't and you will have to give it some time for these ingredients to "kick in" together, synchronously. You will know when they do

That, my friend, comes in time...not a long time, but time nonetheless. be patient and hang in there. Allow yourself to develop muscle memory. Your brain has to also adjust to a new method. Once that gets there, the angle and pressure fall into place. BUT, you do HAVE to make a conscious decision and watch these things as you shave.

They will become second nature to you (and your hands).

Don't worry about the irritated skin in the beginning. While you are learning a new technique, your skin has to learn to adjust to this technique too...it's a whole new ball game with a whole new set of tools. Give it time. A wise member on SRP (aka John Crowley) once told me: "your skin will toughen up". And toughen up, it did. Give it a few weeks.

Keep at it...make sure that:

1. Concentrate on your pre- and post-shave preps. i.e., take your time to soften the beard by building a thick lather, work it into the beard for some time, etc...

2. Use natural products (cremes, soaps, A/S)

3. AVOID alcohol products at ALL cost...while alcohol soothes and cools the skin, it will lead to inflammation and on an already irritated skin, this spells disaster


Hope this helps,

Ok, after the slight progress the other day achieved by vigorously stropping the razors, I figured a little "extreme" stopping would be even better so i parked myself at the dining table last night and laid my strop on the table, to guarantee it was flat with no cupping, and proceeded to strop both razors for about half an hour each or about 500 strops each.
The result was a modest but noticeable improvement in the shave, less pulling and less noisy. I still don't get a stubble free result from one pass so I decided to borrow my barbers technique of doing short repeated strokes over the same area which eventually left a stubble free area.
I also realized the shave soap was drying out if It took more than a minute to get to that spot so I started to lather zone by zone instead and reapplied a hot towel before each new lather. Bottom line is I managed to complete a full face shave, WTG only, in a little under 10 minutes with out a nick and no razor burn which was plaguing me on all the previous shaves especially just to the side of my chin.
So in summery, the razors needed aggressive proper stropping, i needed to shave in sections and regularly reapply shave soap and hot towel.

Does anyone have any comments on the shave soap? I'm using Institute Karite and I'm creating a thin but dense lather on my face, not the whipped cream look(I can't seem to get that), maybe another brand would be better suited for me?

Mitchells Wool Fat....really helps me in the learning curve....lots of cushion and lasts longer on the face.

Where can one purchase some of this wonderful Mitchells Wool Fat soap?

I ordered mine from SRD but you can also get it from Amazon and probably Classic Shaving. Kinda pricey but worth it.

Alright, my 9th shave this morning and although it went ok, I did feel a little more pulling and resistance despite stropping the night before. I ordered the Wool Fat shave soap but until it arrives I'm locked into the Institute Karite.
I was watching several Youtube videos on shaving technique this afternoon and can't get away from the fact that every guy demonstrating a shave technique was getting a stubble free result from each downward stroke of the razor while I see lots of random hairs remaining in the wake of a stroke. Can anyone tell me definitively whether a stroke of a straight razor should leave as clean a trail as a Mach 3? Shouldn't the razor either cleanly cut all the hairs or none at all?

Hi WineGuyD
Remember, the objective is for "hair reduction" with each pass...not a straight swooping action that obliterates all hairs.

One step at a time..

The only thing, IMHO, that cartridge shaving and str8 shaving have in common is the word "shaving" ...What they do and accomplish are vastly different. Come to think of it, cartridge shaving should be changed to cartridge torture or irritation .

Originally Posted by WineGuyD

Alright, my 9th shave this morning and although it went ok, I did feel a little more pulling and resistance despite stropping the night before. I ordered the Wool Fat shave soap but until it arrives I'm locked into the Institute Karite.
I was watching several Youtube videos on shaving technique this afternoon and can't get away from the fact that every guy demonstrating a shave technique was getting a stubble free result from each downward stroke of the razor while I see lots of random hairs remaining in the wake of a stroke. Can anyone tell me definitively whether a stroke of a straight razor should leave as clean a trail as a Mach 3? Shouldn't the razor either cleanly cut all the hairs or none at all?

Originally Posted by WineGuyD

I was watching several Youtube videos on shaving technique this afternoon and can't get away from the fact that every guy demonstrating a shave technique was getting a stubble free result from each downward stroke of the razor

WineGuyD,
As Robert mentions, we're talking "hair reduction." That's removing "some" of our beard with each pass we make.

I've been at this since February and I'm just now attaining a DFS. No idea when I will finally achieve a BBS shave. When I do, it will be in "my" time, not someone else's time frame.

Watch the videos for inspiration but don't look to them for indication of how you "should" be doing.

I'm committed to taking as long as it takes to learning how to shave MY face with my straight razor.

Will you join me in that commitment?
Namaste,
Morty -_-

After two weeks of daily shaving with my Wosty and Coachmikes loaners I've reached the point where I'm feeling fairly comfortable with the razors and manage to complete WTG and XTG shaves in under 10 minutes.
The one recurring issue is that I get very little hair removal with each stroke. The razor is not pulling or dragging, just not making a clean cut...this phenomenon is happening with all the different razors so I would say that keenness is not an issue, more likely technique. My temporary solution has been to adopt the "buffing" shave technique which has delivered a pretty good shave even though I have to re-shave every section multiple times. I'm open to suggestions.