Some important Tips You May Not Have Heard

Warning: Opinions ahead . . .

Here are a few tips for straight shaving I'd like to share. I'm just going to focus on the tips I think you may not have heard lately, or before, and the ones I think are important. These tips will seem incomplete; strange together in this thread and I'll apologize for that now.

1) The razor must feel like and operate like a razor blade. If the razor doesn't feel like a razor, it's not honed or stropped right. I really don't care who honed it, or who stropped it, or whether you used CrOx or whatever. If it doesn't feel exactly like any other razor edge, it isn't at its optimum and it will benefit from more work.

2) Never, ever, ever, move your wrist when stropping. Why? You'll create uneven pressure on one side of the edge and dull the blade. It's not that you "roll" the edge, it's simply that you polish INTO the opposing side of the blade. Think of the straight razor as two edges that work together, as one. When you strop too heavily the bottom edge it gets smoother, but the top edge gets rounder. When you roll your wrist over the top of the shank when stropping you add signficantly more downward pressure on that stroke, and only that stroke. That edge never gets corrected on the way back, because you never apply the same pressure. Unfortunately, you can't feel the different pressure your applying to the edge with your wrist rolled over, you only feel the pressure of the spine on the leather, so it feels equal, but its not.

3) When holding the razor, stiffen your thumb into position. This is difficult, but compare how a DE blade is held in place by the head of a DE razor. Ever seen that? It's torqued in there like a load on the back of an 18 wheeler. It's the same for us, but our hands have to act like the locking mechanism. You must use no (very low) pressure when shaving, but even with low pressure the razor must be held at the proper angle. So, no inward pressure with the arm, but potentially some pressure with the thumb against the shank of the blade, outward away from the face. The index fingers are held very lightly, they must flex with the stroke. This is important because the razor must flex over the face to prevent nicks and cuts. The thumb on the other hand is the "lock" of the razor head. So, if you are stroking freehand straight down your face on the right side (with the right hand), the fingers above your thumb are flexing to allow the blade to rise off the face as you stroke downward. The thumb though is firmly maintaining a 30 degree angle. The edge won't flex downward with a downward stroke, it'll only flex upward, so thumb pressure will not affect the stroke pressure.

Another way to think of this is that the pad of the index finger and the thumb hold the razor, securly at the first joint, but the index finger at the second joint must be flexible as the stroke occurs.

Combining these three concepts together should help improve your shaving comfort.

Thanks for this good advice. It reminds me of learning to swing a golf club. At first, it feels unnatural but you have to repeat it until it becomes natural.

With all the variables of shave prep., razor honing, razor stropping, hand position, blade angle, nicks, bleeders, razor burn, etc., it is amazing that so many beginners stick it out to become competent straight razor shavers. I know that during my first two weeks, I could hardly get the razor to cut hair. All I could do was scrape the shaving cream off my face.

Thanks for leading the way!