I took the plunge into straight razor shaving about three weeks ago and I thought I should post my thoughts/experience.
Man, is the learning curve steep. It took almost three weeks to get to a point where I can consistently get respectable shaves. Respectable, mind you. Still no DFS let alone a BBS that I can get with a DE. Still, the shaves are slowly getting better and I can shave faster as well. When I started, it took an hour to do two passes. Now I can do three passes in 40 minutes.
My biggest problems where stropping and shaving ATG. With stropping I had the problem of pressing too hard on the strop and lifting the razor while turning. For ATG shaving, my blade angle often was not steep enough leading to cuts.
I plan to continue straight razor for at least the next couple of weeks. I hope to have a freshly honed razor next week and I would like to see if that improves my shaves (I have a feeling that my poor stropping technique has dulled my razors somewhat). My conclusion right now is that I will probably not go down the road of shaving exclusively with a straight, but will probably rotate shaving with straights and DE.
Man, is the learning curve steep. It took almost three weeks to get to a point where I can consistently get respectable shaves. Respectable, mind you. Still no DFS let alone a BBS that I can get with a DE. Still, the shaves are slowly getting better and I can shave faster as well. When I started, it took an hour to do two passes. Now I can do three passes in 40 minutes.
My biggest problems where stropping and shaving ATG. With stropping I had the problem of pressing too hard on the strop and lifting the razor while turning. For ATG shaving, my blade angle often was not steep enough leading to cuts.
I plan to continue straight razor for at least the next couple of weeks. I hope to have a freshly honed razor next week and I would like to see if that improves my shaves (I have a feeling that my poor stropping technique has dulled my razors somewhat). My conclusion right now is that I will probably not go down the road of shaving exclusively with a straight, but will probably rotate shaving with straights and DE.
