TonyJoe's Shave Journal

[TonyJoe]

Well, I won a straight in a PIF from inspiringK. After negotiating the nooks and crannies of the Canadian and US postal services and US Customs, it finally arrived yesterday. One Costa & Sons straight, a slightly beat up Poor Man's strop and a bottle of green Aqua Velva Original Sport (plus some lapping film and a few other goodies).

So today I had my first shave. It wasn't great, but it wasn't bad either. My particular situation is this: I have a short beard so I only shave my neck. The grain of my whiskers on my neck is south to north on the lower part of my neck gradually curving over to left to right at the top of my adam's apple. So going WTG, XTG, and ATG is always a bit of a compromise.

I started with a couple of light passes going south to north - mostly WTG. I usually like to go S to N about half way up and then go L to R at the top of my neck. I just couldn't find a good way to go across with the straight. Anyway, I came to realize that my lather was probably too dry for shaving with a straight, so I made it a little wetter and tried one more pass, this time N to S. The wetter lather seemed to help. After that I could still feel a fair amount of stubble and decided to do a pass with my Old type even though I could feel some razor burn starting to set in. I just hadn't gotten enough whiskers whacked for my taste. Maybe my blade angle was a little shallow. All in all I got a decent shave in terms of closeness, but also had some razor burn. No blood though! I think I'll skip shaving tomorrow to let my skin heal a bit before I try again.

The stropping seems trickier than the shaving. I was erring on the gentle side, not wanting to screw up the blade after the very first shave. I'm not even sure the edge was making much contact with the strop as I went. We'll see how it goes next time.

So I need wetter lather and maybe I'll try adjusting my blade angle.

P.S. The green AV smells nice!

 

[KindestCutofAll]

Don't rush, just take your time. If you haven't drawn blood your angle is probably not off much.

Just don't giving too much pressure. Let the blade do the work. That is the trickiest area with a straight anyway. A little patience goes a long way.

 

[TonyJoe]

Thanks for the encouragement KindestCutofAll. I'm definitely trying to go with a light touch. Spending about 6 weeks with a GEM 1912 and Open Comb Micromatic was good practice for this.

I had an improved shave today. Better lather and better stropping. The Art of Shaving may charge too much for their soap, but at least it really is an excellent product. I was able to get a very wet but stable lather. I found that after applying it, working the lather into my skin a little with wet fingers made it nice and slick for the razor. With stropping, I'm starting to get the hang of starting the flip before I change directions. There's a video on YouTube that thesuperiorshave posted about stropping. He mentions thinking of the edge as moving in a figure-eight and that really helped me.

For the shave, there wasn't nearly as much tugging this time - I think I was going with a little more shallow angle. I wound up doing 3 passes on two days of growth: two S to N, and one kinda N to S. I also made a few swipes angling sort of across my neck in a somewhat ATG direction and I actually managed nearly BBS on the left side of my neck! Not a whole lot of irritation over all, just a little bit of burning from the alum and AS splash.

I did manage to draw some blood - from my fingers! One was just a little nick as I switched hands, but the other one the razor really chomped down on my index finger as I was trying to find a good approach for going across my neck. I had to stop and get out a band-aid. If anyone's got some tips for going in any kind of a cross-wise direction on the neck I'd love to hear them!

 

[inspiringK]

Ha, sounds like you are off to a good start. Yes, it's funny how while you are really careful around your face, it's easy to end up nicking your fingers as you handle the razor.

Learning how to get great lather becomes important really quickly, I ended up sticking to one product that works well for me with the straight. Come to think of it, since using QCS for a straight shave a few months ago, I have exclusively used that product for every straight shave thereafter.

As far as the neck goes. I doubt my strategy works well for everyone, but what ended up giving me the closest shave and the least irritation is a three pass shave going almost ATG, almost ATG, then ATG. Going WTG or even perfectly XTG seems to shave little hair for me and actually causes a lot of irritation. On my cheeks I often use a blade angle that nears 90*, but same as you I use a shallow angle on the neck (near to flat).

Good luck moving forward

 

[TonyJoe]

90?!?! Wow. I guess as I trim along the bottom of my beard I get pretty steep too.

Had a decent shave today. The S to N and N to S passes are getting less awkward. I'm still a bit stumped on getting a good pass across my neck. I can't get a very close shave without some sort of across-the-neck stroke because a lot of the whiskers grow left to right. I've gotten a very unsteady and awkward pass in a direction that is sort of across, but it's really tricky. I guess for now I'll concentrate on getting more familiar with using the blade with my first two passes and wait a bit on trying anything more daring.

Here's the shave: TGN 22mm Super Silvertip, Mike's Barbershop, Costa & Sons 5/8, Whipped Dog Poorman's strop, alum, Sah Zefros AS sample from Garry's (real nice scent BTW). 40 laps on the strop after face lathering. Not a super close shave, but I definitely look clean shaven. I'd say SAS-DFS. No blood extracted. I had some irritation and sting from the alum and AS but it subsided reasonably well. Skin feels like it was shaved, but not in major distress. Sundays have become a customary day off from shaving for me and tomorrow will be no different.

 

[TonyJoe]

Well, today I had a bit of a learning experience. I need to be more carefully about my pressure. I got a little overly aggressive and gave myself some razor burn. I also strayed from my plan of sticking to easy S to N and N to S passes. I just couldn't keep from trying to get all those whiskers. I did find towards the end of the shave that I could use a little bit of a slicing motion. If my skin is OK tomorrow, I might see if this can help me get closer with fewer passes.

Shave: Palmolive stick, Ever Ready 100T, Costa & Sons 5/8, alum, Aqua Velva Original Sport.

 

[TonyJoe]

Been busy the last few days and the shaves have been pretty mediocre. WTG works ok, but anything else tugs pretty good. Sometimes I think my skin stretching lacks. I'm trying to get better about that. I think my stropping is OK. All the tugging has added up to some irritation accumulating and my skin is looking a little beat up. I'm going to hang with this for a while, but I'm getting a little frustrated with my results.

 

[inspiringK]

Yeah, there are some tough shaves at first, though, they sort of magically start becoming better time after time.

If you get to the point where you no longer looking forward to reaching for the solid steel, put the razor away
for a while. Odds are that you will grow a sudden urge to reach for it again after some time off....

 

[TonyJoe]

Yeah, there are some tough shaves at first, though, they sort of magically start becoming better time after time.

If you get to the point where you no longer looking forward to reaching for the solid steel, put the razor away
for a while. Odds are that you will grow a sudden urge to reach for it again after some time off....

I'm currently waiting for a new Poor Man's strop from Whipped Dog. It seems like the ease of shave is declining with this razor and I don't feel confident enough to really go at the stropping on the one I have now with all the nicks and flaps sticking up. Plus I wanted the balsa strop anyway. In the meantime I'm going through some of my less used safety razors and taking them for a spin to see which ones I'm going to sell to raise funds for a real nice strop. So yes, I am taking a little time off. But I'm determined to master the straight!

 

[TonyJoe]

I spent a little over a week with my DEs while waiting to receive a Whipped Dog Poor Man's Strop Kit. It showed up Friday and I freshened up the edge on my razor last night. It popped hairs quite nicely after hitting the CrOx, FeOx, and stropping. It definitely was having trouble before, so I went to bed feeling good about trying another shave with it in the morning. The shave was much better than the last few. I paid better attention to skin stretching and a properly sharp blade cut noticeably easier. I still had some irritation so I'll have to be more careful with pressure. I think I can finally see how to go across on my neck. I found I could take a stroke that was a good 15º-20º slanted from perpendicular to the edge. Not really a scything type motion but more like a slant bar or guillotine:
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I'm sure this is old hat to the experienced folks out there, but it was a nice little break-through for me. I'm definitely feeling more enthused again. Although the shave wasn't perfect, parts or my skin feel very smooth and stubble free. Things are moving in a good direction.