First shave and don't know what to think

Hea everyone!

I just received my first "real" straight razor after shaving for a couple of months with a Bluebeards Revenge shavette.
I reached the point of shaving really comfortably with the shavette, but it never gave me a really close shave on some parts
of my face like the chin and jaw.

The blade I bought is a Mühle 5/8 inch round-tip hollow ground from manandshaving.com (Dutch website). It says that it is made
in Solingen on the blade and scales. According to the website and the sticker on the box the blade is already professionally honed
and stropped so it should have been completely shave ready but I have my doubts for as far I can have doubts as a beginner.

I started the the shave with the lathering of the face using a Mühle badger brush and a Mühle aloe vera shaving soap cake.
After getting the lather on my face as a white covering blanket I noticed that the lather dried to a plaster after shaving my cheek.
I reckon I will need to use more water in the future?

I pressed forward determined to finish my shave as I think I should have a basic technique as I used the shavette for quite a while.
In the end I relathered a couple of parts of my face as the lather dried quite quickly. The main problem I face is the following:

My face in the end was really irritated and red. I started on my right cheek which gave a very nice result but my left cheek did
not get even close to a shave as there are still stubbles there. My chin still had hairs even though I tried to shave it with a 30 degree
or higher angle. During the shave I noticed that the blade would skitter across the skin on the lower left part of my neck. During the
entire shave I felt I had to put a little pressure on the blade to get it across my face especially near the end.

Due to the incomplate nature of my shave I quickly grabbed my shavette to complete the shave to a passable result. I did not
strop the razor before the shave as the sticker said it should not be needed.

Hopefully I gave you guys a clear picture in the hope you can answer me the following 2 questions:

- How much water is enough to get a good lasting lather?
- Is my blade a bit dull or is there a certain part of my technique/preparation that should be the answer for my problem?

Regards and thanks in advance!

*EDIT: The parts I did shave of my face I did when the lather was still wet and foamy and was not in the plaster like state.

$0.02 from another beginner. Use your previous shaving method until you figure out the shave prep and lathering. I found the face lathering technique featured at classicshaving.com worked for me. Once you've done that then move to straight and strop. Strop slowly and carefully - speed will come with time. Good luck.

You can have 3 things going on here, independently or in combination:

1) The technique you use with a straight razor, while similar, will be different than with a Shavette. It's hard to explain but you eventually will learn yourself through practice. Your skin will also need to adjust as well.
2) The straight razor I suspect has a good bevel set but still needs to be honed and polished. I would first try polishing/refreshing (ex; 8,000 grit then 16,000 grit then Chromium Oxide strop then leather strop- light light light X strokes on all) so that you avoid removing unnecessary metal. Before even that try some extra stropping (ex; 100 laps) just to make sure your edge is uniformly stropped.
3) Your shave prep also needs to adjust to a straight razor. I would recommend a gentle face scrub while in the shower, a shave oil (very small amount) (you can use olive oil, grapeseed oil; neither will clog your pores) to prevent the 'skipping' and maybe a more moist lather consistently applied- like Cool Whip. Rinse between passes before relathering (many people skip this important step). Did you shave right out of the shower?

So, try the quick fix first; more careful stropping and more comprehensive shave prep. Also, look at Youtube on scything strokes. Done right and lightly they work very well. If that doesn't work for you, providing your face has healed and you can see if this improves it, then you need to polish and possible hone your edge.

Above all don't give up! Be patient and this temporary inconvenience shall pass.

Edit; PS; I tend to only use shave oil when I'm suspect of a new razor. It adds a level of insurance to avoid razor burn. Normally, I don't use it.

Edited my previous post to link to the exact article referenced.

A lot of userful information going on here. Thanks a bunch! I will try all three tips next shave but first I am gonna give my face some days to heal up.
Thought there wasn't a lot of difference between a shavette and a straight razor. Knowing this will definitely help.
Never thought of quitting haha. Thanks again and I will get back here in a couple of days to tell if it worked!

I find that although while shaving with a shavette get a good BBS, it irritates my face. I get a much better shave from a properly sharpened straight and less irritation. May just need to adjust your technique, I find less of an angle with a real straight.

I would not try to polish it on your own as a beginner. Too much room for error and honing takes a long long time to get proficient, even enough for touch ups. As stated your shavette and straight are two totally different animals and while similar require two different sets of technique. The problem with your lather could be the culprit here. All you need to do is keep adding water a couple of drops at a time until it gets wet enough so it won't dry quickly. Be careful not to get it too wet, there is a fine line there. I would strop the hell out of it and give it another shot. If you get a good lather and are still having problems you may want to think about sending it out to get honed. This way you will KNOW it is honed professionally and will know what shave ready is without a shadow of a doubt. It makes for a good point of reference. Many many vendors claim their razors are professionally honed, but I find very few can hone them to the point that I consider shave ready. Even my Hart which is supposed to come honed on an Eisher did not come as sharp as I like it and I had to finish it up myself. Now it shaves like a dream. But I would strongly advise you not to attempt to hone or touch it up yourself. First off you will need the right hones, just any stone will not give you the results you are looking for, second it takes time to develop skills and a lot of trial and error. Third without knowing what shave ready is you have no idea what to look for as a finished product.

Hea everyone,

Thanks for the awesome replies once again!
Just had my second shave with the new equipment and it went a lot better than the first time around. This time I was able to produce more foamy lather by squishing out the lather
out of the brush and onto my palm. I think this inserts a lot more air then just going from the shaving soap to the skin directly. It dried much less quickly but still it dried before I could finish
a pass. That and doing a proper preshave helped to get rid of most of the irritation. The only irritation I have now is due to shaving on a spot I just visited without relathering it and causing the skin to get too dry a.k.a. being to stubborn to relather.

There are 2 remarks I still have from this shave. The blade seem to skip only once again but this time on the left side of the underjaw. Also the hairs on my chin and neck did not seem to cut properly once again. After one pass the hairs on my chin were still 1mm long and clearly visible. The hairs on my neck were still a good stubble in most directions and still visible but not as clear as the chin ones. Is this a rough spot which will eventually clear itself after the technique takes over or is something else going on?

All and all a great ritual and experience which will get even better in the future :D Thanks a bunch for the support!

Hi from another straight newbie! I had/have all the same problems. Lather drying too quickly, and problems on chin and neck. I just needed more practice making lather and using the correct amount of water and that helped. I have one soap that tends to dry out faster than the others. You'll just have to learn by trial and error. I think I might also try another's recommendation of adding glycerin. Also, if the blade isn't gliding smoothly and wants to skip you need to re-lather. Just stop and do it. Between passes it helps to rinse your face and this adds a little more water to the lather to help prevent it from drying out.

As for the problem areas, I see from your original post that you were having the same problems with the shavette so I doubt it was a razor sharpness issue. Probably technique. For me it was a combination of both. I had dulled my razor in 2 weeks using bad shaving and probably stropping technique. I touched up the razor myself and that made a huge difference in the comfort and closeness of the shave for me. But I still had the problem areas and the only way I could get them smooth was using ATG on those problem areas. WTG and XTG just wouldn't cut it. It was uncomfortable and irritating at first because my razor was dull. After the touchup the razor glided right through as long as my lather was good. Are you just going WTG or are you also trying XTG and ATG. I'm assuming you know which way your whiskers are growing.

Forgot to add the all important skin stretching! Try stretching the skin a different way than what you've been trying. Try pulling the skin away from direction of growth to make it stand up more.

i am still trying to figure out how to edge my goatee properly ! man it definitely is a learning experience.

@Bakepit haha it definitely is :P
@Jetmech I just did my 3rd shave and tried going against the grain like you said. The razor had A LOT of resistance. I had troubles getting through my moustache and chin area. I nicked myself in the moustache even though my blade did not make a slicing motion or the angle was at a really weird degree. I am used to nicks because I trained with the shavette but this time it felt different as in my body did not give any feedback that something wrong was happening. Also, my lather was foamy and wet all the way through. It seems the blade was already a bit dull when it got here or I probably dulled it myself with stropping. I am going to see if I can find a member somewhere in my living area who is experienced at honing and ask if he can take a look just to be sure.

I finished the shave and even though it had cost some effort and pain from the razor burns, it is the closest shave I ever had :P

EDIT: I had some problems with the shavette in the beginning, but I did not mention it on my original post. I did mention that I used my shavette after the SR to finish the shave to a passable result.

Read up in the library about shaving passes and the angle used for each pass. I'm laying the blade flat on the ATG pass on neck and under chin. I have not tried ATG on the mustache area though. I would definitely have your razor checked and I'd probably stick with just WTG and maybe XTG until you get more proficient and are sure you have a perfectly sharp razor.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fathardie

Hea everyone!


I reached the point of shaving really comfortably with the shavette, but it never gave me a really close shave on some parts
of my face like the chin and jaw.

---

This is what i was referring to, that you were atill not getting a close shave even with a sharp shavette. That's why I said it's probably technique. I probably should have asked if you had tried multiple passes using WTG, XTG, and ATG with the shavette. It really takes a good lather, proper angle, and a sharp razor for ATG. I still don't go ATG on the mustache.

Ah that is what you were referring too. Yes I did have a little bit of a stubble left there, but not real hairs still sticking out like I have with the SR :P
Never did any ATG as I did not have real lather but only canned goo and I was not confident enough yet. A shavette can really create nicks easily haha.

I read the wiki page about shaving passes and it seems that my angle was way to great according to the manual. But if the angle is greater with ATG shaving,
doesn't that give an even closer shave? The skin seems to able to handle angles of up to 30 degrees when shaving WTG so why does it hurt the skin so much?
Probably something simple that I don't see here :P

You actually want to keep the angle smaller; you want the edge to just glide across the skin and not dig into it (which is what is causing the skipping). Also make sure you are being careful when you strop the razor; not putting any more pressure on it than what is need to keep the spine and edge in contact with the leather and most definetly not digging the edge into the leather.

You may want to think about resending the razor out to be rehoned just to be sure that it is still sharp.

If possible you could try posting some pics and/or videos of you stropping and shaving and some of the more experienced members might be able to point out some corrections to your technique.

I thought this might help you determine how your blade is doing. What is "The Shave Test" for a Straight Razor - YouTube
This is how a honemiester tests his work. I see a lot of great info in this thread and the word pressure doesn't come up much ? I don't have any idea what a shavette feels like or how much different the 2 are but I would forget what you know about that and think all new when learning the straight. I have had razors that act like what you describe and have brought them back with a good stropping. By the way stropping is another learning curve you must master. If you don't figure this out then I would suggest finding someone close to you that can help you figure this out in person. You can learn more in 10 minutes from another SR user than in a year of experiments. :<0)

I agree with above two posts. You want NO pressure. If you are having to use any pressure to get it to cut then your razor is the culprit. That's how you get irritation and razor burn. A sharp blade should just slice right through, no tugging, pulling, or skipping. As far as the angle I think lowering the angle closer to your skin on XTG and ATG passes might have something to do with minimizing irritation also. If everything is right the blade should cut with no pressure and irritation. I'm still not brave enough to try ATG on chin and mustache, just the neck and under chin for now.

Check out the Wiki on guillotine and scything strokes also. But it might be better to wait on those until you are comfortable with regular strokes and have a sharp razor.

Thanks again for all the great posts! Love this community so far, really makes it a great learning experience :D I will make a video of my entire shave (prep, strop and shave) so you guys can get a bit more physical evidence where my questions come from and if possible provide me with some pointers and tips. I will also include the shave test as demonstrated in the youtube video 10Pups included. Would you guys recommend letting my beard grow for a few days or is a 1-2 day beard visible enough for this?

The edge on a straight, for the average user, is not as sharp as a DE blade or shavette. But the edge will shave you smoothly if your prep is good. Your beard must absorb water during the prep. You should feel it relax. If not, try washing your face with different soaps or lather until you find what works. DE blades let you get away with skimping on the prep. If you have a coarse beard and you want a close comfortable shave with a straight, you prep must be first rate. This is from personal experience.
Good luck.

Hea guys,

Just a quick update on the situation. I haven't been able to make the video yet because of something quite positive. I got in touch with the original honer and he told me that I could send in the blade so that he can rehone it without any costs. I noticed that the bevel on the blade was quite inconsistent but at first I didn't think a big deal out of it. After asking the original honer, he told me that it should be corrected. I included some pics of the edge and bevel so you any reader can see what kind of inconsistancies I am talking about.

In the mean time I have been shaving with my shavette. After watching the shave test video I changed my shave prep to a hot towel approach and it works like a charm. I have been able to get my beard really soft. I do have been getting quite some razorburn from my shavette. I think it has to do with to great of an angle. The tip on trying to keep the blade as flat as possible definitetly helped with going ATG. Just need to introduce it when going WTG and get that feel right. The feel I am talking about here is that you hear and see it cutting the hairs but you don't feel it cutting.

After some practice I noticed I can get my lather in about 3 different forms. The first one is a bit dry and it is really thick, the second one is the heavier form of soap and the third one(which I finally got once today) was in between. A thick layer that feels foamy and protects your skin from the razor like a harness. I reckon I need that third one? Partially I finally got to this form of lather is because of the breaking in of the brush I think. It is much less sturdy than in the beginning and just feels great.

All and all I think I caught a bug :P It takes 30-45 minutes to shave, but I love it!

Hea again!

I finally received my razor back from the original owner. I was a bit disappointed as the bevel was not as corrected as I had hoped. Anyways, I tried shaving and the edge dulled very quickly once again for as far as I can tell. This time I took a closer look to my blade. It seems it has a small frown! I included some pictures(including the ones I forgat last time) and I was hoping if you guys could tell me if it is anything serious and that my blade might need a trip to a more experienced honer before I can shave comfortably with it. If it turns out I have been making a loud ruckus about nothing, please tell me :P

With this blade I still had a lot more razor burn then I have nowadays with the shavette. Of course those 2 are very different, but I took a lot of care in making sure my angle was not too steep (actually had some area's where the blade missed the hairs, haha).

Hope you guys can help me further with the pics I provided!

*I did strop with it just in case before the shave. I had a lot of draw on the toe of the blade and it sounded and felt like metal was catching the strop. I stropped a couple of laps more after I felt that draw lessen to the point it felt like the rest of the blade.

EDIT: It seems the forum has sized the pics down by a lot. I have higher resolution pictures if someone wants them.

There are a couple of cheap shave ready razors on the classifieds here right now, from stimpy. It wouldn't be a bad idea to get one so you have something to compare with. I am sure his razors would be shave ready, and he offers a couple of free re-hones. The edge when honed is so fine that you could have damaged or rolled it slightly by just resting it on the edge to take photo of the frown. Incorrect stropping can also cause problems.

I took the photo after the shave. I took care in making sure the razor edge did not touch anything except for my skin before the shave.
EDIT: Getting an experience I can reference too is something that is suggested multiple times here and is of course a great idea. I just saw somebody
responded to my message if I can visit a more experienced member of the forum. I will try to get an agreement with him so we can meet up and discuss what is the fault in the entire setup and procedure of the shave.

As a new straight shaver myself, I can attest to the fact that it is very easy to ruin an edge with incorrect stropping. I did it a couple of times! Really pay attention to your stropping and make sure that you aren't putting any undue pressure on the razor as you are running it over the strop and not dragging the blade the wrong way at any point. As pointed out earlier, just enough pressure to keep the spine and edge of blade on the strop.

Also try to keep your angle at less than 30 degrees. For me, the equivalent of two spine widths seems to work best, more like 15-20 degrees. No pressure should be needed if your blade is sharp enough. Going against the grain you need to lay the blade almost flat against your face. Use a very gentle touch, always, like you are stroking your skin with a feather!

Good luck and keep us posted.

I was able to set up a meet with the other member (Puerco) and the result turned out great! During the entire evening I learned a lot and he honed my razor for me once again. He let me try out the newly honed razor and he also gave some tips during my shave e.g. how much water to add to the lather(it is a lot more than I thought) and how to keep it hydrated. The combination of the improved lather and the rehoning of the blade took care of all my problems. The try-out shave was the most comfortable shave I ever had and surely made me dead set on learning to hone for myself on different types of stones to experience the different results.

The frowning of the blade was nothing serious. The inconsistency of the bevel was also something that was fine and only is a cosmetic pain. It seems all the Dovo blades (and their rebrands like Mühle) have some warping on the bevel when they ship from the factory. When he tested the razor, it was already quite sharp and only needed some touching up to undo some dulling caused by fidgeting with the blade. In the end the main problem was probably the lather that was too dry and I got away with it when using the shavette as the shavette is just really sharp.

I just did my first sr shave today and had the same issue with my lather. I'm glad I know now that I need more water, and really looking forward to my next shave.

I find using the heel of the razor is the best way. I use a lot of the heel and the belly for the entire shave, but only the heel for the edge of my goatee.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Fathardie

..It takes 30-45 minutes to shave, but I love it!..

---

Not that you will necessarily want to, but you can get that time down to 10 minutes or so after time. My daily morning straight shave is ten to 12 minutes regularly...Of course, a leisurely shave is a lot of fun but it's also good to know I can have a good shave when rushed...

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by WadeS

I just did my first sr shave today and had the same issue with my lather. I'm glad I know now that I need more water, and really looking forward to my next shave.

---

I didn't do a lot of research about the shaving soap and it is the main thing that I should have thought about but didn't. Be careful with your lather as the type of cream or soap depends on how much water is needed. It turns out that my shaving soap is really hard. As it is so hard, the soap needs a lot of contact with the brush to get the soap loose. Only after getting enough soap loose, the lather will be able to hold enough water to create a comfortable shave. My mistake was that I did not collect enough soap from the shaving soap and it ended in a too dry or too soapy lather.

The morale of this story, is that depending on the soap or cream you really need to take care in the amount of soap you are actually getting on your brush. Just having a bit of soap on the brush might not be enough and will result in a soapy lather once you added a bit of water or a dry lather with not enough water. Getting to that sweet spot with enough water and soap is than impossible.