Thread: First shave, and what a doozy.

Intro:
First of all, hello. My name is mick, i live in GA and came here/to the idea of straight shaving, (bear with me) while watching Sweeny Todd for the 10th time. As awesome and fun as the movie is as a movie, i was ACTUALLY paying attention to the shaving aspect in the beginning of the movie, and on a bit of a whim i just decided to spend a few hours doing research. I enjoy taking on older more manual ways of doing things in general and thought it could be a fun thing to try, after researching a bit i KNEW it would be a fun thing to try and possibly make a usual practice. and even a permanent solution to shaving.

Prep:
So i went on amazon, grabbed me a general set (soap, bowl, strope, hone) and a cheap knife that looked nice, it got here, and was dull as a butter knife and it turns out is really not honeable, but it looks nice and i dont mind spending the money for a cool play thing/convwrsation peice. I also baught a cheap refillable blade that takes half razor blades. So apon finding out my main blade was useless i sent off for a new blade from whippeddog.com, this one i spent money on and hopefully it will be worth it. but in the mean time, i used the other razor (with the half razors)

First Use:
one night i just thought to see what it was all about, so after reading a bit more on shaving, i took to shaving one of my hands bare. it went alright, but i cut my self quite a few times toward the end of my strokes. This was partly due to it being the first time, and partly because of a thick lather (i feel confident about my lather NOW). despite the cuts, i felt successful, and my hand was very very smooth.

Second Use:
The next night i was feeling good enough to go to my face. I lathered once side of my face, shaved down, lathered again, shaved up, repeated on the oposite. no cuts no fowl, but i left it alone, i did not want to get ahead of myself.

Tonight:
I went for it, I shaved my whole face. First the sideburns, which went flawlessly. Then I worked on my mustash area, which went relatively well, there was blood on the razor a few times, but nothing to bad. i went to under my neck, and i really slowed down to try and not nick my jugular.. i have heard this is bad. the first motion, somehow without noticing i cut the end of my jawbone (left side) pretty bad... i was disappointed, but i just putt down the razor. used styptic, and came back, re lathered and continued after that on my chin and neck there were many nicks and cuts and after a while i decided whether it was a good shave or not, to stop. the tip of my chin needed styptic, and there is pain all over. only time will tell what damage i did, but ultimately i will call this one a win, but one i will be limping away from.

QUESTIONS:
My new razor should be arriving tomorrow, but just out of curiosity, should i strop the single use razors blades?
While shaving i ended up using 3 razor blades during today's shave, after a while they just seemed to be pulling instead of cutting, is this normal or was i doing something to cause them to not work well after a few strokes?
Are there any tips from others on the chin area? My chin hair seems to lay more sideways than the grain going south. not sure if this is normal or not, but i just could not find a shaving angle that seemed to work too well.
Would the cheap lather i bought make it harder to shave (be too sticky) or is that entirely my lathering technique?

Hopefully this is not too in depth or long, i saw some other people do it here so i thought i would give it a try, especially because of how many ways i found NOT to shave with a razor.