Thread: 4 shaves in - some questions and concerns

Thanks for all the great advice! A scything motion is fairly self-explanatory I think, but how do you do a guillotine motion? I have no French Kings laying around...

Originally Posted by MattCastle

Thanks for all the great advice! A scything motion is fairly self-explanatory I think, but how do you do a guillotine motion? I have no French Kings laying around...

Have you ever seen the blade angle on a Merkur Slant? It's the same idea. You hold the blade at a slight angle from horizontal and the shaving motion is straight down. It seems fairly straight forward, but I'm sure there are more than a couple members who've dug the blade into their cheek trying this out. This can be avoided by skin stretching and a smooth, confident stroke.

Ah I see exactly what you mean, thanks for the explanation!

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

Your problem is really very common among rookies. It's hard to tell if it's a blade or user problem however if the razor was professionally sharpened and assuming you didn't mis-strop it leaves you as the likely culprit. Remember Rome wasn't built in a day and either is straight razor shaving skill so, just watch your angle and pressure.

Matt, you never mention of the razor was honed by a professional. If it was not, you won't be abler to isolate the problem since it may just be a dull blade. They rarely come shave ready from the factory.

Originally Posted by Mvcrash

Matt, you never mention of the razor was honed by a professional. If it was not, you won't be abler to isolate the problem since it may just be a dull blade. They rarely come shave ready from the factory.

Jeff, read the bottom of post #1

I've been at this for about four months now so I can definitely feel your pain. I started with a Shavette the day after Christmas and got pretty decent with it. I got my "real" straight razor a little over a month ago and thought it would be relatively easy to transition in to it. I was wrong. Stropping took me a few weeks to get the hang of. There's still a few parts of my face that I tend to reach for the Shavette to help out with (upper lip, touch up around the Adam's apple), but I'm getting more confident and less blood.

Biggest two things I can say from my ongoing experience are prep and angle if you've got the stropping down and face stretching worked out.
I've got a thick beard and it wasn't a problem to plow through it with the shavette and get a passable shave in one pass, two for BBS or darn near it.
However, I had to rework my prep with the straight. I lather up and let it sit on my beard while I strop to start softening things up. I might have to add a bit more lather before I start shaving but that's really helped.
The other thing is angle. The Shavette was small and light and had jimps. My vintage wedge is big, heavy, and smooth. I had a hard time with the angle because it is such a massive blade. What I have done is just laid the blade flat on my face and worked through things with a few more passes. The first pass gets me nowhere near smooth but if the hairs are long it gets them trimmed short to make successive passes easier. After that first pass I increase the angle a smidge, do another pass, both WTG, then do my third pass as an XTG with a slight scything motion.

I'm still not getting BBS with it but I'm not bleeding after every shave. The more I do it the better it gets. This learning curve is steep. I figure, say, another 15 razors or so and I might start getting it figured out.
Good luck. It's a journey for sure but it's darn pleasurable.

Well a little update - I tried using minimal pressure as was suggested and watched my angle a little closer. Some great results. I'm certain an aggressive angle and too much pressure was to blame, I feel like I was forcing the blade to get caught. Also, using the scything motion on the XTG pass worked wonders. Thanks for all the tips!!!

Also, bharner I agree, the learning curve is very steep. I think after reading so much stuff on SRP before I got my first razor got me thinking that I knew what I was doing. I'm learning experience outweighs knowledge in this matter.