Thread: HELP! I'm in the middle of a shave right now, need advice

I'm in the middle of a shave and the razor is pulling/tugging at my whiskers. Is this due to over stropping or incorrect stropping (my rookie mistakes)? How should I handle this/what are my options? Should I try stropping it again? I stropped it yesterday after shaving (the shave yesterday was good, no pulling). So far I'm actually getting a pretty close shave but it's the whisker tugging I'm worried about. Should I try a few passes with the linen side then the leather? If so, how many passes on each? I have to salvage this good shave.

RFP357,

I usually strop my razor as follows: 50 linen; 55-60 leather before I shave.

Go slow with your stropping. Hold the strop taut at waist level and apply very little pressure. Rely on the weight of the razor to hold it on the strop.

IMHO, I don't think your problem is your stropping, but your shaving technique or blade angle. If it was stropping, the problem would not have appeared halfway into your shave.

I've experienced a razor "tiring" as it went through the shave. In my case, the razor was not right there in terms of honing. If that is the case, stropping is not likely to make much of a difference.

Thanks for the advice. I ended up stropping linen then leather (also stropped after the shave 50 times). Still seemed to have a bit of a problem but I ended up with an almost BBS shave. I'm going to try different blade angles next shave and see what happens.

when it comes to angle I was lost I guessed about 25-30 degrees, (45 degree angle cut in half close enough...) As I read through old posts a few members had mentioned about 2 spine widths from your face for a WTG pass. That helped put angle into perspective for me, and helped my WTG pass. The more shaves you do the better and more pleasant it gets