Thread: First straight shave today.

After a couple weeks dabbling with a Parker shavette, the first real straight shave went surprisingly easy, way easier to use, and not as crazy/scary sharp as the shavette, which punish any mistake with bloody results. An amazing zen-like experience, I'm finally a real man now!

My razor is a 5/8" Geneva I bought from Goodtann on eBay, great seller, which delivers razors shave-ready for real, coticule honed.





I did just a couple passes, no reason to push it the very first time, but it was amazing, even if I still have some stubble left

Geneva razors deliver a shave that is as good as many other expensive razors. You have a good choice for your first razor. Happy shaving and keep us posted on results. Best Regards, wildhog

That sounds great!
Congrats on a successful first straight shave.
Keep at it and you will get even better results with ease.

A few tips if I may.
Check out the links in my sig-line. They should provide you with lots of useful info for futher refining your skill

Good luck on you continued path of straight shaving.

Congrats on your first Str8 shave. The only advice I have is to take the advice of the senior members here on SRP. They will guide you to a wonderful experience which includes great shaves.

Enjoy the day.

Great to hear you had an excellent first shave. They only get better from here on. Good luck!

Congrats.......You have a world of things to come and you are really gonna enjoy straight shaving !

Enjoy this learning process. Take it slow and easy, as it sounds you are. You'll nick yourself, and feel clumsy. In a little while it all it all feels natural and second nature.

Originally Posted by Blix

I did just a couple passes, no reason to push it the very first time, but it was amazing, even if I still have some stubble left

Nothing wrong with touching up with your old razor for the first little while. If you accept doing these touch ups on hard to reach spots it saves allot of blood from trying to get the perfect smooth shave in places where your technique is not ready to take you

Nice looking razor BTW

Thank you for the warm welcome everyone. I'm now three shave is and I'm still in one piece.
And of course I have a few "eBay specials" coming as well:



Here's the eBay link, if anyone would like to see all the pictures: Collection of 4 Vintage Straight Razor & 2 Boxes - eBay (item 270750999715 end time May-24-11 17:09:28 PDT)
Haven't received them yet, but it looks like a couple of the KeenKutters is in decent shape.
Looks like some nice blades to learn honing on.
I've literally spent hours going through old threads here to figure out what would be the best approach for a first honing setup, and I've come down to this: a 1K Chosera for bevel work, a 150x40mm LPB Coticule , and for now a balsa strop with CrOx that Bart offered to send me for the postage.
With all the praise Shapton gets here, it's extremely tempting to add a 16k as well, but I'll look into that later on

Just had my fourth shave and I think I hit a little "breakthrough".
I left my upper lip and chin alone today, as they were a little irritated yesterday, so I concentrated on doing my cheeks good.
So I had a closer look at my blade angle and suddenly I struck gold. It seems I have been using a too steep angle so far. Now that I hit a much better angle, my straight felt 10 times sharper and smoother, and it was ninja slicing the stubble rather than scraping it off!
I can't believe how much better it felt. Near BBS cheeks in two passes as well.