Aargh! It burns, it burns!

I've been shaving with a straight that I've honed myself for 2 weeks. Every time I shave, I get a razor burn. I know sometimes it's because I make a lot of passes with a straight, but could the cause be that the razor is not properly honed by me? The razor is fairly sharp. When it comes off the 4000, it only cuts hair with the grain at skin level. After I do a few no-pressure circles and laps on 8000, it begins to cut arm hair mid-range with some effort. Finally, after I strop it on balsa wood with chromium oxide, linen, and leather, the edge becomes so sharp, it pops hair with no effort anywhere on the arm.

With that in mind, would the reason I get razor burn is because of my honing, or is it more likely that I get razor burn because I still haven't mastered the shaving technique?

Thanks for the help.

(I think there's something wrong with my private messaging. When I send someone a message, I don't get any confirmation and the Sent Message folder is empty.)

The reason for your burn is most likely caused by a combination of 1) You have only shaved with a straight for two weeks, and your teqchnique is far from developed, you still have weeks and months ahead of you before you have learned the right angels, pressure etc. 2) You are shaving with a razor that likely is far from what most of us would consider shave ready, from how I read your post you're just as new to honing as to straight shaving.

My advice for you is to send out your razor to a experienced honer to get it truly shave ready, put your hones on the shelf for a few months and focus on learning to use the straight.

By doing this you will 1) Get to know what a shave ready razor is meant to feel like. 2) Learn to shave properly faster by that you have "the right tool" for the job 3) When you go back to learn honing you know what to seek, and you have eliminated poor tecnique as a fault factor.

Good luck!


Edit: For sent items to be saved you need to chose set that up in your message settings.

Guess the pressure is ON then...:)


Mick

In helping a few friends get started,any newb with even a blade honed to perfection is going to get some razor burn.
Your doing something very unatural to your skin ( a dermatologist would call it a dermabrasion).
With the perfect razor,prep,angles,pressure yada yada,It will still take several months to condition your face,maybe longer.

All of the above.
I second sending it out to get honed. That would solve half the problem.

If you can truly pass arm hair test any where on the hair with relative ease, I'd say you done a good job with honing and your razor is very much shave ready.

Spend more time with pre-shave routines.
Only do 1 or 2 passes a day until your technique improves and until your skin adjusts.
If you are relatively certain that it's not the shaving techniques, then send it in, or buy another shave ready razor for comparison.

Another question: you've mentioned how your razor shaves arm hair, but how does it shave your FACE? Does it cut effortlessly, or is there resistance?

Couldn't have said it better myself - so I'll just agree

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zephyr

The reason for your burn is most likely caused by a combination of 1) You have only shaved with a straight for two weeks, and your teqchnique is far from developed, you still have weeks and months ahead of you before you have learned the right angels, pressure etc. 2) You are shaving with a razor that likely is far from what most of us would consider shave ready, from how I read your post you're just as new to honing as to straight shaving.

My advice for you is to send out your razor to a experienced honer to get it truly shave ready, put your hones on the shelf for a few months and focus on learning to use the straight.

By doing this you will 1) Get to know what a shave ready razor is meant to feel like. 2) Learn to shave properly faster by that you have "the right tool" for the job 3) When you go back to learn honing you know what to seek, and you have eliminated poor tecnique as a fault factor.

Good luck!


Edit: For sent items to be saved you need to chose set that up in your message settings.

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by Zephyr

My advice for you is to send out your razor to a experienced honer to get it truly shave ready, put your hones on the shelf for a few months and focus on learning to use the straight.

By doing this you will 1) Get to know what a shave ready razor is meant to feel like. 2) Learn to shave properly faster by that you have "the right tool" for the job 3) When you go back to learn honing you know what to seek, and you have eliminated poor tecnique as a fault factor.

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^^^^
This. Focus on your technique with the razor and especially your stropping. At this stage you'll benefit more from expanding on those two areas than from anything honing could do for you.

Already got some good advice on the razor. As for this:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by str8razr

(I think there's something wrong with my private messaging. When I send someone a message, I don't get any confirmation and the Sent Message folder is empty.)

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I think that by default copying to your Sent Items is turned off. If you go into your user settings (click the Settings link at the top-right of a page by your notifications), look under MY SETTINGS >> GENERAL SETTINGS. There will be a radio button for sent PMs: tick "Save a copy..." and save your settings. Now any sent PMs will go to your Sent Items folder.

What steps do you take for prepping your face \ pre-shave?

I wash my face and neck with hot water. Make creamy lather with Proraso and massage it in well. Since I'm shaving slower, I reapply water and lather to areas that dried out as I go along.

The first pass is WTG and it goes smoothly unless I'm pushing the razor or my angle is aggressive. If I leave it at that, I have no burn and no redness except on the neck (adam's apple area). I can probably pull off another WTG and I'll have an OK shave for the day-- something I get with a Mach3.

To get a smoother and longer lasting shave, I need ATG and I cannot do those without getting severe razor burn on my neck and jaw line. I see youtube videos where people just go ATG on their neck and it's fine. If I did that (even with no pressure), it would be very painful and I'd have redness and burn.

I tried different strokes today and I got a very smooth shave. Unfortunately, my face is red and on fire.

It may very well be a combination of factors as others have already mentioned or just that you have overly sensitive skin.

Did you ever consider using a pre-shave oil before applying your lather? It will provide a nice layer of protection to your skin and allow your razor to glide over the skin

Please, for your own sake, get your razor sent out for professional honing, and/or get another one that is guaranteed shave ready, that a razor cut hair is not the same as it being shave ready, that is a combination of sharpness and smoothness, not just sharp....I van sharpen any knife I have, or a spoon for that matter, to the point where it will shave, but that's not the same as I would shave my face with it :)

Then you focus on learning to shave and strop, nothing else!

Learn what angles to use, how much pressure you shall use, and not use.....and for now stick to doing one or two WTG passes, in a few weeks when you start getting ampretty close shave with only these WTG passes, then you can add another XTG or ATG pass.

For your prep do a little more than just wash your face, take a hot shower or use hot towels, leave them on your face for at least a minute.

Learing to shave with a straight is a long and steep learning curve, don't rush it and take small steps at the time it takes time, that's just how it is and I can almost guarantee that you will get much better shaves in a shorter time if you do this.

It's not a terrible idea to slow down to the point of doing ONE area of your face until you have that down with one or two WTG passes. Let's say one cheek, then the other, then focus on the lip. Chin seems hardest to me so I'd save it till last.
If you are focused on learning just one part of the shave until it becomes easy, it should gentle up the learning slope a bit.

I know I recently realized I was moving along a bit fast and have returned to focusing on single areas at a time and finishing up with the old method. I'm not cutting myself, but my shaves aren't as smooth as I would like, and I was starting to get burn myself.

As with everything YMMV, but I'm still new enough to straight razors not to feel but so bad about the idea of starting over, and I think you are as well.