Thread: Hello from Wellington, New Zealand

Aloha Zoran!

Welcome. Sounds like you are off to a great start. I personally jumped into straight razor shaving at 18 years old cold turkey, but I think your plan of gradually transitioning to a Straight is the way to go. Most would agree that a quality shaving soap or cream is superior to a canned foam, so your belief that you are already getting a closer shave (perhaps smoother would be a better word?) is somewhat common.

The Library here is fantastic. Make sure you use it. I've been straight shaving for decades, yet there are guys here that have forgotten more than I know, so the members here are amazing in depth of knowledge.

Enjoy!

-Zip

Welcome to SRP!!!

A lot of great folks, as you've seen, and a ton of info too. As said, check out the library.
Ask questions we're here to help.
Enjoy and have fun!!!

You probably are right about the improved shave from brush and soap. I switched to them a few decades ago and found a dramatic improvement long before I got around to trying DE and then straight razors.

Originally Posted by ZipZop

Most would agree that a quality shaving soap or cream is superior to a canned foam, so your belief that you are already getting a closer shave (perhaps smoother would be a better word?) is somewhat common.

Yes, smoother, but I think closer too 🙂

Thanks everyone I'm happy to report that my razor has arrived today and I had a first shave with it. I've planned to just do the sideburns/cheeks, but it seemed easy enough and I did the whole thing. No cuts, I guess watching heaps of videos really helped.

Overall experience was OK, not great, but I'm not disappointed, didn't expect a perfect shave on first try. I've noticed the razor tugging the hair in some spots, but that's probably due to my lack of experience — maybe the angle wasn't just right, or the lather was less than optimal, or something else entirely. Whatever the reason, I'm looking forward to learning and practising, I've decided to make the switch and did a reasonable preparation, now it's time to jump into the deep end and start swimming

The razor is sold as "shave ready" and I didn't want to strop it before the first shave because I wanted to see what's it like to shave with a razor that's honed and stropped by a professional. I'll (try to) strop it myself before the second shave and will post results in the appropriate sub-forum.

Thank you all again, and all the best.

Z

Hopefully you did receive a shave ready razor. If new and still sealed in box it wasn't shave ready. If it hasn't been hand honed by the vendor it wont be shave ready. Manufacturers claim shave ready but few are. If you can let us know where you got it we might be able to confirm/deny for you.

Welcome to the forum.

I think you did the right thing by not stropping before your first shave. A truly shave ready razor should not need it at first and now you have a feel for the razor you will be able to tell if your stropping is a problem.

You will get parts of your face where the razor will have more trouble. For me the area around my chin has much coarser hair than other parts of my face.

I found that at first my shaves were not that close and they only improved as I reduced the pressure.

Good luck and enjoy.

Originally Posted by eddy79

Hopefully you did receive a shave ready razor. If new and still sealed in box it wasn't shave ready. If it hasn't been hand honed by the vendor it wont be shave ready. Manufacturers claim shave ready but few are. If you can let us know where you got it we might be able to confirm/deny for you.

I got this one: Dovo Stainless Steel - 5/8" Cut-throat razor (gentlemansblade.co.nz)

This is from the description:

"We will hone and strop this razor before we send it to you at no extra charge, so that it arrives truly shave ready. The general consensus among those who shave with cut-throat razors is they are not truly shave-ready straight from the factory (even though the manufacturers often claim that they are), so having your razor honed before use is important."

It arrived in a sealed metal box and was covered with a thin layer of oil which I've wiped off before shaving. I did the hanging hair test beforehand and it seemed to do just fine. It took them 2 days to ship it, so I assume some of that time was used for honing and stropping. Then again, this is my first straight razor, so I don't really know what a "shave ready" razor should look like.

I'd really appreciate it if you or someone else here could shed some light on this for me. Thanks 🙂

They seem to be saying all of the right things, but unless they managed to re-seal the box it seems unlikely that they did what they said they would. Of course it is not beyond the realm of man to break the seal and then re-seal a box. Maybe they get them from Dovo unsealed with a shipment of seals in order to hone them first.

There might be people on here that have had razors from that company that can shed more light on it.

I am a little unsure as to why they would oil a stainless steel blade though