So I've been on the straight razor scene for about 2 months now. When I first started shaving, despite having a brand new perfectly sharp razor honed by SRP, shaving my chin sucked. So after re-evaluating everything and with more practice with lather, prep, shaving angle etc. I was able to get some really nice shaves! After a while I started to feel pretty confident. Every now and then I would get a small nick here and there, but nothing major. Never really getting those nicks where it's like a startling OUCH and your hand and head jerk away from each other in stinging pain. Well the other day I experienced that......twice in one shave! OUCH.....holy ouch. I basically carved a valley in the area right under my nose and then while shaving down away from my bottom lip towards the bottom of my chin the razor like dug straight in. These are the kind of cuts that once the bleeding has stopped you can see and feel this huge dip in your face! As this was my first time REALLY nicking myself, I thought I'd give the old styptic pencil a try since I hadn't used it yet.......not a fan. That stung like crazy. Wasn't expecting that! Oh and btw, while using it to stop the cut on my upper lip, the styptic/water mixture dripped down into my mouth on accident......that stuff tastes FOUL! So anyway, my question the obviously, What am I doing wrong??? I'm using a new Boker King Cutter (which seems to still be sharp from what I can tell at least) and colonel conk shaving soap.

Here is the jist of my prep: Before I shaved, I took a nice hot shower and even rubbed some conditioner into my beard. After getting out of the shower, I soaked my badger brush (a cheapo tweezerman) in hot water. While my brush was soaking I decided I would strop 50 on the canvas and 100 on the leather as opposed to just 50 or so on the leather that I usually do before shaving. (I don't know, I guess since it had been a while?) I lathered up and shaved WTG. Then rinsed with hot water and lathered up again and shaved XTG. Rinsed with hot water, then lathered up and saved ATG. You would think that this is where I nicked myself, but it was actually while shaving WTG under my nose and down towards the bottom of my chin where it starts to jut out. The razor just grabbed the skin and dug in. Is my razor not sharp enough? Is my technique really THAT bad? Should I maybe be using a DE razor instead? Would I get a closer and better shave with a DE as opposed to a straight? Is colonel conk not a good shaving soap? Should I really be using some hugely expensive gold label cream like XPEC or Spencer and Devon's or whatever? Do good shaves really only come from $350 razors and $85 shaving cream?????