Your First Straight Razor Shave
I thought it might be interesting for new members to hear from some of the more experienced guys about their first experience with a straight razor. We all start at the beginning and it might make people rest a bit easier knowing that none of us had anything sorted out the first time! :)
My first razor was a Dovo Best Quality. I knew enough to also buy a strop (pretty good strop in fact), a boar brush and a tub of Wahl shaving cream I bought because I thought it smelled like Barber.... No one had honed that Dovo - It was the factory edge and at the time I thought "man, this thing is razor sharp!!!" hahaha!
The man at the shop told me to lather up a balloon and shave it before I did my face - that actually went well.
I knew I had to strop before I shaved - looking back now, I don't know how I didn't slice that thing in half or completely wipe the edge off the razor. I stropped by flipping edge down at each end - what I was doing was basically bending the edge left and right for about 30 strokes....lol!
I shaved, painfully. I think the only thing that saved me at that point was the fact that I had a moustache and goatee, so that the hardest part of the face escaped the tender ministrations of my rubbish technique! No nicks, but tonnes of burn and blood spots. But I walked out of that bathroom proudly, eyes watering as the colder air of the house hit my freshly peeled cheeks!
In subsequent weeks I managed to nick my strop a lot and continued to dull the edge. I pasted one side of the strop with Dovo red paste, and completed the edge dulling task by wiping it off completely on the abrasive. Then I bought some hones, but that is another story...
If you are a slightly more experienced shaver, please share your first shave experiences here :)
James.