Thread: Relaxing & smooth shave?

Here is my experience keeping it stupid simple. I have found that first and foremost your edge is everything. If it isn't perfect for your face it won't shave well. Second is your technique. Third is your stropping.
My beard grows back quickly so I always have a shadow at the end of the day and I am Italian decent. My skin is however rather sensitive and my goatee area is very thick so u have a reference. since you are not honing I will skip to technique and stropping. If Lynn sharpened your blade we can assume it will come perfect. You can call him personally by the way and he will walk you through the honing later.
Technique: put hot water in the shower on your face for a couple minutes to open the scales on your whiskers. Use a good quality soap and learn to lather properly. The lather should have plenty of water but not runny. I often add a bit of water when lathering between passes. When rinsing the blade if the lather doesn't come off easily it's too thick.

Try to keep the spine nearly touching your face with very little pressure. The closer to your face the spine the smoother the shave but a little less efficient so do quicker shorter strokes. Raising the spine will cause more irritation one reason why full hollows allows more comfort for beginners (my opinion)If you try this with quarter or full wedge the blade will stick to your face a little and these blades may force a slight more aggressive angle. If the quarter hollow is not honed and stripped perfectly it ,may be more irritating. If you don't put any pressure the blade should glide easily this way but focus on keeping the blade spine close to the skin. The amount of passes is up to you but I would just do one pass so you get the hang of how it should feel freshly honed. Should glide right through with little resistance but extremely comfortable more than a de wtg. I do three traditional passes with a water only light pass last on trouble areas and I get a comfortable bbs shave. Every pass is more comfortable than a de and I shave every day. Once you can strop properly and the edge does not feel deteriorated for your next shave try a second pass probable xtg and lastly try atg.
Stropping: I use SRD premium Latigo with SRD linen. After every shave I will do 45 literally weight of the blade quick passes post shave on linen to return keenness. I pull the linen taught with no slack. I found the linen acts as an extremely fine hone from the cellulose content and convects the edge geometry to keep the edge comfortable. You just want to barely catch the edge with the linen and it should not feel rough or vibrate at all down the linen. I follow up on the leather ,with slightly less taughtness allowing a slight slack just shy of taught and stop with pressure maybe 5 pounds and do 60 to 100 passes and this will fine tune the edge smoothing it out further and adds a coat of oil to the blade. It should feel resistance here but extremely smooth and at about 60-100 passes the resistance should start to go away a bit. This is when the blade is done. Of course focus on not lifting that spine but its harder to mess up the edge on leather. If you put pressure on the linen or slack the linen you risk deteriorating the edge or making the razor too aggressive and making it less comfort and too keen. This can usually be resolved by shaving one pass and restropping the way I stated. I experimented with not stropping, less stropping post shave etc. but there is no difference fully stropping post shave and putting the blade away shave ready once more. If you do a small post stropping and then preshave stropping again you risk too keen an edge. I like to rule out variables as much as possible. I hone up to a 20k edge from the suehiro and I found if I slack the edge and put pressure on linen I rip the delicate edge off and dull the blade a bit frustrating me to no end.
Every strop is different and everyone's face is different and this works for me. I would adjust up or down but remember the pressure rules and you should be fine. The rules for stropping change a bit for Jnat edges. so lately to keep it simple and only been shaving off synthetics. Later when you hone pm me and I will give you a detailed start on how to get great edges with my theories on how it's done.
The last thing to touch the edge is what determines the next shave experience. The stropping is in some ways more important than the last stone you used to get that edge. This is why blades tend to get smoother after a couple of shaves (for novice honing) as your strop fine tunes the edge past how you honed it in the first place. I get my blades convexed as quickly as possible so I get the smoothest comfortable edges from my stropping and I haven't had to touch stones for a long time. No pastes for me.
I hope this helps!

Beard prep is #1. When I get in the shower....the first thing I do..is lather my face with bar soap...rinse...bar soap on the face again....let it set.....do your shower thing...rinse face ...lather with bar soap again....finish shower....see where iam going with this..try to lather and rinse your face at least 4 times while taking a shower....Then put that shave cream to your Hollywood face.....run that well honed blade under the hottest water..heat it up good...and enjoy that shave.

Probably worth sending one out for a re hone. Would help as a benchmark now you have a few shaves under your belt. As has been said, don't strop it. Wipe any oil off and shave.
One of the things that really helped getting better shaves with a straight was skin stretching for me, seemed to make quite a difference to the end result.
The first few shaves can be a little stressful, but mine are totally relaxing and something that I look forward to now.


Sent from a moto x far far away

Ok, I got the blade back from SRD and was able to compare it against the one that I didn't send in yet.
I can definitely feel a difference, but no cigar yet... The honed blade still pulls at my whiskers. It was clearly better than before the hone, and it pulled less than my other blade, but it still did. I didn't strop it and kept the angle very small.
What to do now? Call Lynn and try to figure this out?

Originally Posted by bvais

Ok, I got the blade back from SRD and was able to compare it against the one that I didn't send in yet.
I can definitely feel a difference, but no cigar yet... The honed blade still pulls at my whiskers. It was clearly better than before the hone, and it pulled less than my other blade, but it still did. I didn't strop it and kept the angle very small.
What to do now? Call Lynn and try to figure this out?

Give it a good stropping and try again. If Lynn finished on a 20K it can take a stropping or two to get the edge properly burnished.

Most give the advice to not strop when getting a blade from one of the honemeisters. I think this is for new shavers and takes out the chance of dulling an edge with a bad strop technique.

Let the linen and leather do their work and see how it goes.

Originally Posted by rolodave

Give it a good stropping and try again. If Lynn finished on a 20K it can take a stropping or two to get the edge properly burnished.

Most give the advice to not strop when getting a blade from one of the honemeisters. I think this is for new shavers and takes out the chance of dulling an edge with a bad strop technique.

Let the linen and leather do their work and see how it goes.

Yes for new shavers do not strop, but I would lather up and see how it shaves no matter how many
razors I have stropped and honed. Lynn is in the business and polite feedback would be welcome.
His business depends to a large degree on the first and second shave...

I have stropped my razors in the middle of a shave and the shave improved.
Sometimes they needed it but most likely the lather got an extra bit of soak time.

I would rinse my face, build and apply a fresh lather before stropping a razor
recently returned from a good honemaster. But that is me and your razor, whiskers,
strop and face are different.

Have fun...

My expectation is the shave will improve for at least a week as each shave and each visit to
the strop, polish and calm the edge.
Oh and ask the honemaster what he advises as well as how he finished it.
Knowing what you got allows you to request: please hone just like last time. I
loved the finish with the _____ finishing stone and special strop.

Maybe it's just the amount of experience you have right now, most don't get it for a while. Instant gratification is not n the cards for straight shaving. Give it some time and the razors that weren't sharp enough will become that way. Everyone has their favorite type edge, but any decent finisher will cut ANYONES face hair,, also never forget the stretch. Tc