With a little help from my new friends!
Well, I can happily say that I have now officially had my first really wonderful shave with a full straight razor thanks to my friends here at SRP!
Basically, the story of my shaving experience doesn't seem all that different from most people on these forums. I started with normal cartridges, got sick of always having to buy new replacements, and always secretly longed for one of those old fashioned shavers that I'd seen in movies. My first purchase was a Dovo Shavette from an Art of Shaving store I happened across while in Dallas. I opted to go for the Shavette because it was cheaper (since I didn't know yet if SR shaving would be for me) and I knew that I could develop good shaving habits by always using a blade that I KNEW was sharp, instead of having to rely on my own honing and stropping skills.
It didn't take me long before I decided to buy a "real" straight from the classified section on here. The seller told me that he would do some touchup work on the blade before shipping it to me, so I assumed that it was going to be completely shave ready. After getting the razor and shaving with it for about a week, I was disappointed that I wasn't having the same results as I was with my disposable blades in my Shavette. I came to the forums and almost immediately met Tylerbrycen, who I discovered lived only a few minutes from my house.
He came over and inspected my shave setup, gave me some great advice, looked closely at my razor, and offered to give me a good honing. Apparently the blade was in much worse shape than I had begun to suspect. Yesterday he returned my blade and I could tell immediately that it had been greatly improved. On my very first shave I had extremely positive results, which came in handy last night on my date to the Flaming Lips concert. Having a kissably smooth face can be a great asset on date night!
Anyways, I can't thank this forum enough for all the help and advice that they have accumulated, and most especially Tylerbrycen for being so friendly and helpful. I'm heading up to Springdale later today to have lunch with him and buy one of his silvertip brushes :)
