First Impressions of Straight Razor Shaving
A couple of weeks ago i purchased a Dovo Best Quality 6/8 straight razor from straightrazordesigns.com and a strop from ruprazor.com.The razor includes a free honing from straight razor designs which is pretty sweet. The strop has some finishing paste on it to help keep the edge sharp which should help stretch the time between honings after i get my stropping technique down. The razor ran me about $85 bucks and the strop was about $20. This is probably the best newbie setup you can get. The razor is pretty cheap, relatively speaking, but it still good quality. The razor doesn’t have all of the bells and whistles of a fancy razor, but can still be a good shaver. I got a filly strop because it was cheap. Everyone advises against getting an expensive strop because you will invariably cut and nick it as you’re learning stropping technique.
My first shave was much worse than i was expecting. I only shaved the large flat area where my side burns were. The razor seemed to really pull against my face like i was using a two month old disposable razor. Definitely not fun. Shaving left handed feels pretty awkward, but that is what all of the shaving geeks recommend so that is what i tried. I didn’t cut myself and i finished up with my DE. All in all, i ended up with a pretty decent shave.
My second shave was about as bad as the first, but i also sliced myself pretty good. In a way, it was nice to get it out of the way so i know what to expect. It stung like a paper-cut and left a thin red line on my face. The lesson learned here is that you should not move the razor parallel to your face in a slicing motion or else you will slice your face. duh. I shaved more of my face this time too. I expanded to do my entire cheekl. I did the left side of my face left handed.
My third shave was significantly better than the previous two. I spent a good amount of time stropping my razor before i shaved which made a big difference. I stroked the razor with confidence over my face as i shaved my cheeks and my neck. I used my DE for my goate area. All in all a good shave, but still very subpar compared to my DE shaves.
My fourth shave was a massacre. I didn’t strop the razor enough so that was going against me. I proceeded to shave fairly quickly (recklessly). I probably shaved a little too quickly because i ended up with 3 cuts on the left side of my face and 1 cut on the right side. Even with all of the blood, the end result was a pretty decent shave. Lesson learned: take your time. Razors are sharp. duh.
My fifth shave was much more conservative than shave #4. It wasn’t a great shave, but it wasn’t a blood bath either.
Even with my very limited experience, i can see how the final results of a straight razor shave can be better than a DE. I have only been doing three NS passes and i can get a smoother face than three NS passes with a DE. The grain is still noticeable when i rub my face XTG, but it seems smoother than i would expect by shaving only NS.
I have seen some pretty good improvement in five shaves and i figure it will take me about a year to get really good at it. I am not going to try to analyze the shave to death until i get at least 10 more shaves in. I think i had too high of expectations about how good i would be at shaving with a straight. It isn’t easy.
March 26, 2010
Posted in: Wetshaving
2 Responses
Interesting. Kind of scary. What does NS mean? Hang in there. Practice makes perfect, right? I’m intrigued and look forward to your next report.
@John
NS is a North to South Pass.
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