Cuts and Nicks while learning

Just a slight rant here - to make me feel a little better and hopefulyl to get some advice.

I've been shaving with a straight razor (5/8 Dovo Bismarck Spike) for almost 2 weeks now. I'm definately starting to get the hang of it, and usually do 3 passes with, across, and against the grain.

Most days I can get a reasonable looking shave, certainly good enough for work. I usually get a little razor burn but that's starting to disappear. What's starting to frustrate me is the little (and not so little) nicks and cuts I'm getting. :(

I usually get 1 nick per shave, it tends to be on the left side of my face when I'm using my right hand for against the grain or across the grain strokes. I'm right handed and virtually never nick myself when I'm using my left hand, I guess because I use less pressure with that hand.

Each time I nick myself I generally know why, for example I wasn't watching where the spike was, wrong blade angle, skin not stretched tight, forgot where my ear was, and so on. I have pulled off the occasional flawless shave so I'm sure it will all come together at some point.

It's just very frustrating, I have 14 nicks on the left side and 5 on the right side - my face looks like I went through a car windshield. :cry: :(

I am starting to get odd looks from people in the street too!

Did everyone go through this stage while they're learning, even gurus like Lynn?

I'm not sure if I should temporarily switch back to my DE razor to let the existing nicks/cuts heal up, or just continue carefully with the straight to hopefully improve my technique?

Also I'm a little worried that some of the larger/deeper cuts will leave scars, 2 or 3 are over 1cm long and maybe 2mm deep, any suggestions of treatments to reduce the likelihood of scarring? Currently I use a styptic pencil on the cuts, alum block after the shave, then Proraso post-shave balm which contains witch hazel and vitamin E.

Cheers,

Iwan :)

PS By the way I'm not planning to give up! :D

I took my first steps with a Pakistani piece of crap that could never be sharpened to a reasonable level. Gave me 4 permanent scars. For a while, I was also nicking myself on a regular basis, even after switching to good Sheffields/Solingens and in my case the trick was to note where I usually get nicked and be extra-careful when doing that part of the face. Keep at it, the nicking will stop.

P.S. I also had people wondering if I got into knife-fighting lol

Wow! I'd say most guys are not going through this when they start. Give yourself a few days off, you may be reopening cuts. Dull the spike point down with a perpendicular pass over your hone to mitigate those cuts. Use the off hand to shave the off side to lower nicks on that side (you can move the razor in the direction of beard growth easier). Don't do as many passes, focus on just removing whiskers for a while. Use a new cream and mix it differently with water proportion. Your cream may be too watery or drying during the shave, both adding to nicks and it sounds in your case actually cuts. Neosporane is used to prevent scarring, applying it throughout the day and let your face heal up for a while. Reinvestigate whether the razor is really sharp and honed properly. It may be overhoned a little, under honed or whatever.

I haven't nicked myself in two years . . . you shouldn't be having this much going on.

I'm also just beginning, have only shaved about 5 times with a straight, but I've not cut myself at all. I nicked myself once or twice though. This happens when I get carried away and want to get a really close shave.

I recommend that you take it slow and don't worry about getting that extra close shave. This will come in time as you get better. Until then you should concentrate on using as little force as possible. Try to do the entire shave while focusing on letting the weight of the blade do the job. This will decrease the risk of cutting yourself, and also give more comfortable shaves and less irritation.

Of course, I might be wrong and you're already using minimal force. In that case you'll have to hope for better advice from the masters.

Take a couple of days off and let your skin heal and your frustrations subside.

Make sure the razor is truly sharp; I find if I get nicked that's usually a good sign the blade is past due for a refresh. Watch your lather, if it starts drying out it can get a bit tacky and can cause nicks. And you can knock off the wickedness of the spike by dragging the tip on the hone a bit - you won't really see a change on the tip but it'll be a lot less prone to nicking you nonetheless.

These days I only get nicked if I'm not careful. Otherwise my blades just melt the hair away.

I've only been at this a couple weeks myself but that amount of cuts sounds excessive to me. I'll often get a little spot bleeder or two that stops easily, sometimes a red line under or on the chin.

I stayed away from spike point razors and still haven't used one, thinking that round points would be easier to learn with. As Mr. Parker mentioned, the sharper the blade the less risk of nicks, maybe yours needs a tune up?

My first real cut came yesterday on the side of my neck when starting a S-N stroke, and that one with a razor I'd honed myself that seemed to have a pretty good edge. It didn't seem like much at the time but I disturbed it again this morning shaving in the N-S direction so treated it with Neosporin and will give it a day or two to heal up.

A good creamy soap lather seems to give me a little better protection than the one cream I have, or Prorasso tube cream.

i get the occasional small small nick here or theree, that doens't even bleed after the cold rinse plus Thayers spritz. they are to be had, don't worry about it. 2 great pieces of advice on this thread.... 1 - Give your face a day off now and then, let it heal... 2- notice where your problem spots are, the spot u get the most nicks and go very very slowly at those areas with light pressure.

i gave myself a big ol cut the other day. mentioned it on my razors forum titled 3new babies... but on the side of my chin i got a 1 inch gash that went diagonally in prolly 1/8 of an inch. should have gotten stiches, but its a week later now and it finally doesn't bleed anymore from smiling :) oh well, battle scar i say. at least ill pay more attention

~J

I've been at this 3 years now and when I started I had my share of nicks. I think I only cut myself bad one time the 2nd time I was shaving. Actually most of the cuts I received were on my fingers from not paying attention to where the razor was.

I don't know about these guys who say they never cut themselves. I rarely do these days but if I'm not paying attention to what I'm doing I'll still give myself a very minor nick every now and then.

Thanks for the reassurance guys. I figured it was normal to nick yourself a few times while learning. Most of the nicks I have were done in the first few days of shaving, the most recent ones have been very light apart from a deep one yesterday where I was concentrating hard on stretching the skin on my top lip and didn't notice I had too much blade angle and pressure.

I'll take a day or two off and use the DE razor for a change, and to give my skin a rest.

:)

Yeah that was one of my problems as well. I was enjoying my straights too much to allow my skin to rest so the nicks that I did get took a long time to heal.

I've got three possibly four additional talking points on my face all caused by lack of experience anbd the incorrect angle - funnily enough I actually opened the one on the bottom right of my lip/chin again this morning, which was originally caused by a 7/8 which I was using for the first time about 8-9months ago ... simply because my baby soft skin hadn't recovered from yesterday's lovely shave ( thaks again Joe Chandler ) my gripe is these cuts don't really appear fully until the follow day or the next ( almost typed nickd there .. )

... practise makes perfect :p

Preparation and patience work best for me in preventing damage to my face. It seems everytime I am in a hurry, I rush and get a weeper or two. Getting my face ready, stropping a well honed razor, good lathering, coupled with letting the razor do the work (no pressure applied) give me a real good shave almost 100% of the time.

-Scott-

With all those facial scars you accumulate shaving you can always use them to your advantage in social circles talking about your years at sea and all those bar fights you were in. As prize fighters say, every scar has a story to tell and a lesson to teach.

Actually I only have one bad one at the lowewr right corner of my mouth and every time I shave it reminds me of that second shaving session when I wasn't paying attention and going too fast.

I have to agree with the advice given here

1. Give your face a rest and let the nicks heal.
2. Perform one pass only until you and your skin are comfortable with that. You seem to be going at this very aggressively. Perfection wll take time.

Just my two cents,:)

Ok thanks guys, I'll take your advice and give it a couple of days off. It's hard because I'm really starting to enjoy it and would love to practice more right now!

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Originally Posted by Iwan

Ok thanks guys, I'll take your advice and give it a couple of days off. It's hard because I'm really starting to enjoy it and would love to practice more right now!

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Ah, the age old complaint...so many razors, so little beard :cry:

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Originally Posted by ForestryProf

Ah, the age old complaint...so many razors, so little beard :cry:

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I suppose there is always one's head as a possible shaving target.

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Originally Posted by JerseyLawyer

I suppose there is always one's head as a possible shaving target.

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Some may have that as an option. Alas, I do not :(

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Originally Posted by ForestryProf

Some may have that as an option. Alas, I do not :(

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Actually, I found my shaving technique on the face improved markedly after attempting my head a few times. The fact that you can't see the back of your head meant that I developed a pretty good feel for the razor on my skin back there.

Hmmm, perhaps there are benefits to being follicly challenged...:thinking:

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Originally Posted by Jimbo

Actually, I found my shaving technique on the face improved markedly after attempting my head a few times. The fact that you can't see the back of your head meant that I developed a pretty good feel for the razor on my skin back there.

Hmmm, perhaps there are benefits to being follicly challenged...:thinking:

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Many benefits.

1) God made a few perfect heads...the rest he covered with hair.

2) It operates as a solar panel to power a sex machine.

:roflmao

Over a year for me and I sometimes nick myself too, esterday as a matter of fact. Usually this is when my razor isn't as sharp as I like and I end up applying some pressure. Sometimes when I haven't been patient enough to prepare my beard and face properly.

PATIENCE!

X

Hey,

I sat down and watched Lynn's DVD again last night, while I was watching I tried to imagine the things I do wrong/differently during my shave which cause me the razorburn and cuts. I identified a few possible problem areas so I decided to change what I usually do. This morning I did a 2 pass shave with my Dovo, copying exactly the strokes demonstrated by Lynn on the DVD, because I was doing less passes than usual I used a more aggressive razor angle similar to on the DVD. I also used slightly more pressure, though not much more.

The first pass was totally N-S (top to bottom) everywhere. The second pass was diagonally across the grain on the top part of my face (cheeks, sideburns, sides of the moustache area), sort of ear to jaw direction if you can imagine that. And everywhere below the jawline I went S-N. On the chin below my lower lip I just went N-S on both passes as Lynn demonstrated, rather than N-S and S-N like I usually do.

I got a pretty good shave, probably my best with a straight so far. No cuts, no razorburn, and it was all quite easy with no dragging as I wasn't going against the grain anywhere. It got pretty close too, it feels smooth stroking my fingers with and across the grain, and just a little rough stroking them against the grain.

I think I'll stick to this same pattern every day now. As my technique improves I'm sure the shaves will get closer, and when my Lynn honed razors arrive it'll be closer still.

Thanks for the advice all. :tu

***Update***

A bit of an update. I've had some pretty good shaves over the last 4 or 5 days, I do 2 passes and get almost BBS, usually with no new cuts and no razor burn - overall I'm very happy. :)

Only problem, I have a few cuts on my left cheek from over a week ago which haven't healed yet - so I decided I'd use my Merker Slantbar for few days to let them heal up. I keep re-opening them with the straight and so they're taking longer than usual to heal.

So, I used my Slantbar fitted with a Feather blade this morning, and did my usual two passes in the same way I'd use for my straight, including all the same skin stretching.

It's the first time I've been happy to get a disappointing shave! I did my two passes, and I can feel noticably more stubble than if I'd used my straight. Particularly my cheeks and my neck are still a little rough, I think if I did a 3rd pass I'd be getting close to my results with a straight.

So I can safely say, I can now get a noticably better shave with a straight than I can with a DE - at last! :y

This has filled me with confidence , I'm really happy I decided to start using straights. When my cuts have healed up completely I'll probably sell off the DE razor and just use straights exclusively.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice so far. :bow :tu

Congratulations!
The addiction only gets worse with each new success :D .

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Originally Posted by Iwan

***Update***

A bit of an update. I've had some pretty good shaves over the last 4 or 5 days, I do 2 passes and get almost BBS, usually with no new cuts and no razor burn - overall I'm very happy. :)

Only problem, I have a few cuts on my left cheek from over a week ago which haven't healed yet - so I decided I'd use my Merker Slantbar for few days to let them heal up. I keep re-opening them with the straight and so they're taking longer than usual to heal.

So, I used my Slantbar fitted with a Feather blade this morning, and did my usual two passes in the same way I'd use for my straight, including all the same skin stretching.

It's the first time I've been happy to get a disappointing shave! I did my two passes, and I can feel noticably more stubble than if I'd used my straight. Particularly my cheeks and my neck are still a little rough, I think if I did a 3rd pass I'd be getting close to my results with a straight.

So I can safely say, I can now get a noticably better shave with a straight than I can with a DE - at last! :y

This has filled me with confidence , I'm really happy I decided to start using straights. When my cuts have healed up completely I'll probably sell off the DE razor and just use straights exclusively.

Thanks again to everyone for all the advice so far. :bow :tu

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That's the way to go. I threw my mock3 out almost 2 years ago and have never looked back. Enjoy.:tu