Coming to you from Houston
A few months back I switched to a safety razor and that worked great for me. I think because the blades are more reasonably priced, I change them more regularly. Apparently, one sharp blade shaves better than 3 to 5 dull ones. Anyway, that transition went smoothly.
Now I'm giving the straight razor a try. After a half dozen shaves, I am starting to get the hang of it. Long way to go to be proficient, but it's not so intimidating as it started. The first attempt at shaving my neck caused beads of sweat on the forehead (and it wasn't hot in the bathroom). I thought the left hand would be really difficult, but I find in practice that it's not much harder for me than the dominant hand.
The most significant challenge I think is dealing with the glasses. I wear glasses sometimes and contacts other times. My corrected vision is better with the glasses, but shaving with the contacts is easier. When I tilt my chin up to see the throat better, I am looking under the glasses and can't see well. I'm farsighted, BTW, so taking the glasses off and getting close to the mirror doesn't help like some nearsighted folks probably do. Today I took the glasses off and shaved without any vision correction. That worked in a fashion, but not ideal either. So, I'm experimenting with different ways of working with the vision problem using a straight razor. I feel like it would be OK if I wasn't just learning to use the razor. So there is hope.
So far I have seven razors I purchased on Ebay, 2 of which were supposed to be shave ready. I have also bought a strop, brush, and soap. Then I picked up a set of Naniwa honing stones (1k, 5k, 8k, 12k). The first attempt at honing didn't work out well, but I've concluded I moved past the 1k before I should have. Today I shaved with a razor I honed and it was as good or better than those that were purchased "shave ready". BTW, I'm the guy at hunting camp that everybody wanted to sharpen their hunting knifes. Yes it's different from a straight razor, but the principles are not far apart. At least with the razor you have a blade that can be rested flat on the stone to hold the bevel consistently. You probably think I jumped the gun getting into honing so early, but I was interested in learning to do it.
Another minor challenge is having the soap dry before I get to all parts of my face. I shave very slowly with the straight razor!
One last challenge is that I travel a lot with work and I never check baggage. I don't think TSA would take kindly to me having a straight razor in my carry on bags, so for now the straight razors are for home use only.
I can't say enough about how helpful this website has been. This is my first post, but I have been reading a lot and watching some of Lynn's videos. I guess that's about enough for this post.
