This month’s Beginners’ Tips are an observation, conclusion and an example of what I've read so many times over these last five years or so.



Many Beginner’s first few posts on this forum go along these lines:

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Season's Greetings!

This month's tips are short and to the point: Stay safe around your new sharp objects over the festive season.


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This issue of Tips is aimed at those of us with limited income sources and is intended to help develop a shaving "kit" that meets those intrinsic human needs of wanting the best available.

This starts with establishing a strong, and I mean a very strong, mindset as to what can be spent on this endeavor. It is way too easy to go into debt to get what a person thinks he should have if compared to what they perceive as the "standard" for this area.
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Ego and Eagerness.

Every time I speak to a new straight razor user these are the first words I utter to them.



Ego:

Don’t let it get in the way of you taking your time to actually feel your way around your face and learning the angles of it. The way you angle your razor and the pressure you put on it, lead to good or bad shaves. Cuts and razor burn are direct results of too much pressure and poor angles.
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TIME



About 3 months ago an acquaintance of mine expressed an interest in straight razor shaving. Always keen to encourage new people into the sport, I offered to loan him a razor (suitably honed of course) and a strop with which to learn. I gave him a demonstration of how to shave and strop, a few tips and a hearty "good luck!", and left him to carry on.
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We asked Neil a couple of months ago if he'd be willing to do a beginners' tips for us. Unfortunately he couldn't at the time. Neil was an astonishing wealth of information on many topics so it wasn't hard to delve into the archives of his posts and find one that was not only informative but of interest to everyone, beginners and older hands alike. I hope no one minds that I've taken the liberty of using one of Neil's posts as this month's Beginners' Tips. He's left us with so many memorable posts like this one that we could use them for the Tips for the next 10 years.

- Jimbo



Cordovan simply means 'of Cordoba' - a place in Spain. Shells are the two ovals found under the skin in a horses butt. As the skin has to be removed to get at the fibrous, muscular shell, it is not really leather at all. That is why it is found in such a small, localised area and why it is so expensive.
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