Thread: Another newbie

Hello everyone! Had a passing interest with straights as a teenager, parents bought me a cheap shavette which I never seemed to get the hang of*. Recently decided to get into wet shaving thanks to the absurd price of cartridges, have been practicing with a Parker SR1 with reasonable results. My main problems at the moment are nicking myself with the corners of the blade and using too steep a blade angle.

Setup:
Parker SR1 + Shark blades
Frank Shaving fine badger brush
Proraso Red

Got an EJ89 on the way as well, so I suppose we'll see where I go from there. In the meantime, looking forward to learning from everyone here!

* Looking at said shavette now I can see that it had been loaded with a single edge industrial razor blade. No wonder it never worked well!

Welcome to the forum.
I can't really give authratitive advice on the shavette, however you may be able to take the corners off of the blades a bit. Maybe by drawing them through a piece of softwood or similar.
There are quite a few people who use/have used the Parker shavettes so maybe they could she'd some light.

Hi & welcome aboard Blank. There is plenty of information here but if you would like to give a straight razor a try, start in the library with the Beginners Guide & go from there. You will learn most everything you need to know. Any additional information can be given by other members. A straight is so much better than a shavette but if you still want to use that, no problem. Like Ed mentioned, some others who use them may chime in.
Great to have you here.
Any questions just ask & you will get responses.
Good luck my friend.

Welcome to SRP!! You are definitely in the right place to get a wide array of information on anything Wet Shaving!!

Regarding the nics... I had similar issues when learning to use a SR and the thing that helped me the most was to keep my eye on the blade at all times when shaving... I had initially developed a bad habit of, at the end of a stroke but before it was completed, to target with my eyes the next spot I was moving to... Oftentimes that resulted in a nic/slice here or there. Just by deliberately making myself focus on the blade 100% of the time when it was on my skin I was able to get that under control.

Definitely +1 on the Industrial Blade... Getting blades that are proper to Wet Shaving should be a completely different experience!

Welcome.

As has already been said, try dulling or muting the corners of the blade with something. I tend to use the edge of a hone but glass and tile work as well. Just act as if you are trying to cut whatever you end up using with the corners of the blade. No additional pressure than the weight of the shavette is needed. Another thing that may be giving you nicks and such could be pressure and or angle. Just concentrate on wiping the lather off your face as opposed to shaving hairs. That thought, for me, really helped with what kind of pressure to use. My tendency with cartridge razors was to bare down, that does not translate well to shaving with, de's, shavettes, or straights.

Lather, angle, pressure!

Hi and welcome aboard. Any questions feel free to ask. Good luck with your shaves

G'Day and welcome, Blank.

Welcome to the forum Blank. Yeah, using a window scraper blade in your razor is probably not a good starting point. I'll pay that for originality though.


Mick

Thanks for the welcome everyone, and for the tips! Lots to work on, but it looks like this'll be an enjoyable and worthwhile journey.