Thread: 3rd shave. and i still dont know what i am doing wrong.

Given your further information, I'm going to suggest that the issue will lie more in your technique in both shaving with an open blade and also the possibility of bad stropping technique. The best thing for both these faults is practice. With stropping, I would recommend doing it slowly while concentrating on keeping even tension on your strop, keeping the razor flat against the strop with little to no pressure, only what is required to maintain the blade at that flat contact. In my own early days of stropping I was making the mistake of going too fast and not actually keeping the edge down on the strop, just the spine was on the strop surface. It is also possible to make the opposite mistake and have the spine raised too high with the blade at too high an angle, thus rolling the edge and requiring in most cases a trip to the hone.
With the shaving side of things, it is always easiest to start with just a days growth rather than anything much heavier. Put the blade flat against your skin like you are going to strop but then raise the spine about one to two spine thicknesses from the skin to find your optimum shave angle. You may need to raise or lower that angle to find the optimum but work in small increments and start by trying the spine closer to the skin rather than further away.
Once again, it will take a little practice and patience, but you will get there in the end. I started this game about 16 years ago and gave it up as a bad joke not having the resources or the knowledge that we have with the internet and this forum at that time, along with not having a 'Shave Ready' razor to add to my many, many un-educated mistakes. I always had it in the back of my mind to succeed, and carried my razor with me everywhere I travelled, as a constant reminder to get educated and try again. It just took a few years for that to come about. I found this forum about a month after I started to try and learn again. I had found information on honing and had bought a 1000/6000 hone practiced doing that a bit before I finally got things right with that, thankfully not screwing up my only razor in the process. Eventually got a rough, read harsh and painful, shave for the first time out of my razor. Felt the elation of some success, learnt some more about finer grit hones and bought a 3000/8000 grit to get a smoother edge. Tried shaving again with even better results, still not perfect though. About a week or so later, while doing some more searching for information I came across this forum, learnt a helluva lot in a very short space of time by reading everything in the Wiki (More in a few hours, than what I had found in several years). After that I made a commitment to use nothing but the cut-throat razor until I got it right. I was getting some of the best shaves of my life by about six weeks in and haven't looked back. I now own more than one razor, mostly straights, but with a DE and a Rolls thrown in that make up a seven day set of razors. Not that I use a different one everyday, but certainly enough razors to last me and a family of football teams a lifetime of use.
Anyway, I wish you all the best and hope that little bit of my personal story helps you with your own efforts.


Mick

I have a very heavy beard and I ran across the exact same issues you are running into. My first shave was a tug-fest and the razor wouldn't even go through the hair around my jaw and chin. And the razor was professionally honed, so I knew it was plenty sharp. Looking back, here are a few of my observations on what went wrong and right:

First, I read everything I could about stropping but still ended up inadvertently dulling the blade. It helps to have another professionally honed razor just for comparison. After a few days, I compared the razor I was using to the unused razor and there was no doubt that I had dulled the blade. That really helped because the razor still felt sharp to me, but there was no denying it was duller than the other razor.

Properly stretching your skin while shaving is huge. It's much, much easier to shave taught, flat skin when you have a heavy beard. Otherwise you get a lot of tugging. My first ah-ha moment with a BBS shave was when I pulled my skin tight and did an across-the-grain pass on my cheek. That's what really got me really excited to keep at it.

I still have trouble with my chin, but the area I have difficulty with is much, much smaller than it was at first. The left and right sides of my chin I now get through no problem - all I do is open my jaw as wide as I can and make a face like I'm whistling. Then I keep the razor at a relatively flat angle against my fact and it shaves right through.

Also, it helped me a lot to shave in a slicing motion (down with a slight left to right or right to left motion) instead of shaving straight down.

In the end it comes down to trying all kinds of different angles and approaches until you find out what works. To be honest, it's a bit of a long slog of trial and error at the beginning. The straight razor seems to have no tolerance for the wrong angle with a heavy beard. You will have mini breakthroughs here and there and then you just remember what works and what doesn't.

Right now I get a far better shave for most of my face than I ever did with a DE. If I could only get that small part under my chin I would be in business

thanks AOLT guys this i think this really helping. as for stropping i only have one. it is the poor mans strop kit leather. i got also from whippeddog.com do i also need a linen strop i have read about them in the wiki and seen them many times mentioned otherwise, do i need this as well? i am motivated to try again but my face is a little raw today so i am going to wait until tommarow. then i will let you guys know straightaway on how it all went other than that i cant thank you guys enough i going to keep trying until i get this.

Originally Posted by krism

as for stropping how many passes am i really supposed to make? i made about 40-50 as it says in the videos,can i be dulling the edge? can it be possible i am pushing to hard? and also since i am new i am pretty slow stropping does speed matter? each pass only takes a second or two but its slow compared to the dvd and youtube videos.

Its really to bad your having troubles! Once you get the hang of it you will crave your next shave. As for stropping I believe you cannot over strop just waste time. Outside of practice anything past 50 is just that practice. You should do 15-25 on linen and between 35 and 50 on your leather You cannot over strop, however, if your approach or should i say technique is not correct you could be dulling your SR. If you make sure your spine is touching and your edge is touching, not putting a whole lot more than the weight of your SR you should have good luck. Remember a pass is down and back. Please don't give up, you have come this far, keep with it.

In direct opposition to Naters (and many others here too), I don't use a linen/webbing/other material. I simply use my own 'roo hide strop. My personal experience has lead me to believe I don't need anything else. I'm not visiting the hones any quicker than anyone else and my shaves are very satisfactory. In the end though, I feel that you should make up your own mind. When it is time to upgrade your strop, get yourself a double sided one of decent quality (you should hopefully have gone through your strop killing stage by then).
If you face is feeling irritated, it is best to allow time to heal before shaving again. Believe me I went through that stage years ago, and persisted no matter how irritated my face was. It won't help the cause whatsoever.
Keep at it though and all will come good.


Mick

I've been using linen prior to leather more out of habit than for any particular reason. I'm going to take that out of the process and see if it makes any difference. Stay tuned for an update.

guys i really dont kno. i tried again last night. and this time i took my other razor that i purchased and straight from the box after taking off the "do not strop before first shave paper" i still had a lot of tugging

Keep at it Krism. I bought my first razor from the classified section on here, and it finally got to my house about 2 weeks ago. I have found that there really is a steep learning curve to str8t shaving. I'm not any good at it yet, every shave seems to be better with respect to closeness, and worse concerning my blood in the sink. This morning I was working on my third pass and hadn't drawn any blood, until I got to my weak side jaw line. The nice thing is that since my razor is super sharp, it doesn't hurt when I do slice myself! Anyways, we aren't going to reach perfection any time soon, but the whole process is a lot of fun. Try not to get too wrapped up in making it work no matter what, and just enjoy the shave. We'll get there

Originally Posted by krism

guys i really dont kno. i tried again last night. and this time i took my other razor that i purchased and straight from the box after taking off the "do not strop before first shave paper" i still had a lot of tugging

If you are getting tugging with a razor that you know is sharp, what you have is a technique, probably blade angle, issue. I can take a sharp blade and shave with it on my cheek without any preparation or lather, and I get no tugging. To search for the proper angle, lay the blade flat on your cheek and pull it downward at the same time that you gradually raise the spine. At the correct angle you will hear the whiskers being cut. If that doesn't happen, and it goes right from not cutting at all to pulling and tugging, then either the blade is not sharp enough or your preparation needs to be improved. Personally, all I do is lather up and shave, and I get good results, so I doubt preparation is your problem.

I believe all the tips you have gotten in this thread will be all you would need to overcome these problems you are describing.
Keep at it, we all struggled in the beginning!

If I may suggest one thing;
Try to do you prepping routine, then do it all one more time. Except for one thing. Loose the pre shave oil!
I know lots of people love those, but if you are anything like me, they seem to hinder the lather(the water content of it) to penetrate the hairs properly.
In other words, the best moisturizer for my beard is a well prepared lather from a quality soap or cream.

Although I am a typical Scandinavian with fair skin and blondish hair, my whiskers are pretty tough and dense, so I really need to focus on the prep, and I know how big a difference it makes. For me anyway.

I have never had any success with the pre-shave oils, in fact I have felt them to be counter-productive.
If they are to work, you really need to apply very little of it!
I hope you find a way around this, and gets the fine shaves a straight can give as soon as possible!