MY First Shave--no prize winner, but....
Got my new razor and paddle strop from Tony Miller today. I washed, steamed and lathered. and then I started. To tell the truth, it wasn't the greatest shave, but at least I didn't become a blood donor. I did learn a few tricks, however.
First thing: listen to what your skin is telling you. The razor is having a conversation with your skin, but your skin is talking to you. I learned to keep the angle very shallow, moving down my skin in extremely short strokes.
I wear a beard, so the areas I shave are my cheeks and my neck.
On my cheeks, I got the feeling that if I puff them out, I could end up slicing them off. A bit of experimentation and I managed to reduce the beard there.
The neck was a bit tougher. I'm right handed and my left hand is good for little else except swinging at my side. I wouldn't dare put a razor in it, so I had to do a bit of acrobatics to move the razor around both sides of my neck.
Here's what my skin told me: if the angle was too steep, it said: "If you continue, you're going to cut me!" I backed off.
I tried a slight upward pass, and my skin said: "now you've gone and done it! Back off, moron!" I did, but there was a faint reddish line. No blood flow, though, and a stypic pencil took care of it.
Bottom line--I shaved. Sort of. I had to go over everything with a DE afterward to smooth it all out, because the results were so patchy.
But the good news is there are no cuts, no razor burn, and while my face does feel somewhat strange, I figure I can go and do this thing again in a couple of days. (I think tomorrow will be a DE shave. I need to work into this gradually.)
I know--you only get one face, and it's a hell of a thing to practice on, but I'm sure that I'll get it right in time. In the meantime, while the shave wasn't the greatest, no harm was done either, so I'm confident that I'll pick up the technique in time.
Thanks to everyone here who encouraged me along the way.
Eric
Eric A. Silver
Cheshire, CT:)