Baptised-1st Shave Tonight

Call it beginners luck.

I recieved my Dovo Bismarck 6/8th this evening and knew I was going to be in for something special. My first shave was everything I expected it would be and I faired far better than my expectations as a rookie.

After a hot shower, I did use a pre-shave oil which was purchased as a gift from Art of Shaving and was not sure what to expect from it. It seemed to make my whiskers stand up when applied and while I built my lather I noticed the oil also seemed to open my pores a bit. The lather went on nice and smooth as well. I used an almond sized drop of AOS creme and built up and pretty nice and thick lather in a ceramic cereal sized bowl.

I started off with the right side of my face as a precaution, and was surprised that I was able to do it along with my neckline. I then switched sides and hands. It was not until I got to my chin that I experienced the difficulty. My technique gave me the hardest time here, but from what I've read this is somewhat expected to be the most challenging. I managed and did make it through the entire shave with the straight sustaining no cuts. My face feels amazing althought there is a bit of stubble here and there. Nothing major. I hope that as my technique get's better the shave will as well. Practice and advice will get me there.

One major question. My razor was shave ready so I did not strope before shaving. I did take the advice of some of the post's I've read and did a light strope after the shave as I read it would rid any additional moisture. Should I continue with the after the shave strope or is it more important to do it beforehand?

A big thank you to all that have given advice both directly and indirectly, I made it through my 1st shave tonight because of you guys. Amazing feeling and I could not be happier my Gillette's in the trash can.

Welcome to SRP and congrats on your first shave..sounds like it went awesome!
In answer to your question I personally do strop after every shave as well as before..just 20-30 laps after to realign everything and put the razor away nice..it helps ensure no residue left on the edge as well.

Congrats on the first shave! :)

As for the strop, I do about 5-10 passes on my canvas strop after cleaning and drying the razor post shave. The thinking here is that it just helps remove any remaining moisture or material that might be on the blade's edge and that makes sense to me.

Beyond that, additional post-shave stropping won't likely provide too much benefit (although I'm sure some would disagree). By that I mean if you did 25 post shave and 25 pre shave I really don't think it's any better than just doing 50 pre shave passes on the strop.

High carbon steel oxidizes very quickly--even if it's not 'rusted' there are still microscopic things going on with the blades edge as it's exposed to oxygen. Consequently I like to focus stropping time and effort on the pre-shave so the blade is freshest.

At the moment I'm using the same razor every day and so I just do the 5-10 post shave passes. If I was going to put a razor away for a while then I probably would strop it a bit more post-shave although honestly I think that's more for the psychological feel of 'putting it away sharp' than any scientifically tested sharpness protocol (although again I'm sure some would disagree). :argue:

I also strop before ,35 laps, and after, 10 laps, each shave. It really is all a matter of personal preferance on when you strop. Just as long as you do strop at some point before each shave. Make sure when you go to strop you go nice and slow using a fluid motion. While the razor is on the leather it should always be moving.

Also as a side note you might want to hold on to that gillette you never know when you might need it. Each tool has a purpose it just might not be what it was built for.

I'm very happy for you that it all went well, as for beginers luck, I think you'll find that by following the great advice from the chaps on this forum you can't really go wrong.