Thread: Last hope of a Desperate Man!!

It is hard to tell. As your blades are sharpened by someone who knows what he is doing I presume sharpness is not the problem.

I can think of a couple of things.
1st: you use too much pressure while shaving.
2nd: you dull a perfectly sharp razor when stropping. Make sure your razor is flat on the leather, you turn it round keeping the spine on the leather. Keep the strop taut and do not apply too much pressure.

Another thing: hones sometimes leave a harsh edge. You can soften it by using a Cr2O3 pasted strop.

Hope this helps.

While I'm no expert by any means having only been shaving continuously with a straight for a week or so (and maybe half a dozen shaves with a straight in the 3 months prior). I did notice similar issues with my first few shaves. My problem was that I was using way too much angle on the blade. Try flattening the blade out so that the spine is just barely off your skin. What I thought was about 30 degrees was probably closer to 45ish and it was giving me a quite harsh shave. As soon as I flattened it out to a proper angle, the comfort level went way up for me and I got a closer shave with less irritation and razor burn afterward.

When you were using other shaving tools did you get a close and comfortable shave without the skin issues ? If the answer is yes than I would say it is either, as Ben says, a sharpness issue, or as Kees and grubbah said, a technique issue ... or a combination of the two.

With a truly shave ready razor and the proper technique a straight razor should perform as well or better than any other shaving tool IME. Keep trying and lighten up on pressure. If proper stretching is done with a sharp enough razor it isn't necessary to force it through the whiskers. If you hold the razor as I mention in my sig line you will avoid nicks for the most part. If the razor is effortlessly gliding through the whiskers on both sides of the chin it is sharp enough IME. That is all I know.

You're getting some pretty good advice here and you would be wise to try it. I would just add one thing: you may actually have an allergy or sensitivity to glycerin which is in all those products you used. In fact it’s in darn near everything that’s marketed for shaving. That sensitivity will cause your skin to swell ever so slightly which will affect the shave negatively and cause or exacerbate the irritations you’re getting.

Get your blade professionally honed. Then try using Noxzema as your shaving cream – plain old Noxzema – nothing else. Wash your face prior to shaving using a detergent bar like Dove Sensitive which does not have glycerin in it. Do this for about a month. If your condition does not improve then it’s got to be your technique. Hope that helps.

Best Regards,
EL

I'm not an expert, but having just put together some of these building blocks in the past few months, I can say that I walked a mile in your shoes, and I've found one thing, and one thing ONLY, is really responsible for any variation or disappointment that I've had with SR shaving . . . THE BLADE ANGLE.

The simple truth is that some blade angles work and some don't, period. Yet even when you are using the wrong blade angle, it can still feel like you are actually shaving (when instead you are just scraping the blade over your whiskers). So you keep lathering and scraping, lathering and scraping, and nothing seems to happen. It's not the moisturizers or the stropping that is holding you back at this point -- it is shaving technique, and more specifically blade angle that is the problem.

Like others have said, you have to reduce the angle drastically when you are shaving against the grain or even sometimes across the grain. I find this very tricky to do, because I don't like going against the grain to begin with, and making the angle shallower only seems to make things more difficult. But IT DOES ACTUALLY WORK.

If you want proof of this point, try this experiment. Use your SR for the first pass WTG. Then relather and pick up your favorite DE, with a nice fresh blade, and use that for the second pass ATG. Now, I bet you will have just about the cleanest, smoothest shave you've ever gotten, and it's not too hard to see why. Your blades are plenty sharp, your pre-shave routine is fine, and even when you are shaving WTG, there's plenty of room for error when it comes to the blade angle. But with ATG, you need that really close, really shallow angle, and it so happens that DEs are set up perfectly to give you exactly that angle.

Anyway, that's my guess for what is going wrong, and I hope it helps.

+1 on all the good advice so far!

Like they said, a VERY light touch is needed and make sure you are stretching real well.

It might also pay to play with the angle a little bit, if you haven't already.

I don't know who you're having sharpen your razor, but if they're not getting real sharp, or if the stropping is dulling the edge a little, that could be part of it as well.

How often are you having to get your razors sharpened?

The only thing I might add to the advice given already, is to see if you live close to any experienced member or someone who is having success at straight razor shaving and see if that person will let you visit and actually see what you are doing and offer assistance based on their observations. We have found in many cases that this really helps.

Best of luck,

Lynn

My dear Zee,

The advice you have received thus far is from a wide spectrum of experienced straight razor shavers, including the true master of the art. As a straight razor pilgrim myself, I can only add one more important thing: If straight razor shaving means that much to you, keep trying with the tenacity of a shark.

The great French writer Gustave Flaubert often would stay up all night just to get a sentence or a paragraph right. And he did okay.

Just keep trying — with patience and tenacity. Eventually you will master the art. Good luck.

Regards,

Obie

Thanks everybody. THats some great advice guys.
With previous razors, like a Mach 3 with barbasol, i never had any bad irritation, but i also didnt go up or across. The glycerin isnt the problem because ive made that uber lather stuff before. I havent messed around with the blade angle toooo much. honestly i thought i had all that down after week 2. Im gunna let my face settle for a bit then pick up with the blade angle expirementation. Thanks everyone for your help.

I must have picked it up fast Iv never had a lot of problems. I nick myself but even experienced shavers do I'm sure.