Yet another first shave.

I picked up some cheap starter razors and went for a first spin today.

The verdict: no blood, no decapitation, but a so-so, not so close shave. Problem areas I am gonna have to work on:

1. Left hand shaving. Geez, I can swipe a DE over the left side of my neck with my left hand, no problem. Why is it so hard to figure out how to hold a straight with your non-dominant hand? Looking in the mirror I couldn't even figure out how to place the blade against my skin. Shaved the left side of my face right-handed, which is apparently a faux pas from everything I read. Gonna have to figure out how to use my left hand.

2. The chin and mustache area. My chin has always been a problem area for me and, as expected, it is with a straight as well. Gonna have to really work on figuring out the angles on the chin. Managed to get quite a bit of irritation on my chin, which is nothing new, unfortunately.

3. WTG neck shaving. My neck hair runs horizontally on either side of my adam's apple towards either ear. I managed to do kind of a slanted pass down either side of my neck but it was really more up-down than side-side. I have a feeling I'll be seeing ingrowns, but time will tell.

4. Stropping. I've watched the videos, read the FAQs, and still I am scared to death I am gonna wreck my edges with crappy stropping. I am going too slow which I understand is useless for the razor, but right now it is the only speed I can go as I try to figure out how to strop. I think I probably need to sacrifice the edge on one of my starter razors and just go for it, stop worrying about it.


In sum, it was fun, can't wait to tackle it again. There is a definite learning curve with this, and I am at the very bottom. But if things don't get much worse than shave No. 1 it will be an enjoyable learning experience.

Congrats! It definitely gets better if you stick with it.

Congrats that #1 is down....I'm only 12 in front of you so take what I say with a grain of salt. But as someone going through this with you I can attest that:

1) This will get better with time. You sound like you're like me....VERY right handed. As time (and shaves) have gone on, I've become better at being a temp Southpaw and using my left hand.

2) Angles on the chin may be the biggest art with a str8 shave. With a DE, your angles are sort of determined for you....at the very least aided by the safety bar, handle etc. With a str8 you control the angles all the time and on the chin, you need to constantly adjust your angle til you get to your neck. VERY tricky. I'm hit or miss here.

3) My hair runs similar to yours on the neck. At first, I thought it was a lost cause with a str8. All the videos show the gifted people shaving who's hair runs straight up or down. For guys like us, you either have to start out XTG on the neck or run some kind of funky chevron. I usually go XTG up to the jawline first....then down on the second pass. Third pass is a chevron.

4) I would suggest you speed up a tad...you wont hurt the blade that much and I've seen advice on here that says if you do screw it up, a serious set of good linen/leather will fix whatever you messed up.

Good luck and keep posting!