Greetings, a forum first timer here! Have to add that I am not a first timer with straight razors, but then again, maybe I still am a first timer since I still cannot, despite all my efforts, understand how to shave my chin area.
I have been shaving in sort of on and off fashion with straight razors during last 15 years, but I always give up after couple of weeks or months since straights simply refuse to shave my chin area. Gillette Fusion blade (or any Gillette cartridge razor for that matter) will effortlessly shave the chin, no matter what preparation I give to the whiskers, no matter how old the blade is (I've been using a single cartridge up to 4 months at least).
This frustration has led to a combination of straight razor for cheeks and neck, cartridge razor for the rest. Often I just use cartridge razor for all my face, even though a straight razor seems to give better results on my cheeks (WTG and partial ATG). I have been using shaving soaps all these years, my favorite being Tabac. Currently I am using Cella. I prepare my face with warm, semi-hot water and use a badger or boar brush for face lathering (have tried bowl lathering as well). Bad lather gives worse results, good lather is not enough to take the slight discomfort, pulling, and tugging away when going over my chin with the straight razor. I've never really noticed that lathering would magically raise the performance of the straight razor as it always, more or less, stumbles with the tough whiskers on my chin.
With a cartridge razor it doesn't matter what stuff I use for shaving lather, cartridge razor will effortlessly shave everywhere and will not leave sore skin on the chin area, like a straight razor does for me, if I ever get to finish a shave with it, that is. The downside of cartridge razor for me is that it doesn't give smoothest results and I need to shave same spots over and over. It actually takes a considerable amount of time because of this. Straight razor shave with one WTG pass wouldn't probably be much slower, would I be able to do it properly.
I think I've learned something about having a steep angle and good beard prep in all these 15 years of using soaps and trying out straight razors. The miracle of effortlessly shaving my chin area just hasn't happened to me on any occasion. I envy those guys in Youtube just sliding the whiskers away in the chin area.
I own several straight razors, most of them sold to me by Straight Razor Place members years ago, and those razors surely are (or at least were) shave-ready. The sharpest of my straight razors are really only HHT-3 at most, some perhaps HHT-4. A random double edge blade in my drawer, on the other hand, aggressively catches and pops hair, flying it far in the air, which is not quite HHT-5, but indeed makes a big difference to my straight razors.
I also have bought some not shave-ready razors that I have then honed myself using 3M lapping film (lately with Slash McCoy's instructions). The razors come HHT-0 or maybe HHT-1 off my films, but stropping them will improve the edge to pass at least HTT-2 and all the way to HHT-3/HHT-4 (but as I said, I feel it is still far away from what a DE blade does to my hair). The razors also treetop arm hair effortlessly, the hairs are flying all over with a loud ping on the first touch. I've also had great results using Dovo green, red and black pastes, which, applied on balsa, have effortlessly restored my edges on those razors that once were sold to me as shave-ready. I have never really understood what stropping does to my edge, perhaps because the shave hasn't improved with it (chin is still troublematic). But honing has demonstrated to me that stropping indeed has an effect to the edge as it improves the HHT.
There is certainly some improvement to be made when it comes to the sharpness (or whatever is the right word) of my razors. Will it ever be possible to make them "aggressively sharp" like my DE blade? I believe so, how else they will outperform my cartridge blades? Technigue cannot explain everything in this regard, the edge must be sharp to cut the whiskers in the first place.
But is sharpness the whole picture? I wouldn't bother to send my razors yet again to a honemeister just to observe that they are still not performing my sharpness tests nor my shave test noticeably better.
Should I try shaving after a steam bath, just to see if it is all about the preparation of the whiskers? Like many beginners, I also have tough beard on my chin. I still believe so after all these years
Or, being semi-serious already, should I just give up? Shaving with straight razor is coolest of cool and I would like to finally master that skill. I refuse to believe that straight razor absolutely must give discomfort, tug and pull whenever it comes near the whiskers of my chin.
I have been shaving in sort of on and off fashion with straight razors during last 15 years, but I always give up after couple of weeks or months since straights simply refuse to shave my chin area. Gillette Fusion blade (or any Gillette cartridge razor for that matter) will effortlessly shave the chin, no matter what preparation I give to the whiskers, no matter how old the blade is (I've been using a single cartridge up to 4 months at least).
This frustration has led to a combination of straight razor for cheeks and neck, cartridge razor for the rest. Often I just use cartridge razor for all my face, even though a straight razor seems to give better results on my cheeks (WTG and partial ATG). I have been using shaving soaps all these years, my favorite being Tabac. Currently I am using Cella. I prepare my face with warm, semi-hot water and use a badger or boar brush for face lathering (have tried bowl lathering as well). Bad lather gives worse results, good lather is not enough to take the slight discomfort, pulling, and tugging away when going over my chin with the straight razor. I've never really noticed that lathering would magically raise the performance of the straight razor as it always, more or less, stumbles with the tough whiskers on my chin.
With a cartridge razor it doesn't matter what stuff I use for shaving lather, cartridge razor will effortlessly shave everywhere and will not leave sore skin on the chin area, like a straight razor does for me, if I ever get to finish a shave with it, that is. The downside of cartridge razor for me is that it doesn't give smoothest results and I need to shave same spots over and over. It actually takes a considerable amount of time because of this. Straight razor shave with one WTG pass wouldn't probably be much slower, would I be able to do it properly.
I think I've learned something about having a steep angle and good beard prep in all these 15 years of using soaps and trying out straight razors. The miracle of effortlessly shaving my chin area just hasn't happened to me on any occasion. I envy those guys in Youtube just sliding the whiskers away in the chin area.
I own several straight razors, most of them sold to me by Straight Razor Place members years ago, and those razors surely are (or at least were) shave-ready. The sharpest of my straight razors are really only HHT-3 at most, some perhaps HHT-4. A random double edge blade in my drawer, on the other hand, aggressively catches and pops hair, flying it far in the air, which is not quite HHT-5, but indeed makes a big difference to my straight razors.
I also have bought some not shave-ready razors that I have then honed myself using 3M lapping film (lately with Slash McCoy's instructions). The razors come HHT-0 or maybe HHT-1 off my films, but stropping them will improve the edge to pass at least HTT-2 and all the way to HHT-3/HHT-4 (but as I said, I feel it is still far away from what a DE blade does to my hair). The razors also treetop arm hair effortlessly, the hairs are flying all over with a loud ping on the first touch. I've also had great results using Dovo green, red and black pastes, which, applied on balsa, have effortlessly restored my edges on those razors that once were sold to me as shave-ready. I have never really understood what stropping does to my edge, perhaps because the shave hasn't improved with it (chin is still troublematic). But honing has demonstrated to me that stropping indeed has an effect to the edge as it improves the HHT.
There is certainly some improvement to be made when it comes to the sharpness (or whatever is the right word) of my razors. Will it ever be possible to make them "aggressively sharp" like my DE blade? I believe so, how else they will outperform my cartridge blades? Technigue cannot explain everything in this regard, the edge must be sharp to cut the whiskers in the first place.
But is sharpness the whole picture? I wouldn't bother to send my razors yet again to a honemeister just to observe that they are still not performing my sharpness tests nor my shave test noticeably better.
Should I try shaving after a steam bath, just to see if it is all about the preparation of the whiskers? Like many beginners, I also have tough beard on my chin. I still believe so after all these years
Or, being semi-serious already, should I just give up? Shaving with straight razor is coolest of cool and I would like to finally master that skill. I refuse to believe that straight razor absolutely must give discomfort, tug and pull whenever it comes near the whiskers of my chin.
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