Somebody on another thread wrote:

Quote Originally Posted by thebigspendur View Post
Consider that it can take months to become proficient with a straight so there are many possibilities. Pretty much everything from bad angle, bad stroke, bad pressure, dull razor.
This has me thinking. How do you know a razor is sharp? Shave test it, is what I read. Easy to say, when you know how to shave. But how can you rule out the razor when you are not yet confident in your shave?

Ideally, I'd like to have an objective way to know if my razor is sharp enough. The hanging hair test looked promising, until I brought it up.

So, should a straigh razor be as sharp as say a feather platinum coated blade? Or sharper? Because the feathers don't even pass the 1/2" hanging hair test (at least it didn't for me). And neither does my razor.

So, I think we need a way, in general, other than a shave test, to objectively determine if the razor is good for beginners.