I have reached 100+ straight razor shaves and I'm going to share my lessons about the experience.
Background
I have been a DE shave convert for about 20 years now. I tried straight razor shaving early on but just couldn't be bothered with the learning curve. My typical DE setup is the $19 Feather DE razor and Feather blades. I have tried other more expensive setups and just find the cheap Feather setup works best. The fact that it's so cheap and works so well never caused me to change.
Let's Try the Straight Razor Again
Shaving became a chore with DE shaving. I hated shaving each day and became rather lax about it. I didn't want to look like a bum any longer and thought maybe I should try SR shaving again to learn a new skill and make shaving more fun.
I had my old Dovo Special from many years back and brought it out of hibernation. The blade had been OK, but never as sharp as I liked. I used it a couple times and decided to do some upgrades. I decided to try out blades from Germany and Japan as the focus.
First 10 Shaves Friodur 17 1/2
I bought a well honed Friodur 17 1/2 blade sharpened on Japanese stones just so I had a benchmark. This blade was very sharp easily passing the HHT and tree topping arm hair test. I used this blade for my first 10 or so shaves. Getting back into things I was able to re-learn my technique and had a couple nicks, but nothing bad. Razor burn was not great though as blade angle was too steep at times, but eventually it settled down.
Honing
After getting the Friodur I bought some blades mainly from Japan. They were NOS and generally pretty sharp, but not fully HHT. I read various ways to sharpen blades and pulled out my Norton 1K/4K/8K stones. Then added a Naniwa 12K to my mix.
Using the Science of Sharp method was the trick for me. Basically, taped spine and trailing edge strokes was what got my razors very sharp after the bevel set. I also added in a Kanayama 80K strop (linen, suede, cordovan) to finish. Mostly it was a quick bevel set at 1K, then edge refinement 4K, 8K and finally 12K again with trailing edge strokes. Then, stropping.
I expect after this I won't have to use anything but the 12K or maybe 8K at most again on these razors to keep them sharp. I want to avoid taking off lots of metal to preserve the blades.
Stropping
As stated I bought a really good strop to replace my older one that was OK, but had beginner nicks in it. The new strop was a Kanayama 80000 with linen/suede/cordovan. The Kanayama is the best strop I've ever used and was well worth the money.
There is I think a lot of misinformation about these strops and the linen that is used. There is no need to soften the linen on Kanayama strops. They are made by a master strop maker and the linen is fine as is. Think of the strop as three grits: linen (coarse)/ suede (medium) / cordovan (fine). Just use the linen as intended and it will soften up just fine after a while. The linen is really good for initial cleaning up the edge before the final two stages.
I usually strop my razors 30/30/30 linen/suede/cordovan and that's enough to keep the edge going once honed correctly. Japanese razors are very hard steel and like stropping. For that matter, the Friodur stainless steel is very abrasion resistant and likewise it likes lots of stropping as well.
Shaving Tips
A wet lather is one of the most important parts of a good straight razor shave. Wet hair cuts easier.
After about 30 shaves I had things dialed in and had few nicks, but still some irritation. I started focusing on blade angle and this resolved itself.
Move slowly. It's not a race and going fast is a good way to get cut or get razor burn.
Light pressure is all that's needed. Pressure doesn't make the blade work any better but will get you cut.
Honing is vastly overrated. Good stropping is much more important once the blade is sharp. If you feel like you need to hone your blades constantly, it's probably your stropping technique that is the problem.
Stropping is vastly underrated. Before you reach for honing stones, really check how you are stropping and whether you can improve it. I get it that some people just like honing razors and that's fine, but for others that don't want to hone all the time just know you probably don't need to if you can strop a razor well.
I have blades now with 40+ shaves on them and they are nowhere near needing a honing stone again. I just strop them. If they get to a point where I think they may need a hone, I'll try a pasted strop first. Honing can take off lots of metal if you aren't careful and unnecessarily reduces the life of the blade. For me, I'm using vintage razors that can't be easily replaced so I think really hard about honing them if they don't really need it.
I like bigger blades because I find it's easier to control the angle and for me just handle better. If you aren't getting on with your 5/8th blades, try something larger.
Japanese blades are uniformly good. I have not had a bad one yet and own about six of them now.
Friodur blades likewise are uniformly good. However the steel is very abrasion resistant and they like lots of stropping after the initial hone to get peak performance. These are great low maintenance blades.
Conclusions
Straight razors have made shaving fun again. I do usually a 2X pass (WTG and XTG) and it's a great shave. I actually look forward to shaving now in the morning which I never did with the DE setup.
I'm going to keep going with one razor (Hayashi Diamond 9074) and see how many shaves I can get off it just stropping. I'm thinking easily 100+. I'll post updates as I go along and see how it goes.
Background
I have been a DE shave convert for about 20 years now. I tried straight razor shaving early on but just couldn't be bothered with the learning curve. My typical DE setup is the $19 Feather DE razor and Feather blades. I have tried other more expensive setups and just find the cheap Feather setup works best. The fact that it's so cheap and works so well never caused me to change.
Let's Try the Straight Razor Again
Shaving became a chore with DE shaving. I hated shaving each day and became rather lax about it. I didn't want to look like a bum any longer and thought maybe I should try SR shaving again to learn a new skill and make shaving more fun.
I had my old Dovo Special from many years back and brought it out of hibernation. The blade had been OK, but never as sharp as I liked. I used it a couple times and decided to do some upgrades. I decided to try out blades from Germany and Japan as the focus.
First 10 Shaves Friodur 17 1/2
I bought a well honed Friodur 17 1/2 blade sharpened on Japanese stones just so I had a benchmark. This blade was very sharp easily passing the HHT and tree topping arm hair test. I used this blade for my first 10 or so shaves. Getting back into things I was able to re-learn my technique and had a couple nicks, but nothing bad. Razor burn was not great though as blade angle was too steep at times, but eventually it settled down.
Honing
After getting the Friodur I bought some blades mainly from Japan. They were NOS and generally pretty sharp, but not fully HHT. I read various ways to sharpen blades and pulled out my Norton 1K/4K/8K stones. Then added a Naniwa 12K to my mix.
Using the Science of Sharp method was the trick for me. Basically, taped spine and trailing edge strokes was what got my razors very sharp after the bevel set. I also added in a Kanayama 80K strop (linen, suede, cordovan) to finish. Mostly it was a quick bevel set at 1K, then edge refinement 4K, 8K and finally 12K again with trailing edge strokes. Then, stropping.
I expect after this I won't have to use anything but the 12K or maybe 8K at most again on these razors to keep them sharp. I want to avoid taking off lots of metal to preserve the blades.
Stropping
As stated I bought a really good strop to replace my older one that was OK, but had beginner nicks in it. The new strop was a Kanayama 80000 with linen/suede/cordovan. The Kanayama is the best strop I've ever used and was well worth the money.
There is I think a lot of misinformation about these strops and the linen that is used. There is no need to soften the linen on Kanayama strops. They are made by a master strop maker and the linen is fine as is. Think of the strop as three grits: linen (coarse)/ suede (medium) / cordovan (fine). Just use the linen as intended and it will soften up just fine after a while. The linen is really good for initial cleaning up the edge before the final two stages.
I usually strop my razors 30/30/30 linen/suede/cordovan and that's enough to keep the edge going once honed correctly. Japanese razors are very hard steel and like stropping. For that matter, the Friodur stainless steel is very abrasion resistant and likewise it likes lots of stropping as well.
Shaving Tips
A wet lather is one of the most important parts of a good straight razor shave. Wet hair cuts easier.
After about 30 shaves I had things dialed in and had few nicks, but still some irritation. I started focusing on blade angle and this resolved itself.
Move slowly. It's not a race and going fast is a good way to get cut or get razor burn.
Light pressure is all that's needed. Pressure doesn't make the blade work any better but will get you cut.
Honing is vastly overrated. Good stropping is much more important once the blade is sharp. If you feel like you need to hone your blades constantly, it's probably your stropping technique that is the problem.
Stropping is vastly underrated. Before you reach for honing stones, really check how you are stropping and whether you can improve it. I get it that some people just like honing razors and that's fine, but for others that don't want to hone all the time just know you probably don't need to if you can strop a razor well.
I have blades now with 40+ shaves on them and they are nowhere near needing a honing stone again. I just strop them. If they get to a point where I think they may need a hone, I'll try a pasted strop first. Honing can take off lots of metal if you aren't careful and unnecessarily reduces the life of the blade. For me, I'm using vintage razors that can't be easily replaced so I think really hard about honing them if they don't really need it.
I like bigger blades because I find it's easier to control the angle and for me just handle better. If you aren't getting on with your 5/8th blades, try something larger.
Japanese blades are uniformly good. I have not had a bad one yet and own about six of them now.
Friodur blades likewise are uniformly good. However the steel is very abrasion resistant and they like lots of stropping after the initial hone to get peak performance. These are great low maintenance blades.
Conclusions
Straight razors have made shaving fun again. I do usually a 2X pass (WTG and XTG) and it's a great shave. I actually look forward to shaving now in the morning which I never did with the DE setup.
I'm going to keep going with one razor (Hayashi Diamond 9074) and see how many shaves I can get off it just stropping. I'm thinking easily 100+. I'll post updates as I go along and see how it goes.
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