Hello everyone!

This is my first post on this forum and I thought that I will share with you some of my impressions on shaving with straight razor. I wanted to try this as early as second year of my computer science studies but unfortunately back then I couldn't afford a decent straight razor set and my girlfriend discouraged me from buying a cheap one. Probably I should thank her, as first attempts with poor quality razor could deter me from doing this. As soon as I graduated and got a job I bought my first razor - Dovo Best Quality 5/8, pair of wet stones, badger brush and a leather strop with linen side. I still remember my first shave with it - it took me an hour of careful strokes in attempt to find comfortable hand positions for each face area. And that was just in one direction. To my discontent, even after stropping razor was not even closely shave ready and I had to give it a run on a stones. All in all it wasn't that bad - at least I didn't cut myself. It was obvious I wouldn't be able to do it every day but at the same time I promised myself not to use safety razor anymore. Fortunately, one of "advantages" of being software engineer is that no one really expects you to be well groomed on the job so I shaved two, three times a week - always taking my time.

After using straight razor almost exclusively for over a year now I'am able to get job done in 20 minutes with two passes. I wrote "almost" because during that period I used disposable razor once when I was in hurry. That was awful. I had whole lot of bumps and nicks from trying to get a shave as close as with straight razor. Then I realized, that its virtually impossible and for sure I will never go back to disposables again.

I registered on this forum because I want to improve my technique since I know that still there is more to learn.

Thanks for reading my story!
Regards!