Thread: Got the first one under my belt.

Hello everyone. Today I managed my first three pass shave with a new Dovo. About a year ago I switched from cartiges to DE shaving. Recently I bought a straight to give that a try. I followed some advice and slowly got used to using it by doing one sideburn and slowly expanding to more of the face. How was it? Not exactly perfect. I still have a lot to learn but I was able to complete three passes resulting I a shave that I would have been completely satisfied with a year ago. I cleaned up the remaining rough spots with my DE for the BBS shave we all look for. Not surprisingly, my biggest problem was against the grain. My beard grows hard to the right on my neck and I had not yet found a comfortable grip that I could use against the grain there. I'll get there. For now I'll thank DR Harris and Simpsons for the quality prep that aided my first attempt. My first few DE shaves werent perfect either. Patience. Now if I can teach myself to stop nicking my strop. I may be ont the road to success.

I also have whiskers headed every which way below my jaw bone. It is not nice and predictable like the razor instructions suggest.

Well it will take time to get the best angles and grips worked out. It all takes patience. I went a long time before ATG was routine. Now I only do one pass ATG and I am done. You may discover along the way a shorter smaller blade with a smile will fit below the jaw more easily.

Congrats on your milestone there will be many more.

It just keeps getting better.

Take your time and you'll figure out your best angles. As you do, the shaves will be better and better.

When you start shaving above the belt you'll find it much easier.

Welcome to the forum. As others say, it gets better with time and experiment. I suggest laying off ATG, at least on the neck, until you have good control over different grips, angles, strokes, etc. After a couple weeks of WTG and XTG practice, I decided to go with all three stages but found that I was still too inept to do justice with ATG, so I stopped. After a couple more weeks of playing with WTG, XTG, and different grips I attempted ATG with much better results and comfortableness--aside from the pulling which I now understand to have been caused by a dull razor and my ignorance to know night from day.

As for stropping, slow 'r down and on the transition from toward or away from you focus on rolling onto the spine while in motion and then not setting down the edge in the opposite direction until the spine is moving in the leading direction once again. Focusing on that simple technique solved all my nicking problems. Have fun!