I got my razor and strop in today just when I got off of work. Good timing. If you didn't catch my intro in the introduce yourself section it's a 5/8 Northfield that I got from therestoredrazor.com. Being the child I am I opened up the box and ogled for a bit. I tested it on my arm and the hair flew off. Great stuff and beautiful quality too. I ran to take a shower and prep. I am using an old coffee mug, tweezerman badger brush and Taylor of Old Bond Street's Sandalwood cream.

I'm not sure how the lather was but I think that I may have made it a little dry. It dried out really fast on my face and I had to keep reapplying. I made the first pass with the grain and everything seemed fine. So I thought I would try going across, tough but ok. Well, no real problems yet so I thought why not try against the grain. That's where I had the most resistance but nothing major. My beard grows in big patches but none of them really connect and it's slow growing and light. I probably won't need to shave again for a couple of days and that will be mostly stubble. I would have posted pics but I wanted to focus more on shaving than the camera.

The hardest thing seems to be getting the angle just right and figuring out the grip and getting used to it. Now I just have to hope that I don't screw it up when I strop it.

If you guys have any special tips or tricks I will gladly accept them. I've gone through the wiki and tons of topics on the forum but there seems to be a lot to take in. It may be that I'm a beginner at this but things seem more simple when standing in front of the mirror as long as there is confidence and a steady hand.