Thread: First real SR shave

Alright, I just finished my first shave with a real straight(not with my
Filarmonica shavette), this is a small account of the shave.

Razor
The weapon of choice was a WM Elliot 5/8" hollow ground with celluloid snakeskin scales, which I received yesterday from Stubear



As this was the very first time I was going to shave with a real straight I took the time to strop it on a Dovo strop(linen and cowshide), for as far I could feel I didn't dull the blade(not really made it sharper either, but then Stubear had already stropped it).

Lather
After a hot shower I made a lather from "De Vergulde Hand" shaving soap and applied to the face, put a hot towel over it and waited a few minutes. Then I made a lather from The Body Shop Maca root shaving cream with a Body Shop synthetic brush(which lathers quite nicely imho), best lather I made ever, smooth and soft.

1st pass WTG
The first pass was a delight. The wider edge of the razor, compared to the shavette, gave much better shave. The sharper edge really surprised me, the shavette with "Super-max Super stainless" blades shaved nicely, but this blade just slid over the skin(cutting whiskers ).

And the sound, it cannot be described. A soft grating sound, even better than the sounds I heard on the straight razor video's

2nd pass ATG and 3rd pass XTG
No problems here

After shave
While cleaning my face up, I noticed that the towel was caught on stubble, but using my fingers to find them I felt nothing!
After applying "De Vergulde Hand" after shave cream I cleaned up all the stuff and felt my face. Apart from 1 or 2 spots I missed on ATG it was in my opinion BBS, but in a few hours my girlfriend will be here so she'll be the judge of that.

Total shaving time with prep: 45 minutes.

Nicks?
No nicks as far as I could tell, at one time there was a small red dash of blood in the shaving cream, but I didn't see or feel anything after the shave.

Observations
1. Stropping is hard, but the only nick in the strop is 1 milimeter(0.04 inch) wide nick 1 inch from the top of the strop. So that not a problem.
2. Even less sensitive skin on my neck than the shavette.
3. I'm scared I'm catch have RAD soon.
4. I didn't *cough* touch up my goatee the wrong way(nicely shaved around it)