My first straight shave (sort of)

[KI4TFT]

So I ordered a Gold Dollar 66 and had it honed to shave ready by someone who knew what he was doing. It passed the hanging hair test so I decided to use it.

Now I've been shaving with a DE for several weeks. So this morning I took out both razors and made my first pass with the straight razor. I must say that it worked well! But I did not feel that it was as close as my first pass with the DE usually is. I'm sure this was operator error on my part. I finished up the 2nd and 3rd pass with my DE.

I also have an ingrown hair on my chest and I've tweezed every single hair actually growing out of the inflamed area with little relief. So, I had already decided to shave the patch around the ingrown hair. I decided to do so with the straight razor. It worked like a charm! two passes on my chest and I had a smooth spot like a baby's butt.

Just to check, I shaved a bit of my forearm, again success.

Of course on my chest and arm I am looking directly at the areas instead of via a mirror and have a better perspective to see the angle of the razor. So I'm guessing that as I improve on my technique I'll get better. I think I'm probably going to ask my barber for a lesson. Perhaps instead of shaving me, he can watch me shave myself and correct my technique.

 

[temjeito]

If your first shave with a straight razor was even reasonably comparable to your first pass with a DE, and you didn't nick or cut yourself, I would consider that an extremely successful first outing. Conventional wisdom is that it will take about 100 shaves for you to get proficient with a straight razor, and you can expect to see incremental improvement throughout that time. Take a look at some of the shave journals in this forum, and you'll get a sense of what a lot of us experience in the first few weeks. Many of us start with the SR and finish with the DE for a while before we are able to get/comfortable getting a reasonably close shave with just the SR.

Having your barber watch you and correct your technique sounds like an excellent idea -- you might want to do it once now, and once again after you've got about 15 shaves under your belt.

Welcome to the wonderful world of straight shaving!!!

 

[Chaloney]

Sounds like you are on the right track. I had my hundredth straight shave today and I agree that it takes around that long to become proficient. Until a couple weeks ago I was noticing very obvious improvement EVERY shave, and its only the last few weeks that I've really nailed down my technique where I can get reproducibly good, comfortable, blood-free shaves most of the time.

 

[temjeito]

I had my hundredth straight shave today.

Congrats!