Just did my first shave. I had built up a week's worth of stubble since I went and had my first barber shave last weekend (I wanted to be able to clearly see the growth patterns/directions of the hairs). I practiced several holds for the razor, looking at the wiki page here, and also how to flip the razor back and forth on it's spine before I got ready to strop it. I got the Big Daddy strop from Star Shaving. Took it nice and slow on the fabric side, no problem, then got the razor turned around in my hand when I switched to the leather side of the strop and promptly nicked it on the first go. Oh well. That's why I got a cheap strop, right?

Lather was a bit of a challenge, as I haven't gotten my glycerin shave soap in the mail yet, and being impatient, I decided to just use the shaving cream that I've been using with my disposable. I ended up still doing quite a bit of fiddling with my fingers trying to get the grip right for the various angles. Kept reminding myself "light touch", which didn't seem to be a problem. I tried to use the same hand for both sides of my face, but eventually gave up and used my left hand to do the right side. Cheeks were OK, but the neck area seemed to be the hardest. I had to go back over it a few times, and eventually just finished it up with my disposable to get rid of the stragglers. Got a few nicks here and there, but not as bad as I'd expected. It stung just a bit afterward, and there was a bit of redness on the lower left side of my face along the jawline. The aftershave definitely helped soothe that down.

Overall, not bad for my first go. Looking forward to doing it again in a few days.