Greetings from Northern Indiana

Boy am I glad I found you guys.

Without boring you with my life story, I'll cut right to the present. Because of the skipped story, I have decided I need to shave as close to every day as possible. So, I start doing so and soon i realized that close enough is not good enough. However, to achieve the level of smoothness i wanted, I was going to spend a small fortune on a good razor or on hundreds of crappy razors. My beard is like a wire brush, using a disposable 2-blade bic it would take 3 just to get through the first pass, and a fourth to do the final two passes. So, I turned to the internet and after some research and a trip to e-bay, i settled on trying my hand at straight razor shaving.

I order a package on e-bay from "Selective New York Strop Co." It came with a strop and 3 razors. I couldn't find any reviews on the company, and the price was low enough I was milling to take a risk. Got it just last night in fact. The strop seems to be of good quality (the 'hardware' on it is kinda chintzy though) and the razors seem to be of good steel and were damn sharp.

So, all excited, I grabbed my starwars mug, new stuff and headed for the bathroom. I washed my face, lathered up some William's Shaving soap and began hacking away.

Most. uncomfortable. Shave. EVER.

Luckily, i hedged my bet and also found a cheap vintage razor from Germany that a shaving enthusiast honed before shipping. So today after work I took a good long hot shower and even threw some conditioner on my face to help out. Lathered up the soap again (I'm really digging the whole shaving brush thing), and went to town. I skipped stropping because I didn't want to hurt the blade on accident, but it didn't seem to hurt anything. Shaved like a dream. However, this is definitely something thats going to take practice and patience. I need to work on technique because I missed a lot of spots, despite having gone over it so many times, and I need to figure out how to make certain passes without blocking my view. But it felt good, and it gave me hope that maybe I haven't been full of shit and I just might take up straight razor shaving.

Anyway, thanks for listening. And I look forward to soaking up your expertise.

Welcome to the right side of the fence. Two immediate thoughts come to mind.

First, if for some reason the whole straight razor thing does not work out for you, consider the safety razor route. You can get excellent shaves with a double edge razor and the learning curve is much more shallow. If you buy in bulk, you can get DE blades for 10 cents apiece!

Second, I'm sorry to say that I do not think highly of your strop. I've only held one in my hands, but it did not appear to me to be adequate for maintaining a straight razor. There are other options for cheap strops that will do a much better job of keeping your razor sharp.

Hello and welcome to SRP. Sounds like you got a pretty good shave from a good razor in the end. As for your strop and blades you ordered from ebay, i'd be pretty leary of those and not put much faith in the quality there. :(

Hello and welcome, I got a strop and 2 razors from e-bay like that when I first got started for 18 bucks and the pros are right they are not very good quality (Im trying not to call them junk) but I learned a lesson and it only cost me 18 dollars. Sounds like you had a pretty good shave when you used a good sharp razor so nice job. I had problems at first with figureing out pressure angle and my beard growth pattern and also not being able to see to well but as you keep working on it you will get that figured out. Also streching the skin was very helpfull for me and after a few shaves that will get better also. Keep at it because when it starts to come together you will see that its all worth it and I hope you will love it as much as I do. The experianced guys here will be a great help to you as you are learning, they have helped me with everything I have asked so you are at the right place. Good luck
Glenn