Congrats on your first SR!

As a fellow Newbie, I would like to offer a few thoughts on what helped me in the beginning of my straight razor journey. First of all, I would like to tell you, as a few others already have, to take your time and to use a gentile hand while shaving. But most importantly, I want you to know how important it is to read up on this site before you start. I have been able to completely avoid nicks and cuts in all of my shaves so far, and I attribute this almost solely to the excessive amount of research that I put in before I began; although, I'm sure quite a bit of luck was also involved. Anyway, I hope this helps out a bit, and welcome to the ranks!