Arnoud's straight shaving journal

I had my first attempt this morning and it was OK, a good starting point.
Following the advice in SRP's beginners guide I planned to do just the right cheek, but it was so much fun I also did the left one. What a great feeling to be able to do something useful with my left hand!
I started on my chin, but while searching for a good blade position and grip, I made a slight sideways motion. That's when I decided it was enough for day one.
I finished my shave with my trusted 34C and all was well. The alum block did however point out clearly where I'd passed with the straight, applying no pressure is easier said than done.
Just a quick word on the stropping: I did a good 40 passes on my poor man strop from whippeddog.com, placed on the edge of the sink because I don't really have a good fixing point for a strop. It didn't bother me to work like this, I might just keep doing it.
My razor was a shapleigh 5/8th I bought from Drewmac at a stunning price, espescially since he got it shave ready for me.

Congrats on the first straight shave!

Sounds like you did alright despite the little accident

You can rub your fingers on the alum block to increase the friction and make the skin stretching easier, another good tip (that I didn't follow my self and took the consequences of) is to place the strop on a flat surface in the beginning until you start to get the hang of it.

Good luck on the further shaves

Congrats Arnold. You are starting off in the right direction, just doing the right side cheek, then the left. When I first started, I was on this forum daily. You will get a ton of good advice and help as you go along.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Thanks for the cheers guys.
I did my homework before diving in so I wouldn't quit prematurely because I'm doing it all wrong but I really have to restrain myself from rushing in and doing my neck ATG or something.
Rune, your stropping tip is actually what I'm doing, my sink has a wide edge, perfect for stropping. The poor man strop is also perfect for this since it's completely flat, without any accessories protruding from it.
Tomorrow I'll get at it again, this time before work, so I'll go easy and make sure I keep it bloodless.
Do check back for the inevitable 'darn it, I knew I should have taken it slow, but I got cocky' post.

Congrats. Stick with it and you'll enjoy it more and more!

Way to go! Sounds like you have a good take on the process (SLOW!). Keep it up!

Day two and straight shave number two. I specify this because I won't be shaving with a straight everyday, only when I can take the time for it and can do it without my two toddlers doing an impersonation of the apocalypse downstairs.
Despite all my good intentions, courage got the best of common sense this morning. I did a full pass with the straight, including the bits that give me headaches even with a DE, i.e. the chin and lower neck area. Now before you all start smirking and thinking back to your own overenthousiastic starting days, let me say that all went pretty well. No blood, no irritation, but still a lot of work to do.
The hardest part is figuring out how to hold the razor on the chin and neck. If I try to follow the grain, the razor -and espescially the handle- gets in the way all the time. I've tried switching hands, folding the handle in all possible directions, but I haven't found the right way yet. I ended up doing most bits kind of diagonally across the grain, which was a bit awkward and less comfortable than it should be.
So far, I've done the first pass with the straight, following up with a DE, and I'm wondering if it would be a good idea to do a light first pass with my DE and then pick up the straight. One problem I have now is that in the most densely grown areas (mainly the chin) the razor pulls and stops all the time, which is scary as hell. With the worst growth gone, I could practice handling the razor and gain confidence before digging into the thickest bushes.
As far as stretching the skin goes, I have some pretty prominent sideburns, so I start shaving half way on my cheek. I only seem to need to stretch my skin on the upper bit of my cheek, as I progress downward I just blow it out. It seems to work OK, I just hope I'm not teaching myself bad habits. I'm going to search for some more how-to video's and watch the blade handling and skin stretching more closely.
If anyone has suggestions for good video's, they're always welcome.
Yesterday I stropped before taking a shower, today I showered first and as I got ready for stropping I suddenly remembered a beginner's tip I read on SRP: don't shave naked. I use my strop flat on the side of the sink, approximately at the height of my hip. I quickly put on a pair of pants, just to be safe.

Good call on the pants! Keep it up.

Day three, shave three, fail one.
Well, not a complete fail, but still not a great experience. I started off by cutting myself at the first touch of the razor, not a good start. There was no blood, but I felt the cut and I saw a fine line when I checked in my rear view mirror later on.
The rest of the shave was OK, but I was struggling the whole time. I couldn't find a good position for the blade on my neck, the blade just seems too long to be able to go from my adam's apple to my ear, which is the direction my whiskers grow in places. I just can't stretch enough skin to accomodate the blade the way.
I also wasn't too sure about my lather, but Cella is usually very forgiving so I went ahead anyway. Sure enough, my lather was a bit dry and with all my struggling with blade position it just dried out terribly but I was too stubborn to do the right thing and relather. I still feel the consequences of that mistake, my face feels like I sanded it with 80 grit and looks like that in some areas.
While it's good to know what I did wrong, it's also frustrating because I should have known better. I guess you need to feel it before you believe it.
I think I'm going to take a break from the straight and give my face a bit of rest tomorrow. Now before you think I'm one those men who think it's OK not to shave on sunday, I mean I'm just going to have a gentle two pass DE shave.
Not shaving on sunday, the thought alone is giving me shivvers.

Arnold, I'm about the same place you are, just completed my third shave. I to pushed the envelope a bit and garnered a couple of "racing stripes" on my chin. Giving my face a rest today as well.

Hi nortac, good to hear from fellow starters. I'm reading other shaving journals just to reassure myself that I'm not the clumsiest moron around.

Day four, shave four.
Yes, shave four. I thought I'd give myself a day off, but then I thought what the heck, I might as well gives the cheeks a quick swipe to keep the practice going.
I ended up doing a full pass ofcourse, it was just too much fun. I was a bit more careful with the angle and the pressure and my face thanked me for it.
Skin streching is still a bit of an issue though. Half the time I'm blocking one of my eyes, which has a rather negative effect on my depth of view.
I'm also still struggling to find a good blade position on my neck. I'll surely figure it out somehow, but right now I'm still juggling my razor and scratching my head before I put the steel to my skin.

Have a nice sunday, everyone!

Arnoud said:

Hi nortac, good to hear from fellow starters. I'm reading other shaving journals just to reassure myself that I'm not the clumsiest moron around.

Day four, shave four.
Yes, shave four. I thought I'd give myself a day off, but then I thought what the heck, I might as well gives the cheeks a quick swipe to keep the practice going.
I ended up doing a full pass ofcourse, it was just too much fun. I was a bit more careful with the angle and the pressure and my face thanked me for it.
Skin streching is still a bit of an issue though. Half the time I'm blocking one of my eyes, which has a rather negative effect on my depth of view.
I'm also still struggling to find a good blade position on my neck. I'll surely figure it out somehow, but right now I'm still juggling my razor and scratching my head before I put the steel to my skin.

Have a nice sunday, everyone!

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You are doing fine, just hang in there. When I started out it took about 10 shaves before all kind of things came together to provide a really fine shave. Skin stretching can be much improved by proper use of an alum block. You wet your fingers and briefly grab the alum block before grabbing whatever part of the face you want to stretch, you will see that the fingers stick to the skin even if there is lather residue on that part of the face. To see how it is done look at Chimensch's video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIM0Coix6Gg

The neck is surely the most challenging part of my shave, I usually do a pass which is a hybrid XTG/ATG to get most of the stubble but then it becomes more tricky because my stubble grows backwards. Skin stretching allows me to stretch up some of the neck skin onto my cheeks. When doing this on my right cheek, I use my left arm to grab the skin around the jaw bone and then I pull upwards whilst at the same time stretching my chin upwards and to the left. Then I shave the exposed and stretched area on my cheek and neck with my right arm going either WTG or XTG from ear to nose with the tip of the razor pointing to the ground. Scything motions, when going XTG as described, are also necessary in my case. You can also open the razor wide (approx 315 °) put the blade diagonally on your neck with the scales parallel to the ground (right hand holds razor on left side of neck) and then go XTG keeping the scales parallel to the ground but BE WARNED whilst being quite effective this move is very dangerous because if you move the razor ever so slightly downwards you will cut yourself. Also, always keep the skin nice and taught when you do this.

To sum up, the neck area has been and still is very challenging and mostly it is a matter of trial and error to find what works for you because every face, growth pattern and stubble resilience is different. Good Luck and whatever you do, do not push it, I guarantee you will figure it out with time.

Well I'm a week into this game now and while progress is slow, it is steady.
I still can't see a full straight shave on the horizon, let alone a BBS. But every shave is a bit better than the last, so I'm confident I'll get there sooner or later.
I'm getting more and more confident putting the razor to my skin and my strokes are getting more and more decided too, judging from the decreased pulling and skipping. I do my best not to get overconfident, but it will likely happen soon enough.
My stropping is probably improving too because after about six or seven shaves it feels like the edge is improving instead of dulling.
I have my first -light- restore on the way back from honing by Emmanuel from coticule.be, you can imagine the anticipation. He put a lot of effort into the honing because the edge suffered a lot from sanding and polishing, way more than I could rightly expect from the free honing service offered by the site, but he refuses to accept money for it, so I'll probably donate some money to a charity that might have his sympathy.

No straight this morning, I had to rush to work.
Yesterday however, I felt the first signs of a fading edge. Lots of tugging and skipping and a lot more roughness left after the first pass than usual. I also had two incidents where I felt the blade do something rather unpleasant, but there was no blood at all. Strange...
I'll bring out the balsa and powder tomorrow, hopefully that will fix the edge.
I'm also still anxiously awaiting my Greek/Belgian coticuled razor, let's hope no mail strikes get in its way.

I've been away for a few days and I left the straight at home, but this morning the mailman brought the long awaited package: my first restore!
Emmanuel did a fine job honing this baby, even though she got pretty beat up by the sanding and polishing. The edge felt a bit smoother than the Shapleigh's, but I might be imagining that. After all my hand is probably a much more important factor than the razor it holds.
The Schonex is a lot heavier than the Shapleigh, I'm guessing it's a 6/8 and the Shapleigh is a 5/8 and I think the Schonex is less hollow too. So a bit more steel that makes for a totally different feel. I'm not sure I like the heavier razor, it'll certainly take some getting used to.
Also the pivot isn't as tight as it could be. Someone over at coticule.be advised me to tap the pivot pin lightly with a ladle since I don't have a peening hammer and I might just do that.
Overall the shave was satisfactory, which means I didn't struggle any more than usual with the blade position and so on. I'm at a bit of a plateau, but that's no surprise since I'm not practicing daily. I'll be out for a few days again this week, but tomorrow morning will be a straight shaving morning.
Below are the before and after shots of the razor. The before is a quick iphone snap from the day I bought it, the after is made by Emmanuel when he finished honing.
View attachment $IMG_0030.jpg

Good to see a fellow Belgian here. Where do you get most of your supplies from in Belgium? i have a hard time finding a products off line.

mvh said:

Good to see a fellow Belgian here. Where do you get most of your supplies from in Belgium? i have a hard time finding a products off line.

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koordenwinkel.be has a shop in Antwerp and l' Occitane is opening up shops all over the country, but I buy almost all my gear from shaving.ie

Oh ok. i've visited the koordenwinkel, but that was before I was into straight razors. I have to look into L'Occitane.

You should try 1barber.be too. Super fast shipping and everything is gift wrapped

Keep it up. I had problems on my neck also first starting out. It seemed to go well but always just a bit of tugging/pulling. I found that what "appeared" to be the right angle on my neck was wrong. Due to how the neck curves in I had to adjust to that fact... I end up adjusting the angle so that to my eyes it looks more like 45 degrees but actually it's closer to 30 when it is in contact with the neck. I adjust until it feels right as I shave and then work to mirror that for the rest of the shave.

Also, what helped me out on the neck was skin stretching. Try holding and pulling down at the very base of your neck by your chest while you tilt your head up. It won't seem to move much skin but boy did it make a difference for me.

Nice journal!

I would say work on your stropping too. I do at least a total of 60 laps now, which takes less than 2 minutes. Stropping properly will make a huge difference in the closeness and comfort of the shave IMO.