Thread: First shave! More questions!

Yesterday was my b-day, and my friends got me an awesome razor set with soap strop, a dovo best quality, badger brush, razor burn repair and a nice box!

Yeah!

Wanted to buy it in a month or so (a graduating present... ), but a nice surprise to get it sooner!

First shave was ok.... No nick, cuts and very little razor burn (huray for proraso razor burn repair!) so that was great! Not a smooth face afterwards, but slowly got the hang of handeling the blade, it felt great to put such a blade on your face....think i have to send it out for honing though....but i reallyreally liked it! I'm hooked!

But 2 questions remain: I'm used to shaving cream and this was my first hard soap, how the hell do you do that? First of all the soap didn't fit the tray that came with it so it isn't stationary. Do you need to load your brush or something??? Here's a noob that needs some advice! (Tomorrow i'll try the cream and give it another go...) And the lather i did got was gone in two minutes on my face. No idea if its because my inferior lather-making abilities or if its the soap. With my Palmolive cream and Tabac cream i never had any problems.

And #2: The blade has a tiny wave near the heel of the bevel, the edge seems straight and it didn't bother me while shaving... That and i had to use more downward pressure than i expected. Also it failed the HHT However it did do the job. I'll probably send it out for honing soon.... anway would appreciate your thoughts on this.

I had my first shave! Yeah!

Congrats on your first shave! Yes you do need to load the brush when using a hard soap and start with little water in the brush and add if needed the same as when using creams. As for the wave you described in your razor maybe posting some pics would help..but it probably shouldn't be there. You shouldn't have to use pressure when shaving so t definately sounds like your razor needs to be properly honed. Hope this helps

thx!

Well my camera doesn't work anymore...... I'll try to "organize" one...


And if I want to put some oil on the blade for protection can you use cooking oil(sunflower oil) for that? Is there an oil you should NOT use?

Congrats on the first shave! It will get even better as you go. For oil, many people on the forums here suggest some mineral oil. I use Camelia oil, but it's not a must.

For hard soaps, what I do is soak the brush in hot water when I shower. Then if using the hard soap, I fling most of the water out of my brush (holding by the knot, not the handle). I also often soak the soap in a little hot water while I'm showering. I pour water out of soap dish and then load the brush up with a lot of soap.

The soap shouldn't move around in the dish/mug. You can melt some soaps to fit the mug. Some use a double boiler. Others suggest just using a cheese grater. You grate the soap then push it down into the dish/mug of your choice. I like this method the best. Once you get it wet a few times and use the brush, the soap becomes smooth again. Some even say that grating the soap in this way improves the quality of the lather.

Well, I hope this info helps a bit.

p.s. I love your avatar. Radiohead has been one of my favorite bands for a while. The two shows I've seen of theirs were amazing!

I'm pretty green to str8 shaving as well but I tend to just build the lather on my face instead of in the bowl. I load up the brush and then start small swirls on my face. You should be able to find quite a few threads that discus it here. The brush (at least mine) seems to get better as they break in. That being said I have an el cheapo boars hair.

Enjoy the new razor and have fun. Take it slow and enjoy.

Shave #2:

Stropped for 10 min or so (soaking the brush and all that), i did the stropping SLOWLY. HAd a great shave! I even did 2,5 pass, XTG in the neck i will have to check some vids. Far from BBS, but much better compared to yesteday. 3 nicks, but compared to the 10 nicks i have when shaving with a cartridge razor these were 10 times smaller. I really have to get a better feel for holding the blade during XTG and ATG passes. No razor burn. awesome day!

This is the most awesome and coolest way to shave! Completely hooked! And i still have a lot to learn, but i think that will all work out.

An alternative for you is to face lather your soap. Just load the brush like you normally would, wet your face, then take the brush to your face instead of building lather in a bowl. Keep the water in the bowl you soaked your brush in and dip the tips of the brush bristles in the water when you need to (just the tips so you don't get too much water) and take it back to your face. I find it much easier to build lather on my face instead of in a bowl, plus building lather on your face has the added benefit of forcing you to spend time working the lather in your beard. It might feel a little weird the first couple times you do it, but you will soon learn if your lather is right or not by feel.

+1 on soaking your brush while in the shower. If you take a cheese grater to you puck of soap and simply compress the shavings into your container your other problem should be solved. When you first put the shavings into the container it will likely look a little wierd but after several loadings of the brush the soap will smooth out and look like a factory installation.
MISC. Tips and Tricks:

• Keep the strop tight and use very little pressure on the razor. Turn the razor on the spine
• More stropping is better. You can over hone a razor but over stropping is quite impossible. The more you strop the keener the edge
• Alum blocks and witch hazel are very effective and very affordable after shave treatments.
• You're right, this is the coolest and funnest way to shave. If someone had told me ten years ago that my daily shaves would be an enjoyable diversion that I totally looked forward to, I would have called them crazy but indeed this is now the case with straight razors, brushes and soaps

I'm going to send the razor to Bart from coticule.be, if i like the edge i'll probably get a coticule stone myself in the future ( I mean i'm going to get a coticule stone in the future... )

He also shared some thoughts with me on the tiny wave in my blade. He has the impression that at Dovo they grind their razors hollow and afterwards check for imperfections. Razors with insignificant imperfections are made into the cheaper razors. They call those "Best Quality" lol