Literally just did my first shave - Thoughts

[Paxaddict]

Well, I took the advice of practically everyone and didn't shave my whole face to start. Started with my left have (dominant side) and shaved my cheek. Was going well, so I took it all the way down to the side of my chin. No nicks, no cuts. So I swapped sides. Did my right side as well (I play guitar, pool, do lots of crafts with my hands, so I'm pretty comfortable working with my right) and didn't have any problems there either. Took it down to my chin. Then I realized I wasn't happy with how close the shave was, so I surprised us all, lathered back up, and did another pass against the grain. Varying speeds, slightly varying angles, trying to get a good feel. Once I was done with the areas I was comfortable tackling with a straight, I swapped back to my cartridge and proceeded to finish up the neck, chin, 'stache area. Realized I -did- nick myself with the straight going against the grain with my right hand. Just enough to bleed a bit, but not feel it.

My thoughts?
Definitely going to take more time, and I need to allow for it in the mornings (And I did, or I wouldn't be on B&B)
Not as immediate and apparent of a difference as I expected. Even after a second pass it wasn't "Baby's butt" smooth. Were my expectations too high, or will it come with practice?
I can definitely see the importance of different weight and size razors.
It wasn't as difficult as I had prepared myself for. I expected a cut the first time I touched the blade to my face. Had I just paid heed to the words of my elders on this matter and was prepared for my first shave?
I probably should wait for my strop to ship before my next shave.
I definitely need to practice lather techniques.

Okay, question about lather and I'll head to work. So I've been using a bar and brush for years with my cartridge razor, and my instinct was to lather on the bar and paint it on my face, which was a lot of work, and didn't get it nice and deep in my facial hair. Today I tried the - apply a little soap on the brush lightly, and lather it on the face. The suggestion I had in doing this was to leave the majority of the water on the brush, which left me with a very thin (but still usable) lather. I like nice thick lathers. The kind that looks like it should be made of marshmellows. When I try next time, do you think using less water will achieve what I'm looking for? Or is that the nature of face lather, aside from soap lather?

Thanks, guys! Looking forward to a second shave.

 

[the_edski]

Glad to hear the shave went well! As for the lather, use more product. It never hurts, you can always add more water to make the lather the consistency you want. Also, you might want to try bowl lathering so you can see the lather better and get practice mixing it to how you want it.

 

[Mike H]

Congrats on the shave. I like loading with a slightly drier brush and dip the tips in water to add as needed.

 

[Coler]

Congrats on a good shave

Even after a second pass it wasn't "Baby's butt" smooth. Were my expectations too high, or will it come with practice?

I would suggest practice, practice practice. I base this on reports of members who achieve that smoothness with their straight where I do not. I am about 15 shaves in with the straight but an experienced wet shaver generally, and can now get to BBS on my sideburn, extended sideburn, cheeks and chin areas, but not really below the jawline. I don't try for it on my moustache.

Also important is that your straight razor is properly shave ready, and is correctly stropped before and in between shaves.

You might also consider making a pass across the grain after your first pass before going against the grain.

Today I tried the - apply a little soap on the brush lightly, and lather it on the face.

Well, a lot is determined by the products you're using and then of course your processes and technique. I would suggest that you satisfy yourself that you're using a decent soap in the first place. That being so, I find with soaps that it is easier to load the brush with brush that has been soaked in hot water and then let drip dry, and if necessary squeezing/flicking it out a bit so that it is more damp than it is wet.

I also found with experience that I needed to load more product than I believed necessary at first.

What I generally do, which works for me with soaps, is :-

- Drop some water on the soap puck.

- Let my brush soak in hot water.

- Set up any of my other prep that I can/want to.

- Shower myself

- take my brush out and let it drip dry (with soaps I use a boar brush and let it dry to the point where water no longer drains from it when held upside down by the handle. I 'half-squeeze' or flick it out as necessary)

- tip out any surface water from the soap puck (I put this into my scuttle - its only a small spoon full or less).

- load the brush for about 60 seconds by just firmly twirling it around the puck, pushing down a little, basically trying to get a good feed of soap into it so that the visible tips of the bristles appear to cling to each other in clumps.

- I then proceed to lather in a scuttle, adding drops of water as necessary. You can just go straight to your face though and you'll find a dryish lather beginning to form. When you've worked this around your face, you would dip just the tips of your brush into your water and continue lathering on your face. You should find a nice thick lather building on your face and in your brush at this point if you have enough product on board the brush and enough water. There's nothing wrong with going back to the puck for more, and you should dip the tips in the water again as necessary to continue to build the lather properly.

Trial and error, basically, and different soaps react differently, as does your individual face, brush, technique.

I hope you continue to enjoy your shaves.

You might also enjoy reading around on different brush options, and if you're having trouble with a particular named soap there's usually some threads which contain specific advice that should also help too.

Finally here's a thread which I found to be lots of help regarding building a good lather from soap:

http://badgerandblade.com/vb/showthread.php/21136

 

[Wingnut]

Welcome to B&B!

There's lots of good advice here. Many new shavers are surprised at how dry a brush is actually needed to pick up the correct amount of soap from a puck. You can always add more water, but subtracting it is VERY hard to do!

Good luck with your experiments, and remember that there's nothing wrong with starting over if you're not getting the desired results. Enjoy those shaves--they're only going to get better and better!

 

[mac4x100]

Best of luck to you and welcome to the joy/hobby/addiction/etc of wet shaving. Have fun experimenting with different lathers. I'm a wet slick lather kind of guy. I'll add this and someone shared this with me when I started.

Don't worry about 'not' getting BBS (Baby Butt Soft) every time. Having BBS for a few hours isn't worth the higher probability of irritation. Good luck again. You'll do great and welcome again!

 

[Paxaddict]

Thanks for the kind words, guys. Just to give a little light on what I'm working with, I've got a 5/8th that I picked up off the forums. It was shave ready. Waiting on my strop before I do another shave, and with luck it'll come today. I'm using tabac, for the first time. I used to use a cruddy department store boar brush, but That went in the garbage yesterday when my badger and horse hair brushes showed up in the mail.

I think I just had too much water for the lather this morning. I usedthe drip dry method, but it was very wet. I'll try to lay off tomorrow and add more as needed. I've got a Dubl duck goldenedge on the way, as well. So That Should be fun. Looking forward to trying these different razors. I think Hart is right up my alley as well.

Anyways. Assuming I get a strop today, I'll give you guys an update tomorrow. We'll see if I can manage to mangle my face yet

 

[celestino]

Congrats on the shave. I like loading with a slightly drier brush and dip the tips in water to add as needed.

+1 Welcome to the forum! You don't need such a thick lather as a thinner one works just as well.

 

[Paxaddict]

Had a much better experience today with my lather. Squeezed the brush a little to get some more water out of it this morning, and it was perfect. Lathered up on my face the same way as last time, and got tons.

Even though my strop didn't show up yesterday, I decided to try a pass with my straight. It's amazing how you can feel the difference after just one day. With the grain, dominant hand wasn't too bad, did my cheek, down to my jaw line and chin, switched to off hand and it wasn't happening. Pulling way too much, so I put in my last cartridge, and finished the old way. Incidentally, now that I can a/b it, One pass with the straight is almost exactly one pass with a cartridge for me, in terms of closeness. So going a second, or third pass I can see would definitely get me baby butt smooth. Also, after yesterday's doing a second pass, throughout the day I did find spots of my cheeks were smooth most of the day, where most of was between smooth, and what I usually get out of cartridge. So still a vast improvement.

Gotta get that strop today, or I'll have to actually put the razor down.

 

[Paxaddict]

Just hit my email, looking for an answer. It shipped -yesterday- and expected delivery is -friday-

What am I going to do?

 

[Graybeard57]

Congratulations on a fine start. As others have said: practice, practice, practice.

Thank you for your service.

Enjoy your shaves!

 

[SteveWY]

Welcome! You are off and running! Ditto on all said above. Chill out on BBS as your goal. That will come on its on when you get everything else in line. Truly, my measure now is a consistently close, comfortable shave. Your technique and lathering will just get better with time and practice. It's a great journey! Enjoy the ride!

 

[theretroshave]

Welcome! You are off and running! Ditto on all said above. Chill out on BBS as your goal. That will come on its on when you get everything else in line. Truly, my measure now is a consistently close, comfortable shave. Your technique and lathering will just get better with time and practice. It's a great journey! Enjoy the ride!

+1 Well said! Don't worry too much about BBS. Just focus on technique for now. Welcome! Stick with it, and good luck!

 

[Beerhunter]

Congrats and enjoy the shave.

 

[Paxaddict]

Well, a few updates now. Got my Dubl Duck gold edge. I can't discern and significant values of one razor over the other yet, so I'm just swapping days. Normally I have to wake up at about 5am to shave and get to work on time, so I haven't taken the time to do a full face shave until today. Took a shower, made sure to massage prep the areas involved, got a nice lather going, stropped up and got to shaving.

I did 3 passes + touchups.

notes: I'm terrible as shaving my chin. The upper lip isn't so bad, but after four passes, feels like my cheeks do after two. Just need some practice at both, I think. I just couldn't get a good run on my chin. Kept trying to snag up, which hasn't been a problem at all prior to doing my chin. I did manage to walk away with a couple minor nicks today. Mostly from approaching my upper lip from different directions, but I'm not one to get discouraged from things like that.

Overall, a good experience. Unfortunately I couldn't go to work with my chin like this, so I definitely need to practice. But I'm coming along. Plus my cheeks are at the point where 3 passes and they're smooth. Baby butt smooth in patches, but overall a hell of a lot closer than I'm used to.

Positive!

 

[Paxaddict]

Whew. Well I'm about a week in, and have been getting noticeably better with each shave, but this morning, I went and cut the hell out of my face.
It was my first time using an actual high quality strop, so I don't know if it was just sharper than I'm used to? All I know is I was doing alright, made an almost entire pass WTG, got to my upper lip on my dominant side and sliced deep. I took a step back, dabbed it up, kept calm, and tried again. Cut myself about a millimeter ahead of the first cut. I cut myself twice, in quick succession, in almost the exact same place. So I stopped, put down my razor, picked my cartridge razor back up, and did a second pass with that.

Luckily I'm not easily discouraged, because gods did that hurt. I hadn't done anything different from any other time, so I don't know what happened, but I have to say. One pass with a straight and one pass with a cartridge was BBS. Closest shave in my entire life. So there's that. Also, it was my first time trying out the Co9T, and man I think I picked the wrong day to try out that AS.

 

[global_dev]

Can't get frustrated... Nice job... Sometimes ..it happens but a couple more go's and it'll start to fit together.

 

[chilliman64]

gday Pax - my advice (which is no different to everyone elses's) is to take your time when wetshaving - lather up well and make sure you use no pressure at all. cartridge/electric shaving teaches us many bad habits we must unlearn. take your time and be prepared to take 2-3 passes to get your face smooth, if you try to do it in one go you'll rip yourself up and be very sore afterwards.

if you have a bad shave try to figure out why then try something a little different next time.

welcome to B&B!

 

[Paxaddict]

Yeah, I usually do 3 passes with the straight, and most times without nicking myself. Don't know what happened today, but it wasn't good. Here's to hoping tomorrow's a brighter day!

 

[Kentos]

Great job!

Moving this to the straight forums