Thread: 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

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.

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.

^^^^
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:

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.)

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.