Thread: It slices! It Dices! It...

I've been shaving with a str8 for 2 months, about 2 weeks ago I had a week like yours. I nicked myself almost every 2nd shave, dunno why but it hasn't happened since. I've been getting consistently good shaves.

Oh I have done this for sure!

I have a nice scar thats still healing on my cheek and my neck left side right over the big poppa vein.

I got them all from being sick with pneumonia and figuring a shave would make me feel better, can you see the ill fated logic here?

Well I started shaving great then a crazy coughing fit ensued and I did myself in with a huge gash on my neck and the following day on my cheek, blaming it on a dulling razor...lol

Cheers
david

Yeah. Sometimes I stop paying attention and slice myself. It almost always comes from a square point, and most of the time is on the earlobe. What is the point of earlobes anyway?

Oh yeah - I still have days like that. Last week I took a chunk (an actual chunk) out of the back of my head. Familiarity breeds contempt. That, and I had just done shoulders and arms at the gym and was still a bit fatigued and wobbly.

Constant vigilance!!!!

James.

Yup! Earlobes and squarepoints don't mix for me!

I think the airing of grievances fixed the problem.

FESTIVUS FOR THE RAZORUS

I think this has been a great thread, I have to confess its a bit old hearing about str8 shavers that say they only have gotten 1 or 2 nicks in 2 or 3 years of wet shaving. Not to say I"m envious, but basically......I am.
Like the rest of you/all' I keep plugging along waiting for that journyman level of apptitude to surface in my str8 shaving technigue. I can't get the myriad of fancy edtiting controls to work up top, including spell check for some reason, to please forgive the typo's.

tinkersd of SRP

If I can offer a theory about the "relapse" cuts that everyone seems to experience -- I believe it all comes from the razor becoming a little bit dull after a few shaves. How so? Well, when you first start with straight shaving, you have (hopefully) an expertly honed and stropped blade, and you are doing everything in your power to go as lightly as possible over the skin, as you're only thinking about not slicing your face off. The blade is really, really sharp, so even without any pressure at all, the blade is cutting the whiskers, and everything works out just fine for those first few shaves.

After that, however, the blade becomes slightly duller, but you are not aware of the dulling. Instead, you unconsciously start to compensate, either by pressing harder or increasing the angle of attack, and that's when you end up getting cut.

Personally, I went through a few weeks of "relapse" cuts when I first started SR shaving every day, and then I got a nice balsa/chromium oxide strop from Ray and I started to pay more attention to the edge sharpness. No more cuts since then.

Anyway, just one more thing to think about as you bleed all over towel . . .

I just smack myself with the razor from time to time. not kidding, it heads straight in for the kill-shot on my cheek. no idea why, maybe just love-bites.

I have had the dreaded relapse and cut the crap out of myself. Just last week in fact. I got a one inch gas on my chin from my shavette. The one time I used the shavette in over a month because I needed to polish the edge on my vintage Sears and Roebuck spike point and I really let myself have it. Worst part is that you hear it happen way before you feel it happen. A couple weeks before that I did the same thing on my right sideburn area. And I knew better. Came in at way too steep of and angle and SKRUNCH! Now I have a nice purpley fading scar on my side burn and a healing cut on my chin. I guess I got a little too arrogant and over confident in my shaving abilities. Happens to the best of us. I think JeffE nailed it with the difference in sharpness. My Sears is incredibly sharp, but it's a different kind of sharp than my shavette. I attribute it to blade thickness. Since I have only managed to slice the bejeezus out of myself with the shavette, I think that theory holds true.