New to forum, introduction, and a little advice would be appreciated

[rbscebu]

My daily shaves are mainly with a traditional straight razor. About once a month I will shave with a shavette and Feather blade, just to keep my hand in.

While learning the gentlemanly art, I found the traditional SR's are a lot more forgiving to operator errors than shavettes.

@HV_Medic if you can, continue shaving with the shavette while waiting for your traditional to return. The lessons you learn with the shavette will not be lost on you when back shaving with your traditional SR.

 

[2bit_collie]

Welcome to straight razor shaving!
You’ve gotten a lot of good advice so far
As to why brand new razors aren’t shave ready - to me the issue is that honing the edge to an excellent level of refinement is simply too time-consuming a process and factories don’t want to spend the time on it. You can grind a bevel with a machine, but getting it refined enough to cut hair but not skin can only be done by hand. I’m sure some others are much faster, but it takes me typically an hour to get from bevel set to completely finished. A lot of that is racking up 50-100 laps on progressively finer mediums.

In case you do want to take another whack at the shavette (I can’t really advise there - I didn’t try a shavette until after about 50-100 straight shaves)
1) shallow angle: You almost can’t get too shallow - on some passes I nearly have the spine touching my face.
2) light pressure: picture removing lather from a balloon. Let the razor’s edge do the work - if its sharp enough it will cut just fine

 

[HV_Medic]

I got my razor back after having it honed. The experience was a lot more comfortable, I managed to get a pretty close shave although I am still better with the double-edged safety razor. I did give myself a few nicks but not like I was getting before and nothing that I think will give me a scar. I still wound up getting some razor burn on my neck, I think I need to experiment a little more with shaving direction and angles to get it right, I also think I need to remember to re-lather when making additional passes, but I'm getting much closer. My problem areas tend to be where I've always had issues, neck mostly, around the chin and my upper lip just below the nose (I just cannot seem to get shallow enough without nicking myself because the nose gets in the way. I appreciate the help you guys have been on getting me where I need to be.

 

[HV_Medic]

Also, another question I have for you guys is that I am fairly myopic, I have to wear glasses, my correction is about -3.5D. Back when I was a cartridge shaver, I learned to shave by touch, so I never really needed to wear my glasses plus I only started wearing glasses when I was 21 so I had already been shaving for some time by the time my vision started to degrade, but when I'm shaving with the straight razor, I really cannot see myself in the mirror and I have to get so close that my breath tends to fog the mirror so I wind up holding my breath. If I put on my glasses, they wind up getting in the way. So, my question to you is: for those of you that need to wear glasses, how do you manage to shave in the mirror without wearing your glasses? Will I eventually learn to do this by touch as well or will I forever have to shave around the glasses?

 

[Flanders]

Monocle on the opposite eye?

 

[HV_Medic]

Monocle on the opposite eye?

As awesome as a monocle sounds, I'm not sure that is the most practical solution. I wouldn't even know where to look for one. It took me forever to find a pair of custom made buffalo horn rimmed glasses that weren't thousands of dollars. I'm already doing the traditional wet shaving thing with a straight razor and I actually wear bow ties, I'm not sure just how far I want to take the eccentric behavior with a monocle. LOL.

 

[rbscebu]

@HV_Medic, I and many others wear glasses while shaving. They present no problem for me getting in the way of seeing ln the mirror were I am shaving.

I don't understand how you can have a problem wearing glasses while shaving.

 

[HV_Medic]

For the most part I don't, but while getting near the tops of my sideburns, the angle becomes such that I keep bumping into them. I actually knocked them off my face a few times before I took them off and just got really close to the mirror. I suppose that getting that close while holding the razor at a shallow angle necessitated bumping into them, but I'm willing to chalk it up to still new technique that I'm trying hard to get used to. This seems to be especially problematic on the left side of my face, don't get me wrong, I'm still running into it on the right, but just less so. I suppose, it is just one more thing I have to work on. I guess at the end of the day, I just feel clumsy doing this and it has been a long time since I've felt clumsy while shaving.

 

[HV_Medic]

And, like I mentioned in my original post, this is the first time in my life that I've ever needed to wear glasses while shaving as I learned to shave initially without them and have been just shaving by touch ever since then, so I just need to get used to wearing them while doing it. And, I guess I was just curious if others have felt this way and how they've handled it. I cannot possibly be the first person to run into an issue trying to navigate around glasses since plenty of people get glasses later in life.

 

[Star_Wahl_Clipper_Treker]

To me, shaving without a ocular enhancement apparatus just makes sense. Because you know full well, that wearing your glasses while shaving, is going to result in water getting all over them in the very least, or shaving creams and hairs as well. Its natural to want to take them off before shaving. Anybody who has to wear corrective lenses for many years, will know, its a bit of a nightmare getting things off your glasses.

Being a small engine mechanic, I must admit, I've gotten a few things on my lenses I wasn't happy about, like a splash of carburetor cleaner, or engine oil, and yes, even one time, grease of all things. I also shave with my glasses off, but I think where we may differ is, I can see fairly OK close up, its things at a distance I can't see very well without glasses.

I wonder if you could get a pair of reading glasses that are cheap off the counter buys, that you don't have to worry about, so that way you don't have to worry about ruining your 200-400 dollar pair of corrective lenses? Anyways, already a lot of information from other's to help you here, nothing I can really add honestly. Except for...........................Welcome to Badger & Blade

 

[HV_Medic]

To me, shaving without a ocular enhancement apparatus just makes sense. Because you know full well, that wearing your glasses while shaving, is going to result in water getting all over them in the very least, or shaving creams and hairs as well. Its natural to want to take them off before shaving. Anybody who has to wear corrective lenses for many years, will know, its a bit of a nightmare getting things off your glasses.

Being a small engine mechanic, I must admit, I've gotten a few things on my lenses I wasn't happy about, like a splash of carburetor cleaner, or engine oil, and yes, even one time, grease of all things. I also shave with my glasses off, but I think where we may differ is, I can see fairly OK close up, its things at a distance I can't see very well without glasses.

I wonder if you could get a pair of reading glasses that are cheap off the counter buys, that you don't have to worry about, so that way you don't have to worry about ruining your 200-400 dollar pair of corrective lenses? Anyways, already a lot of information from other's to help you here, nothing I can really add honestly. Except for...........................Welcome to Badger & Blade

It is a nice thought about the OTC reading glasses, unfortunately, they go the opposite direction for me, they provide + correction not - correction. So, they would make my situation worse. Early in my time of wearing glasses, it was such a minimal correction, that I could function without them if I needed to (I didn't even have the lens restriction on my license until about 10 years ago), but like most people, my vision has gotten worse over the years, my correction tends to get worse by -0.25D every two years. Just to add to it, I'm not a pure myope, I also have astigmatism (which oddly enough my cylinder correction has remained the same for the past 6 years), which makes my vision blurry whether close up or far away, if I were a pure myope, I would certainly be able to see myself in the mirror without a problem. I do know that the reading correction is coming in a few years, as it stands, I sometimes have trouble reading my watch and have to hold it further away, weirdly enough reading a book is never a problem for me (it tends to just be digital devices), so I imagine in the next 2-5 years either bifocals or progressives will be in my future.

But, yeah, organic substances can be a nasty challenge on lenses, hair spray in particular is tough to get off and can destroy anti-reflective coatings. So I try to perform all of my ablutions with the glasses not even in the room so that spray doesn't even have a chance to drift.

I also work on my car, pretty much if it is a repair I think I can do, I will try it. The two repairs I've been proudest of is repairing my A/C compressor and replacing front wheel bearings. Soon I have to do my steering rack and suspension system in the car. I actually have a pair of prescription safety glasses that I wear both when I work on the car and while interacting with patients (I'm a paramedic). I hate wearing glasses on top of glasses, so I splurged on them so that I don't have to.

I just think I really need to get used to using the SR and with time it won't be as awkward.