New Guy from MA

Hello All. I actually found this place from a thread about shaving that was started in a truck forum! I recently ordered my first straight from Stimpy(?) through the classifieds here and tried my hand at straight razor shaving. All I've got to say is, it's not as easy as it looks and... there was blood! Best advice that I read that proved VERY true was to take it slow, and when things seem like they aren't going to go well, STOP! Also, (for me anyways) stay above the jaw line until you get better technique. I only shaved with the grain on the sides of my face, attempted to cross my jaw line, cut myself pretty damn good and decided to finish up with my safety blade. I've got a lot of technique to work on to get this straight razor shaving thing down.

Welcome to SRP!
i trust you also picked up a strop. patience, Rome was not burned in a day. watch some more videos, practice skin stretching read Glen's (gssixgun's) beginners articles and relax soon it will be natural and all fall into place.

enjoy,
jim

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Originally Posted by syslight

Welcome to SRP!
i trust you also picked up a strop. patience, Rome was not burned in a day. watch some more videos, practice skin stretching read Glen's (gssixgun's) beginners articles and relax soon it will be natural and all fall into place.

enjoy,
jim

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I did pick up a strop along with some other goodies. So far I've picked up a decent badger brush, Art of Shaving oil, tried a couple types of shave cream (sticking with Jack Black shave cream for now), Art of Shaving aftershave, the Poor Man's Strop kit from Whipped Dog and a spare 'cosmetically blemished' spare strop. I'm using an alum block to rub my fingers on to get a grip on my skin. I've got to get used to the blade angle a little more. The straights are a lot sharper than my Merkur safety blade! I'll keep at it in spurts until I can comfortably shave my whole face without looking like the cat used my face as a scratching post.

I've been using Geofatboy's videos on youtube as a guide as well as some of the writeups I've found on here.

sounds like a good plan ... good to hear you have all the needed gear.

jim

Pugga, it gets ALOT better, and pretty fast. 'Maked me wish you were local and could come over for a tutorial. A new guy is coming over this afternoon for just such a treat. He'll get to try pretty much every kind of grind and most sizes. You might post a thread asking if there are members in your local area you could get together with. The value is hard to estimate.

While its easy to get overwhelmed w/ all there is to know, there's really only 3 things to know/do when you start; the shave technique itself, making lather/beard prep, and stropping.

Shave technique is VERY well covered on the link on the home page 'your first straight shave'.
Mantic's vids are hard to beat for making lather: How To Build And Apply Traditional Shaving Lather - YouTube
Perhaps the hardest skill to learn is good stropping - and its critical. Many new guys actually dull their edges from poor stropping. I certainly did. The best threads on the topic come from our very own gssixgun: http://straightrazorpalace.com/begin...ch-2011-a.html its worth going through several times, along w/ Al's vids on the all important 'flip' - which is where most of the strop carnage happens. Also, the honorable Mrsell had a fabulous thread on another forum that was very good on stropping and how to keep from butchering it (I butchered 5). Please don't nick your strop

Get your stropping and beard prep down and I think you'll find the shave technique is learned somewhat easily over some time.

Best of luck, and keep posting questions/issues here. There's tons of great help and excellent attitudes here.

Welcome to SRP! You are more gutsy than I. I'm staying away from the straights for now. :D

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Originally Posted by Snurd

Welcome to SRP! You are more gutsy than I. I'm staying away from the straights for now. :D

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I dunno about gutsy but the whole concept of straight razor shaving seems very neat to me. One of the members of another forum said it best, "When you start your day by running a blade down your face that would put most surgeons' scalpels to shame, everything that happens after that just doesn't seem like that big fo a deal."