What's new

Preparing the Room of Requirement!

First shave completed tonight. Here are some thoughts!

Time: 1 Hour, 7 Minutes
Passes: WTG, XTG, ATG!
Actual Cuts: None!
Weepers: None!
Irritation: Yep!
Missed Spots: Yep!
Continue DE Shaving: YES

That was...nerve wracking, and absolutely enjoyable! My lathering was...thinner than I expected. I think that actually helped, reflecting on how the shave went. I loaded what I thought was way too much product, and face lathered. Felt a little thick, dipped my brush in the sink, and continued for three minutes. That was where the lather went from pasty to...liquidy. It wasn't running down my face and neck, but it didn't look like what I was expecting from the videos I've watched. That being said, I love the soap that I picked. My face felt very slick.

As expected, the first two attempts of pass one were not steep enough, and I shaved nothing. I just ran the guard along my face, with little pressure. Lathered that area back up and finally placed the razor properly on my face. Took a deep breath, and tipped my elbow up and away just a bit.

The first actual shaving I did surprised me. I've watched a lot of YT videos (Mantis, Nick Shaves), and I thought the sound of them shaving was somehow amplified. Microphone up close somewhere, dubbed, whatever. But wow, that sound and feedback of feeling the hair being cut was pretty awesome.

First full pass was stressful. It was WTG, of course. I completely missed the area under the corner of my jaw on the right. I need to figure out a better way to get just under my cheekbones. My face is slim, so the hair there actually rests in a divot. I chanted No Pressure, No Pressure throughout this entire pass.

Rinsed off, relathered. The lather seemed to thicken back up just a touch in the eternity that was pass one. Not pasty, so I didn't add any additional water. XTG for my last pass, I thought. Figuring out the best way to hold the razor and the correct angles made it look like this was the first time using my hands. This pass was the most comfortable of my shave tonight. With some of the fear removed for cutting myself from the first pass, I could actually enjoy this one a bit more. Completed this pass with no issues, thinking that I was done.

Rinsed off, removed the remaining lather from my brush into my left hand. Whoa, that's way more than I thought was in the brush. I gently put this across my face and neck to check for things that I missed. But, when I did, I wasn't super happy with how the shave felt when moving my hand ATG. I had plenty of lather, so I went for it.

Third pass, ATG, something I didn't think I would do. This pass did make my cheeks a little angry at the end, but I believe that it was worth it.

Felt around for things that I missed, went over a few small spots, and that was that! Rinsed off in cold water. I have a goatee (just the bottom) that still had a bunch of soap tucked away in it. The soap smells amazing. Pat dry. Witch hazel patted onto my face and neck. I let this dry for a moment. Aftershave splash. Surprise, you forgot that this has alcohol in it! A little stinging, and then my face felt...relaxed.

I surveyed the damage in the mirror up close. A little redness on my right cheek, which isn't usual for me with cartridge shaving. This was the cheek that took a few extra times to figure out how to get into the recessed hair under my cheekbone. Makes sense. Some slight irritation on the right side of my neck. This is miles better than the normal raw feeling of my neck after a cartridge shave. Woohoo!

I missed a tiny patch of hair just below my mouth on the right, and left a single longer hair above my mouth in the right. On the left, I missed a tiny patch just above my goatee. I'll file that info away for my next shave as areas to double check on my cleanup pass.

This is not a BBS shave, and that's totally fine with me! It took about as long as I expected, started off as I expected, and went WAY better than expected overall. My face isn't super angry, and I'm very happy with my first shave.

Thank you to everyone that has replied and shared their insight! You've helped me to attempt this shave a day earlier than planned, and you've helped to make it a great first experience!
 
Congratulations on your first shave.
As expected, the first two attempts of pass one were not steep enough, and I shaved nothing. I just ran the guard along my face, with little pressure.
Actually, you were too steep as your text above suggests. Steep and shallow refers to blade angle to the skin. The neutral angle would equate to about 45 degree handle angle. Try that as a starting point on your next shave. These illustrations may help you; also check out the Shave Wiki on blade angle:Blade Angle
shallow angle.jpg steep angle.jpg
I need to figure out a better way to get just under my cheekbones.
Try stretching the skin.
 
Congratulations on your first shave.

Actually, you were too steep as your text above suggests. Steep and shallow refers to blade angle to the skin. The neutral angle would equate to about 45 degree handle angle. Try that as a starting point on your next shave. These illustrations may help you; also check out the Shave Wiki on blade angle:Blade Angle
View attachment 940346 View attachment 940347

Thank you, and yes! I had it backwards. I was thinking of the handle in relation to the skin. In my head it made sense. :001_smile The 45 is roughly where I started my XTG pass. World of difference there.

Try stretching the skin.

I've since watched a few more videos since my post specific to this. I see some people stretching the skin with their offhand, and I see some people like puffing their cheeks out with air in their mouth. I'll have to figure out what works better on the next one.
 
Congrats on your first shave!:a14:

Good suggestions to puff your cheeks out, also try puffing your neck like a bullfrog. And stretching your skin is good too.

Keep practicing, that's the key. Don't try for BBS, just work on technique. No pressure, no pressure, no pressure.

And most importantly, enjoy!!!!!
 
Last edited:
Congratulations. You will get a lot better over time. Eventually you'll learn where all the hair is and in which direction it grows. There will be no wasted strokes.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Congratulations on the maiden voyage. Don't worry about missing a few bits, comfort is more important. The angles will take some time to find, and to hit automatically, throughout the various contours of the face. Having the handle too far the other way, will also lift the blade off the skin. In time, you'll be able to feel when you're cutting high, and adjust accordingly.
 
Congratulations and welcome! What a wonderful setup you’ve got to get started...very apparent you did your homework.

Great job and good luck on the future shaves!
 
Overall you have some really nice gear to start out with. Nothing really all that substandard there, which is surprising.

Some observations and thoughts....

Your shave notes and write up is extremely well done. So high marks there as that will allow members to better assist you.

Preshave for me consists of a warm shower and washing my face with a decent soap. The shower helps to soften the hair and I have noticed a better shave after a morning shower than when shaving without a shower later in the day. The preshave oils I skip as they're an added step that can be messy in gumming up the razor. I have used some hair conditioner on my stubble to further soften it, making it easier for the blade to cut but I don't usually take the time needed for this extra step. Feel free to do anything that you think might help now but know that you'll likely eliminate quite a bit of it in the interest of saving time later on. As far as software goes, a warm shower, a high quality soap, and a nice aftershave balm is all that you really need.

Lather - The Stirling soap that you're using is a good one to start with. Very slick, easy to get a good lather from and very reasonably priced. Rod at Stirling is a great guy and their customer service is outstanding. Only thing negative I can think of is that it'll leave a little bit of a sticky feeling on your face that'll subside once it dries. It won't negatively impact your shave in any way and it's an excellent choice. Start by soaking the brush (I usually do this while I shower) then start lathering with a mostly dry brush and set the faucet to drip water slowly as you start to lather the soap. You can easily add water but it's much harder to take it away. See how much soap you can pick up with the brush before adding any drops of water at all as a more dry brush tends to pick up more soap. Once you've loaded a bit keep lathering and add about six drops of water to the soap. Keep lathering. Add six drops again and lather some more. Do this several times until you've picked up enough soap. Your lather shouldn't be fluffy and full or air, much more gel like is better. Shoot for more of a gel like lather that looks like the picture that I attached below. It should have a nice wet sheen to it and form peeks when you pull the brush away.

images.jpg

Something like this for me gives the very best results. Very slick and protective.

On to the angle. When you start your shave, place the cap onto your face with the handle parallel to the floor and as you start the first swipe lower the handle angle until you just start to hear the blade cutting the stubble. This would be a good angle to use. I usually do three passes in different directions. Once you get your technique down you can look into any trouble spots you might have. Mapping the direction the hair grows on your face will help you better tackle the trouble areas. Going against the grain will better clear the remaining stubble. There are some advanced techniques like blade buffing, J-Hooking and even filling your cheeks with air like a toad (I think it's called the Bullfrog) to better clear certain areas but there's plenty of time to figure out all of that later on.

Remember that you've been conditioned from using cart razors for years to jam the blade into your face. That's something that you don't want to do here. Use no pressure at all, just maybe the weight of the razor at the very most. Make a conscious effort to remind yourself to not add any pressure at all, only enough to keep the razor on your face. This will be hard to do as you're trying to develop muscle memory that goes against everything you've been doing for years.

Forget about the results as your goal should be to remove the lather. Don't shave where there's no lather and do expect sub par results for about a month. After a month of shaves you'll be impressed with your results. Until then you'll get a good enough shave and nobody besides yourself will really notice that it's not perfect.

Blades - just get a decent blade like the Personna ones you mentioned that you have. Astra SP is another good blade that people often start with. Avoid the Feather blades at first as well as the other really sharp blades. They do a better job in clearing all of the stubble but they will punish you for poor technique. Don't buy a lot of blades now or even a lot of the ones you like now as your preferences will likely change once you get this figured out entirely. You're going to dullen blades quicker with your poor technique so do maybe three shaves per blade now. I generally use a 12 sided die to track shaves and bin a blade when after the 12th shave but I've taken blades in the high twenties without a noticeable decrease in shave quality. Better technique and good prep can extend blade longevity. Don't try to sample every blade during your first month as your poor technique will skew the results you're getting. Visit the sharper blades later on when your technique is validated with the alum block test. So on to that test.

After the shave you can use that alum block to see how you've done. I'll sometimes do this when I'm trying a new razor. Just rinse the block with cold water and rub it onto your face. Where it stings you used an improper angle or too much pressure. Where it feels good you did well. You can also use the alum block as a much less messy than a stypic pencil way to quickly stop the bleeding of small nicks and cuts. I don't care for the paste like residue that a stypic pencil leaves behind so I reserve it for any cuts that the alum block won't stop. It was especially helpful when I was learning how to tackle my trouble spots when learning how to shave with a straight razor.

Aftershave. I'd prefer to see you use an aftershave balm as opposed to a splash as I feel they do a lot more to help your skin recover then a splash. Most splashes are mostly alcohol with a little witchhazel and some fragrance and do very little to help heal and moisturize your skin. I'm not sold on witchhazel either and I don't care for the smell of it so another step skipped for me. A cheap six dollar tube of Neutrogena Post Shave Lotion from the local WalMart is quite good. I use this as frequently as the more expensive aftershave balms (L'Occitane Cade, etc) that I own.

If you really tear yourself up then seek out a small bottle of a product called The Cool Fix from Shaveworks. You can get it at the local Ulta or Sephora stores for around ten bucks. It's a blue gel. It's worth it's weight in gold when your face feels like it's on fire. It's gonna sting like hell for a couple seconds when you apply it and then the razor burn is magically gone and you're shaving again the very next day. Really amazing stuff when you're in pain. I've found nothing else like it.

Other than that it seems that you're off to a good start. Once you get the hang of this you should be taking about ten to maybe fifteen minutes start to finish for a three pass shave including taking apart the razor, cleaning everything and putting everything away. Not as quick as a cart razor but certainly much quicker than you're taking now.

So far so good. I hope this helps.
 
Welcome and congrats @Gryffindor! I can still remember that final decision to start the first strike with a Merkur 34c. It was like crossing the Rubicon or something. I just wanted to add a small piece of advice based on my own experience to all this tremendous advice your getting. I didn’t quit using carts cold turkey. I started out just using a DE razor on the weekends, then weekends and Wednesday’s, then four days a week etc. I needed to shave every day for work and this let me “clean up” my mistakes and also let my face recover. I also could resist using the soap instead of the goo even on the days I was using the cart razor. I also second the mention of a good balm and will add that for my skin the witch hazel is where I get the feedback about technique. I think for me an alum block might dry my face out like a piece of beef jerky. :bayrum2:
 
Second shave in the books on Friday, will be shaving again Monday evening. Still alive!

Time: 42 Minutes
Passes: WTG, XTG, ATG
Actual Cuts: None!
Weepers: None!
Irritation: Yep!
Missed Spots: Yep!
Continue DE Shaving: YES

Allergies suck. This comes into play later.

Prep was the same as my first shave. I felt a bit less jittery this time. My lather frankly sucked. I believe that I didn't load enough soap. Instead of stopping and loading more, I attempted to power through. Mistake.

Lathered up. Lather is little thin, I think. Set my brush down and take a deep breath. First pass WTG was much better than my first shave. I puffed my cheeks a little bit to get the area that I was having trouble with the first time. Things went a bit faster this time, mostly due to having a little bit better of an understanding of where to start with my angle.

Rinse off, lather for my second pass. This lather is starting to get really thin. Finding my starting angle is still a little tricky here. Continue to chant No Pressure. Finish this XTG pass up and rinse.

Lather up. Well, this is really thin lather. It also feels somehow a bit...dry? I'll add a little water. Was that too much water? I'll find out! ATG pass begins. Finding this angle seemed way easier this time. Right cheek goes fine. Start the right side of my mustache area. TO THE PAIN. I didn't cut myself. I have, however, been blowing my nose constantly for days thanks to cedar. Ooooh, this is tender all under my nose. I squint through this part of the shave. Right side of my neck goes fine.

All of the lather on the left side of my face looks like paste. It has completely dried between application and shaving the right side. I add a little more water. I can now clearly see my skin through this. But I'm almost done and clearly stubborn. Finish my left cheek, left side of the PAINmustache area, neck.

Rinse my face, squeeze the remaining soap from my brush to touch up. Hey, I got all of my misses from last time, because I thought about them when I started this shave. Huzzah!

Missed spots after this shave were a strip on my right jawline, and a chunk of the outer edge of my left sideburn area.

Things I learned this time: Make sure that you have as much or more soap lathered than you will need. If you effed up your lather, stop and correct that instead of trying to just finish. Make sure you're prepared for some discomfort if you have already-angry skin.

Question: If I am shaving and my stroke is not removing all of the lather from my face, but is cutting hair, does that mean I'm not using...*enough* pressure? I'm really trying to let the razor's weight do the work. When I'm shaving, though, I'm not taking all of the lather on any stroke. It doesn't look like any of the videos I've watched.
 
Question: If I am shaving and my stroke is not removing all of the lather from my face, but is cutting hair, does that mean I'm not using...*enough* pressure? I'm really trying to let the razor's weight do the work. When I'm shaving, though, I'm not taking all of the lather on any stroke. It doesn't look like any of the videos I've watched.

If its cutting the hair then your pressure is fine.

When i started DE shaving years ago i remember it being a bit of a learning curve, however after a while it'll just click and seem like second nature.

People always say use no pressure, which is good advice, however i use a light bit of pressure now and then, especially with less aggressive razors.

Your skin will adjust in time, not shaving daily at the start is also good advice, i'd say every 2 days is plenty until you get used to it.

Often the brand of blade you use will make miles of difference, i prefer sharper blades like a feather myself, paired with less aggressive razors like a merkur.

I find i get the least irritation by not washing my face before a shave, instead i just rub the whiskers with plenty of hot water in a shower. Also, i go for a good lather for the first pass, but for the following usually i just paint on whatever's in the brush, slickness is key over cushioning imo.
 

AimlessWanderer

Remember to forget me!
Question: If I am shaving and my stroke is not removing all of the lather from my face, but is cutting hair, does that mean I'm not using...*enough* pressure? I'm really trying to let the razor's weight do the work. When I'm shaving, though, I'm not taking all of the lather on any stroke. It doesn't look like any of the videos I've watched.

It was your second shave ;) Things will change over time.

It may be that your angle isn't quite right. When I first started, I vaguely remember thinking I had to apply pressure too. It took me quite a while to figure out that I just needed better angle control. If the handle is too high, the blade will lift off your skin, if the handle is too low, the blade will still lift.

Don't worry about the occasional missed spot, just keep a light touch to minimise that irritation. The lather will improve with practice too, and in time it will become clear what mix (wetter or richer) your skin prefers, both in terms of during and after the shave.
 
If I am shaving and my stroke is not removing all of the lather from my face, but is cutting hair, does that mean I'm not using...
The neutral angle should remove the lather so check the angle. Some areas need an extra pass so consider an XTG pass in those areas; gradual reduction is the key phrase here. Under the nose can be very sensitive so consider a double XTG pass there. It gets easier as your technique improves and you get more confident. No cuts, nicks and weepers is a good sign.
 
Third shave in the books. Not dead!

Time: 35 Minutes
Passes: WTG, XTG, ATG
Actual Cuts: None!
Weepers: None!
Irritation: No!
Missed Spots: Yep!
Continue DE Shaving: YES

Third shave is done, and it is my best one of the three. Three days of growth, third shave on the Personna. I made sure that I took my time with loading and lathering. This was my best lather yet, and had the right amount for three passes and a cleanup.

First pass WTG went faster again, and under my cheekbones is becoming easier. I've continued with the puffing my cheek a little to flatten out my face. I tried slightly smaller strokes this time, and that seemed to actually speed things up. It also resulted in me taking almost all lather with the stroke, though that could also be attributed to using a better angle. I was missing less. In fact, I didn't have any WTG spots noticed in my cleanup pass.

XTG pass was also easier with shorter length strokes. I think I'm going to continue with this. I'm not blade buffing, but I'm not trying to do the entire length of my cheek in one stroke.

ATG pass had some misses on my neck, but was much better at my jawline this time. I felt them in my cleanup pass, they were small. But, my neck is also the first place I get irritation. I decided I was happy without another ATG pass on my neck and rinsed up.

It feels good to be making progress!
 
Top Bottom