Before I got my first SR, I read a ton about the shaving process both here on SRP and other forums/websites. I watched YouTube videos, paid close attention during my first shave at the barber's and read more material. Most advice generally pointed to starting with your dominant hand on one of your 'burns, build confidence, add a section...

I intended to do this. But I didn't. My safety razors are still in the drawer, used once or twice to get bits I've missed, otherwise doing nothing.

It took me an hour and a half to complete my first shave. I really didn't want to be slicing up my face. It took time to figure out the best ways for me to hold the razor and hold my skin tight, figure out which ways my hair grew, re-apply lather that was drying out, figure out how to hold the razor in my OTHER hand, figure out the best way for me to clean the blade... HUGE LEARNING CURVE. It was FANTASTIC!

My first shave was incident-free. As close as I got with my disposables, but it felt so much... Fresher. I've never shaved XTG, usually just ATG or WTG depending on what part of my face I was shaving (this has become apparent to me AFTER picking up SR shaving), so I've never really had that BBS shave.


The only things I would change with my learning experience so far is learning more about and being more patient with lathering, either buying a second shave-ready razor or finding someone local to refresh the razor I have, and starting with my non-dominant hand.

Lathering up in a coffee cup (I had nothing else really) is a pain in the butt. I have learned that I get a much, much better lather if I just use the palm of my hand. And I've worked out why. It's because when I've been creatign the lather and swiping it off into my pre-heated coffee cup (sans coffee) from my brush, I'd rub my hands together and rub them onto my face to dispose of the rest. THEN I would apply more using the brush. I haven't been doing this the last few days and I've noticed a significant difference.

Not having a second razor that's shave-ready, or someone I can get to refresh the edge on my only razor real quick, means I'm forced to either learn how to do this myself before my edge is more like a spoon in terms of sharpness or I buy another razor that's ready to go so I have a bit more time to learn. I did buy some stones etc about 3 weeks ago, but because the retailer was out of stock everything was on backorder. I received these today however I won't have any spare time until next week.

My right hand is pretty darn unco-ordinated, especially with fine-motor skills. I can write a sentence with it, but it looks like something that might sell in a fine-art auction rather than legible text. My thoughts here are that when I try to do things with my less fortunate right hand, I find that my mind is trying to translate stored instructions for my left hand into interpetable instructions for my right. It rarely works out. I'm glad this time it did. Without knowing for sure, I reckon that it would have been easier to do the translating the other way around. Either that or I'd have given up earlier and gone back to the old disposables!