Thread: Poor Stropping = Significant Blood Loss?

okay I am a few weeks into this Journey. So far things have been going well for me. I have started out slow, doing areas I was comfortable with, gradually doing more and mulitple passes. The odd little nic here and there but nothing that a cool splash of water and aftershave did not clear up.

Today however was a slightly different story. Grabbed my razor and went and did 20 passes on my whippeddog poormans strop. Then thought I would try my new homemade strop. Did 20+ laps on it and headed in for my shave. My pre-shave routine did not change. Coldwater bath on the face, towel dry, whip proraso into a lather, anotehr cold water spash, pat dry, lather face, massage lather into face, then relather.

On my first stroke. right side cheek, using right hand going down WTG. it was smooth as could be, no tugging or pulling at all, just a super smooth stroke. But 3 bleeders appeared, And we are not talking the typical little blossoms that you wipe away. I am talking blood running down my cheek from all 3 and still bleeding 35 minutes later.

I was going to switch razors but I thought Eff that. This Fili will not have the best of me. I finished up a complete multi pass shave with it not near BBS but they never are yet. still bleeding all over the place. Did my coldwater rinse and towl soak and spashed my ice Lime all over my face. Now normally with the Ice lime I get that second or two of sting/burning. today nothing, no sting no burn.

So is it posible that my stropping technique rolled an edge or left a jagged spot that carved me? Is it possible something was on the blade from stropping that although feeling super smooth casued the issue? If the blade was rolled or messed up should I have not felt a real burn from the ICED Lime?

Really at a loss on this one. Below is picture to show my home made strop for those that did not see in the strop section

Sounds to me like you have a chip or dink in the edge that keeps catching you.

Have you knocked the razor on anything, like the tap or something? or the metal hardware on the strop? (I'm on my phone so I can't see the pics clearly!)

Rolling the edge will only really dull the blade, but a small chip will slice you quick as a flash.

Do you have a loupe that you can look at the edge with?

I would examine the blade under 10X. I couldn't function without a loupe.

Secondly, in the history of the world, and this includes outer space, nobody has EVER shaved with too little pressure. Pressure is the root of all shaving evil.

Sounds like a terrible shave.
But Kudos for sticking with it
It sounds to me like Stubear has found a possible culprit.
I've experienced shaves like you are describing here, and it was a dent/chip in the edge every time.
Try to look at the edge, like Stubear says, that should reveal something not quite right.
Good luck

I blame the user.

A rolled edge would give you a crappy shave all over.

A jagged edge would probably cut you everywhere, and you'd probably feel it on your face.

Sometimes you nick yourself without understanding why, it just happens.

if you're new to this, your muscle memory probably still isn't perfectly settled in, so you might had change the angle &/or pressure &/or stroke length &/or stroke speed without noticing & it could have cut you.

Now take some time off to heal properly, then shave, shave & shave some more.

Certainly something is going on. First step is check the razor with mag. If it seems to be OK then next is your technique. Until you check the razor don't use it again. It would take some big chips to cause real serious bleeding. Usually micro chips just cause a rough shave or bad irritation. As they get bigger the effect quickly increases though.

Thank you all for the reply. I have to agree with Glenn on technique if a rolled edge would not cause this. Like I said I pushed on and not a scratch on left side of face and multiple passes on neck with no nicks or burn.

It is just odd to my inexperienced mind that it felt like such a smooth pass. and the spots were just tiny dots, not slices. Just happened to be spots that liked to bleed allot.

Probably would not be so bad if I did not have a Sarcastic 18 year old daughter home from College.

"Hey Dad, That straight razor thing is really working out for you. If you wanted the Hamburger Meat look."

Well, sarcastic 18 year old daughters can be problematic. I remember mine chanting in the background, as I hacked away in one of my initial shaves, "Go against the grain, Daddy, go against the grain!"

There are women who enjoy watching men hacking away with a straight, cussing every now and then. They especially enjoy that special moment when you either use your Styptic pencil or splash that alcohol-laden aftershave on after a particularly ugly shave. Everyone has to find entertainment their own way. Look at it this way: If you've made someone smile, even laugh, while tearing up your face, you've contributed humor to the Universe.

Well having been accused most of my life of being big on braun light on brain, this morning I grabbed the filli and ran it 20-30 times on my homemade strop. Off to the shower to give a Hot Shave a try with the same set-up as yesterday.

While looking in the mirror asking if I really needed/wanted to do this I looked at the problem area on my right cheek from yesterday and noticed that the /cuts/nicks were just little dots but a 1/2 inch before and 1/2 inch after the dots had vertical scratches. each of the 3 dots had a similar scratch before and after. The puzzling part is the blade would have been perpendicular to these scratches on the North South pass I was making. Anyone have an idea what I did wrong? to much angle? To mush pressure? Razor gods just need a sacrifice?

Today aside from opening up one of the wounds from yesterday a bit there was no problem with the shave. Not as close as I would have liked but I really tried to play with pressure and some funky growth patterns on my neck. In previous weeks I would have taken cartridge and just cleaned it to the point I like but past few shaves I have been getting close enough for Canada

After reading this post, I can say this....and again YMMV but this is what works for me.....

I have bled like a stuck pig every single time I've tried a cold water shave. My hair and skin do not like cold water. I'm softening in the shower, rubbing my face with later, and keeping my skin soft post shower until I start shaving.

I don't even experiment with it anymore. I just do hot water shaves.

Hope this helps a bit???