Reevers Straight Razor Shave Journal

[Reevers]

Hi guys,

After taking part in "Straight Razor May SRM" armed with a Parker Shavette in an effort to enhance my experience with wet shaving, I found myself enjoying the challenge and relishing the joys of clean shaves with a straight edge. I had planned to purchase a straight razor for SRM but it didn't work out, so I steamed ahead into SRM with my shavette instead.

Throughout SRM I found the shavette... to be honest... quite brutal! Through the month, I chased closer shave after closer shave, quite often forsaking my comfort, the ride turned out to be quite bumpy to say the least. I've resumed DE shaving since the end of May and my face and I are now friends again. I am determined that I will master shaving with straight edge, so in my usual reckless, both feet first manner, I order a 6/8 Dovo Bismarck with palisander scales from Superior Shave. I've convinced myself that the money I've "invested" will be an incentive to keep motivated on straight razor shaving.

When I came home from work yesterday there was a letter from the Duty and Customs office to explain that they were holding my parcel and I would need to come and collect (and pay some VAT). Finishing work early today I stopped by the Zollamt and so the journey begins...

 

[Reevers]

Shave #1 with Straight Razor:

From my humble perspective, a fantastic start!!! OK, lets get the good bits out of the way - it was comfortable, for the most part (see below), I haven't cut myself and I have a SAS finish!

Now to the bad parts: you experienced guys who help us noobs out probably hear this a million times... upper lip and chin. How the hell do you do it??? Shaving my moustache area on the first pass brought tears to my eyes, not due to the brutal sharpness of the shavette, it felt more like it was pulling on the hairs. For my chin I had to give up on the 5th pass/touch up, I'd possibly still be there now trying to get a DFS on this area.

Help needed guys, I tried stretching my chin skin and pulling faces until I was worried that I'd end up looking like Jackie Stallone! I suspect bad angle or maybe not a sharp enough edge might be to blame for the pulling of the moustache whiskers, any thoughts?



Simpson X3 Best,
Cella,
Bowl lathering,
Dovo Bismarck Palisander,
WTG, ATG, XTG,
Thayers WH
GFT Skin Food

SAS - no weepers, cuts or burn

 

[Attila]

Congrats on taking the first step! Straight razer shaving takes time to really learn. The good news is that it keeps getting better! As to your experience. If you bought your razer from The Superior Shave, it would have been properly shave ready courtesy of the owner Jarrod. Your issue is likely bad angle and too much pressure. Take the time to watch some good instructional videos on YouTube and concentrate on keeping a REALLY shallow angle. Like 15 or 20 degrees. AGT the spine should be almost flat against your face, though it would be better to wait with the AGT for a while. Read up all you can, lots of good info here and keep us posted! Like I already said...it gets better!

 

[Reevers]

Shave #2 with Straight Razor:

I knew I'd push it too hard, I just didn't think it'd be this early!!! So, I have an important meeting tomorrow and last night SAS grew out pretty fast. Needed a shave again tonight I did the typical foolish thing of reaching for my straight. FYI I'm a 36 hour between shave kinda guy so this follow up shave hadn't give my face chance to recover anyway so I should have left the SR and gone with the DE.

After pass 2 (ATG) I had to finish with my Feather AS-D1, I needed minimum DFS with no irritation for tomorrow's meeting, both of which I was worried I wouldn't get with the Dovo straight.

From the first two passes all seemed to be going ok, although I'm not getting nearly enough beard reduction as I do after the first two passes with a DE.



Semogue 830,
GFT Coconut Cream,
Bowl lathering,
Dovo Bismarck Palisander,
WTG, ATG,
Thayers WH
GFT Skin Food

Played it safe and didn't finish the shave but it felt like a SAS

 

[Reevers]

Forgot to to say thanks Attila for the words. Shaving my upper lip was better today after I got serious about manhandling my nose out of the way for the WTG pass. The blade still isn't gliding like it does with a DE though.

Thanks again!

 

[Bird_Flu]

Sounds like you're off to a wonderful start! I have a goatee so I can't offer lip and chin pointers but I can offer words of encouragement. Keep it up I'll be subscribing to your journal and helping when I can. Sounds like you got some of your technique down using the parker shavette during SRM so your transition to straights should be easier.

 

[Reevers]

Hi Jeff, yes SRM was a good bit of immersion therapy & the straight is certainly more forgiving, but I remember the early days of DE shaving when I thought I'd nailed my technique, only to find I was still on the learning curve (I'm still learning now). I'm certain SR shaving will keep me on my toes for quite some time to come! Thanks for the subscription, I've noticed your journal too, I'll take a bit of time to read that soon!

Thanks again!

 

[seanusa]

Lip and chin are all about angle and skin stretching IMO and it may take some time to figure out what works for you. Sounds like yer off to a great start. I'm going to subscribe to your thread and watch your progress, see ya round

 

[Reevers]

Shave #3 with a Straight Razor:

Slow and steady wins the race!!! After the last shave not finishing very well, I was determined to get another good shave under the belt. I had read a thread in Straight Razor Clinic discussing blade angles and scraping vs cutting and there was an interesting comment about having the spine of your SR about its own width away from your face. I kept this in my head and really had to force myself to do this, so I guess on previous shaves I had unknowingly taken a bad angle. This would explain my serious discomfort through Straight Razor May!

With the blade angle in mind I proceeded with a fairly decent shave. No cuts or weepers, and no razor burn. I think I'm using some pretty non-orthadox grips but I'm really just trying to do what comes easiest to me. Upper lip seemed better when keeping the blade angle low, but my chin still required some serious attention!



Simpson X3 Best,
Gentleman's Tonic Babasu Cream,
Bowl lathering,
Dovo Bismarck Palisander,
WTG, ATG, XTG,
Thayers WH
GFT Skin Food

SAS -

 

[Bird_Flu]

No cuts, weepers or razor burn sounds like an awesome shave!! Keep up the practice, you're doing great!

 

[Reevers]

Hi Jeff, I'm definitely prioritizing comfort over closeness. My stubble returns after several hours, which the missus considers as a failed shave. I think she'd prefer that over cuts & rashes! ;-)

 

[Bird_Flu]

The closeness will come, comfort is key at this early stage.

 

[Reevers]

Shave #4 with a Straight Razor:

From HERO to ZERO!!! I think one or a combination of technique and lather let me down today. On the first stroke of the first pass I sliced my ear because I wasn't watching the blade tip, not a good start! And for some reason I revisited Michtell's Wool Fat after trying and failing to lather with it in the past. In the past it has always failed me, however I did whip up a respectable looking lather just for some "lather porn" pics on a lather picture thread a few weeks ago, so I honestly thought I would have been ok. As the shave went on the lather collapsed on both my face and in the bowl and the shave went from bad to worse. The only positive is that on the first pass I felt like I was getting better beard reduction with less irritation, however when I changed from the 1st WTG pass to XTG that's when things went south.

I'm officially giving up on MWF so I will PIF my puck to anyone in Europe who is interested... once I'm back from my trip in 2 weeks??? PM me! Sorry non-European based folks but I am one step away from throwing this in the bin so paying the post for European shipment is painful enough!

I won't post a pic of the SOTD, I'm off on holiday for 2 weeks so busy packing etc.

I won't be SR shaving for a few weeks while away so hopefully my face will have recovered!

Simpson X3 Best,
Mitchell's Wool Fat,
Bowl lathering,
Dovo Bismarck Palisander,
WTG, ATG, XTG,
Thayers WH


SAS - cut to right ear, razor burn rash on right side of neck and cheek, some weepers on the left side my chin!

 

[Attila]

Take heart, there are off days and good days. With practice your shaves will get better. Have a great holiday!! Remember, stretch the skin (even when you think you don't have to), watch your angle (no more than two spine widths away from your face) and don't use any pressure. As beginners, we tend to forget one or all of these. Having a good lather is also very important though. More water so that it isn't so foamy is also better. Personally, MWF never worked for me either or took too much work to make it into the kind of lather I found most protective. To each his own...

 

[global_dev]

It's always hard to diagnose issues over the net, but it does take a while to get the hang of it, but it sounds like you are doing okay. Personally I think chin is a great tester of edge sharpness and or technique. What are you doing to keep the edge maintained?

 

[Reevers]

I have a walking horse 3" canvas & leather strop, I chose this so I wouldn't have to master X patterns AND stroke pressure & strop tautness etc.

Thanks for the support, looking forward to getting back on the horse when I return!

 

[Shave_Rat]

Subscribing to the journal as well, looking forward to posts once your back.

Have a great holiday!

 

[temjeito]

Subscribed!

Sounds like you're progressing nicely. I love MWF, but obviously mileage varies... But definitely I would recommend you stick with a soap you can reliably lather for a while, as I have found lather makes a HUGE difference with straights, and that's one less variable to worry about.

I'm only about 25 shaves in, and I'm still not entirely satisfied with my chin, but I'm consistently getting great shaves on my upper lip, so I will attempt to figure out and explain how/why. YMMV.

For the upper lip, I use the toe of the razor and do short N-S strokes, usually with a bit of diagonal either towards or away from the middle. If I'm going toward the middle I use the same-side hand to hold the razor. If I'm going away from the middle I usually use the opposite hand. I use my free hand to smoosh the nose over to the other side. I stretch the skin by opening my mouth pretty wide and making kind of an "oooo" face, but down and over to the opposite side of where I'm shaving. This is really hard to describe, so I'm going to take a picture. Hang on...

Ok. So, I make that face. As my strokes bring me closer to the lip, I release the tension in my face and let the skin above the lip return to its usual curve, as the razor glides over it. Second pass, I use my free hand (usually the opposite hand) to stretch the skin, reaching over and around my head, pulling the skin from my cheekbone towards the ear. Then I do short E-W strokes (or W-E, depending on the side) working towards the middle. These strokes have a slight N-S diagonal, just like the first pass strokes have a slight side-side diagonal.

For cleanup I do two things: I press my nose back in a piggy-face kind of way and carefully do a few gentle N-S strokes from the base of my nose to the top of my lip, using the same stretchy-face-release method described above. Also, using the middle of the blade, I run the edge down the line between lip and skin in a n-s direction on each side, starting near the middle and ending at the corner of my mouth, again making the stretchy face and releasing as I glide the blade down, letting the skin come up to meet the blade. If I start this with sort of an "I have no upper teeth O-face", I finish with a kind of "Aaaaaa!!" face.

I think that's what I do, anyway. It's weird how the more I start thinking about it and trying to reenact it (without a razor) the more uncertain I become. I can't imagine that this makes any sense, but at least that photo is probably good for a laugh.

 

[Reevers]

Shave #5 with a Straight Razor

Holiday over, back to business!!! While away on holiday there was wifi at the hotel so while sunbathing poolside, in-between drinking gin and tonics and reading I went on the bay and bought a few razors! I know... alcohol + eBay doesn't mix but I'm MORE than happy with my buys. First up today was an Atkinson's Bros Sheffield razor, the razor was pitched as shave ready. And by god it is!

I enjoyed a 2 pass shave, I kept pressure under control and kept a keen eye on the spine distance from my face. I was really pleased with my attempt. Shave was acceptably smooth, although I felt like if I pushed for the 3rd pass I might have caused some damage.

Still failing miserably to get the stubborn whiskers lopped off from the underside of my chin. Even with the best technique I can muster at the moment, the blade still hops/skips over course hairs on this spot. Any more wise words regarding the blade skipping, chaps?

Thanks as always!



Simpson X3 Best,
Speick Shave Cream <- what a surprise this was, 2€ from my local supermarket!
Bowl Lather,
Atkinson's Bros SR,
WTG, XTG,
Thayers WH,
GFT Skin Food,

SAS

 

[Shave_Rat]

Love the shape of that blade! I'm also a fan of Speick, I just wish it was that cheap and easily found here... lol

Blade skipping... could be the lather is a bit too thick, or dry... not wet and slick enough. There is also the usual suspects of bad angles mixed with pressure, and general technique improvement. Short, confident strokes, no pressure, shallow angle, wet lather, good skin stretching. That's all it needs? lol