Thread: first shave today

Had my first shave with a straight this morning. It went much better then i expected to be completely honest.

I bought a starter kit from ken (DA + strop + brush).
Started with the stropping, im not new to stropping at all, though stropping a straight razor is a whole different story considering how delicate the edge is. Gave the razor 20 slow methodical passes, being careful not to pick it up, and making sure i rolled it the correct direction.
3 hot towel treatments and some lather later i started with my cheeks. Cheeks went really well, took all of one stroke to figure out what kind of angle was needed to actually remove hair, no big deal. After the cheeks i felt brave and slowly worked over my chin, and on to my neck. It was a fun experience.
1 WTG and 1 XTG pass and i decided to give ATG a shot, started the first stroke and lost a little nerve. I decided to save that for another day.
I was actually rather impressed with the fact that i didnt cut myself at all!!!! The shave was very comfortable, though not all that close considering i didnt go ATG.

It was a fun experience, one that i can definatly see doing all the time. No cuts, no razor burn.....success!

Congrats! Sounds like you are off to an excellent start. Much, much better than mine. A lot of that had to do with not having a shave ready razor to start with along with some bad technique. Keep at it and the shaves will get even smoother.

Welcome to SRP!

Casey

It sounds like you done your homework and those hot towels will do the trick anytime. Congratulations and welcome to the brotherhood. The instructions for the secret handshake are in the mail!

Sounds like you had a pretty good start into str8 shaving.

You will find that you now have one major problem and that is you enjoyed it. Sorry, but in my books that means that you are now hooked!

Welcome on board.

shaves 2 and 3 both went very well!!!! Shave 3 i was comfortable enough to give ATG a shot, i got a BBS shave on almost all of my face, save for a few spots that i havnt quite figured out how to go against the grain yet (under my cheekbone the beard grows at some really random angles.....) 1 small nick, and still zero razor burn.

Not only am i hooked....but i've already ordered a couple more razors (i'll have 2 to practice honing on, and a nice dubl duck satinedge to play around with when the time comes) , and a norton 4/8k stone.

Originally Posted by Black Beard

Sorry, but in my books that means that you are now hooked!

Too late that has happened long since whenever we first decided to try it!

Glad it's going well. As a fellow newb, take it slow & enjoy it. You'll learn to spot the symptoms of the various ADs as you go

Welcome to the group

Congrats on your shave.
As a point of reference, I only shave ATG on my cheeks and only sometimes. Other areas seem to do well enough with with WTG and XTG passes.

update: Shave 7-8 Both shaves were incredible, absolutely incredible. i bought some Mama bears shaving soap, i cant say enough about it, the stuff is like gold.
Both shaves were smooth as silk, no irritation, no nicks or cuts.....wow

Now i just cant wait till the 2 other razors that i ordered come in...