Hi everyone.
Great forum and I've been loving it since the day I joined.

I'm nearing a crossroads with my razors. I've been shaving with a straight now for a year and forced myself to throw out my Mach 3 with my left hand, as soon as my Dovo was bought with my right hand and I haven't regretted it.

Since then, I've become a little obsessed with razors and I now have 5.

I'm living in Vietnam (Born Australia) at the moment and bought this Gillette DE razor I saw. It had funny asian descriptions on how to use it on the back. I've used DE's before, and this plastic DE wasn't exceptional but as you've all probably noticed, the blades in these razors are impossibly sharp.

I know the HHT isn't a perfect determiner of a comfortable shave, but these DE blades just EXPLODE the hair in the test. Watch out for hair shrapnel! The shaves I get from DE and normal cartridge razors (1 and 2 blade) feels much smoother than the Straight razor, especially when I have a longer beard.

Neither of these points even tempt me to go back to cartridge razors, and my question emerges...

How do I get my razors this sharp and how do I replicate this smooth feeling I get with the cartridge razors?

I can get baby bum smooth, but I want the smoothness of the cartridge razors. I warm my face with hot water on a flannel before hand, use pre and after care proraso and I use warm lather, every time. It's deluxe
I got my razors from various locations, classic shaving and a local shaving shop here. My razors are honed by my local traditional barber who's been doing it for 40+ years so I'm assuming he's doing it well. My razors can pass the HHT, and I can get what I would call a nice shave from my razors, but does it sound like they're not well honed to begin with?

I'm confident in my stropping ability as I can maintain my blade basically as sharp as it was after honing for at least 6 months and I can bring my razor back from feeling frumpy to feeling fresh with my strops.

Any advice would be helpful as I'm going to order a couple of Norton hones and try myself in a few weeks when I get to Hanoi. Help me in my search for the perfect shave! Thanks in advance!

Sammy