my experience has been that a) its not bad at all, b) it looks worse than it is, and c) go slowly and gently. If you havent seen it I would reccomend that you look at this www.shavemyface.com/downloads/The-Straight-Razor-Shave.pdf.

Even at the beginning, I was sold from the very first shave. The nicks I found a little embarrasing when they occured, but more often than not there were none.