Thread: Needs some words of encouagement. What am I doing wrong?

I had my first complete straight razor shave with a shave ready Wade & Butcher that I bought from a member of this site, and I was disappointed with the results. After the hour or so of shave prep and shave I came out with a shave inferior to that which I would get from my Mach III.

Below was my shave prep:
1) Wet face with hot water
2) Massage face with Proraso preshave cream
3) Hot towel for 3 minutes
4) Lather with lather made with Proraso shave cream
5) let lather sit for about 1-2 minutes

I proceeded with the shave and I did two passes, one with the grain and another across the grain. Yes, the shave prep was nice, but prep aside the shave itself yielded results less close than what I would normally get from a regular mass market razor, and I needed much more finishing after the straight razor shave than I normally need when shaving with the Mach III.

My understanding was that straight razor shaving is supposed to get you a closer and superior shave compared to that of the mainstream Gillette method. I am asking if there is anything in my prep that is missing, or where the superior quality begins relative to the straight razor shave.

Thank you for any guidance

For most people the initial shave quality with a straight razor isn't as good as it gets.

You will notice that each shave is better than the one before it. It can take a little bit of time and practice to get the really great quality shaves that you read about.

a great shave isn't just about the pre shave routine or the post shave routine, it is about the technique and experience. over time after shaving with a straight, your shaves will be very smooth, but you can't expect to get perfect shaves right off the bat. compare it to learning to drive a manual car; when you first start out you'll stall a lot, but over time it becomes second nature. this is essentially the same as straight straight. when you are first starting out, you just need to focus on technique, and before you know it, everything will click and you'll be getting perfect shaves all the time.

I started straight shaving in 1969, but I do remember that it took time before I got perfect results. Also, be VERY careful with the strop as a mis alignment or the lifting of the spine or to much preasure (should be little to none) will bring the edge back to not shave ready. Best of luck and welcome to straight shaving. wildhog

I completely agree with the above two posts. Technique is paramount. Focus on your angles and pressure. It should be about 1.5 to 2 spine widths off the face for a WTG pass, and the pressure should be as light as possible.

Each shave will be slightly better than the one before, but only if you continue to focus on your razor technique and pressure.

Needs some words of encouagement. What am I doing wrong?

Well some words of encouragement first : Your pre shave prep looks pretty good.
What are you doing wrong? You are not doing anything wrong per se BUT you are only at the very beginning of what is quite a steep learning curve.
As has been mentioned it is all about technique and you can only improve technique with practice.
Please dont be discouraged it does take time. There are 33000 members on SRP and I dont suppose that very many of us had a much better first shave than you have had.
Patience. Time. Practice. And SRP will be all you need to succeed.
Good luck

I believe it's been stated that it generally takes 100+ shaves (on average) to get through the learning curve. It doesn't really sound like you did much research into this before jumping in (although I could be totally wrong). Give it some time and patience and like the rest of us you'll do just fine. It took me about a year and a half to get consistantly decent shaves.

Michael

Encouragement in that this situation is quite common, as it's already been noted here that it takes some practice to figure out; the right blade angle, exactly what direction your beard grows, how to build lather, etc.

For some help I'd read this bit from Glen's recent tips in the beginner forum:

Originally Posted by gssixgun

Get your lather ready as best as you possibly can muster up, YES it makes a difference...
WET your face, really wet yer face, that is why we call it wet shaving...
Lather up your whole face to make sure the lather feels right, now wait, keep waiting,,,, wait just a little longer,,,, at least 2 full minutes...
Now take a wet hot washcloth or towel and place it over the lather wait for it almost go cool..
Re-wet your face, re-lather,,, now take the razor start on the dominant side at your sideburn line and keeping the spine about 2 spine widths away from your face, do one stroke as smooth as possible, as confidently as possible, down to the jawline, Stop... feel that spot it should be surprisingly smooth now try the other side same stroke...

Just don't get discouraged and keep at it. We're all here to help!

Words of encouragement...
Your pre-shave prep sounds perfect. It's far more than I do.
The time you give (about an hour) for a first shave is about par for most of us. It will go down with time, but only as your shaving improves. If you focus on doing things in less time you'll likely have a poor go of it.
You're not the first guy to assess his straight shave against his cartridge shave and consider the latter better. There are some who claim that for their skin and their beard they get just as good of shaves with a cartridge. They choose to use a straight for other reasons. The physics of shaving says there's no way you can get as good of a shave with a cartridge as you can with a straight, but the difference may or may not be great enough to matter for you.

All of that said, cartridge razors (any of them) do several things that are noted in other threads here. They hold the blade away from the skin, limiting potential for razor burn and nicks. They hold the blade at the optimum angle for slicing hair. They almost all have rubber strips that stretch the skin for you so that the blade is gliding over stretched skin as it cuts hairs at the optimum angle. Most of the newer versions also have highly lubricating strips to sooth skin after the blades have cut the hair. Unfortunately these blades dull quickly causing pulling and tugging and ingrown hairs if they aren't replaced regularly (for some of us, every 3 shaves), even with five blades all of them are off the skin and cannot possibly cut as close as a DE or a straight with the blade on the skin. To overcome this we naturally apply pressure, especially as the blades dull, negating the anti-razor burn/irritation effects of the cartridge. The blades also clog easily with any significant amount of growth, and several of us have remarked that we spent more time trying to clear the cartridges than shaving. Meanwhile a straight can't possibly clog--so long as the grind is inversely proportionate to the experience of the shaver you can shave any beard length off with a straight, with the same amount of effort required for daily shaving.

There are a lot of things your Mach 3 did for you that you are now having to do for yourself, skin stretching, blade angle, appropriate pressure (just touching the blade to the face, no more), just to name a few. These take time and experimenting to figure out. As you play around your shaves will improve, and there's no harm in picking up the Mach 3 to do clean up, or to get you on with your day if you're crunched for time.

FWIW: I've been using a straight for about four months now (doesn't seem like it could possibly be that long) and my shaves take about 15min. I'd like to get down to 5. I've seen some guys who can do the whole thing (coming off of a shower to cut prep time) in about 3min (two pass WTG/ATG), but that's not something I'm going to worry about at this point.

Keep at it. Feel free to ask questions. And keep us updated on your journey!

Peace,

+1 to big jims advice! i myself have on ly been shaving for about four months or so and what i've learned from this forum is that the finally curve is steep! just getting to the point were you can get a decent shave is fairly straight forward, but getting that bbs shave is the trick and takes practice and time. One huge game changer for me was a posting about blade angle and pressure! be extremely aware of both! and your stropping technique is paramount i don't know how many times i've seen people saying that stropping makes or breaks the shave. So go slow with the stropping! Go slow with the shave stroke and be aware of exactly what that razor is doing. You'll totally get it. In a month or two you'll get your first almost bbs and be absolutely hooked... at least thats how it was for me!