My razor and strop from WhippedDog arrived in yesterday's mail...after the morning shave so today was the first straight shave (or partial shave as the case may be!) of my wetshving experience.
I took Larry's advice and did the first reduction pass with a DE. I then did 2 passes with the straight, trying to remember all the things I had read and all the videos I watched in preparation for this. Funny how your memory seems to fade a bit as cold steel touches your face for the first time! I kept a firm wrist, light touch with short deliberate and quick strokes. I quickly lost the apprehension and settled into intense concentration, trying to do a WTG pas then a XTG pass. The second turned out to be some mismatched combination of WTG, XTG and ATG. Lots of indecision in deciding how to hold the razor for each area of my face, though I think that's something that will come with practice.
At that point I had near BBS and certainly DFS on the cheeks and SAS below the jawline and neck. No nicks or cuts and only one little weeper below my chin that didn't even need the styptic. All in all, I was very satisfied with my first straight shave. I did another pass with the DE since I'm so used to a near BBS shave that I knew it would drive me nuts the rest of the day!
I did some stropping tonight. So far no nicks in the strop. Tomorrow morning will be the true test of my stropping however! We'll find out how the edge held up!
I plan to do the first pass with the DE for several more days and try to concentrate on how to hold the razor for each part of my face. Although I've been practicing using the DE left handed, the straight still feels really awkward in the left hand. It seems that some parts of the face will be a lot easier if I can master that however.
Can't hardly wait until tomorrow morning. I'm worse than a 5 year old on Christmas Eve!
I took Larry's advice and did the first reduction pass with a DE. I then did 2 passes with the straight, trying to remember all the things I had read and all the videos I watched in preparation for this. Funny how your memory seems to fade a bit as cold steel touches your face for the first time! I kept a firm wrist, light touch with short deliberate and quick strokes. I quickly lost the apprehension and settled into intense concentration, trying to do a WTG pas then a XTG pass. The second turned out to be some mismatched combination of WTG, XTG and ATG. Lots of indecision in deciding how to hold the razor for each area of my face, though I think that's something that will come with practice.
At that point I had near BBS and certainly DFS on the cheeks and SAS below the jawline and neck. No nicks or cuts and only one little weeper below my chin that didn't even need the styptic. All in all, I was very satisfied with my first straight shave. I did another pass with the DE since I'm so used to a near BBS shave that I knew it would drive me nuts the rest of the day!
I did some stropping tonight. So far no nicks in the strop. Tomorrow morning will be the true test of my stropping however! We'll find out how the edge held up!
I plan to do the first pass with the DE for several more days and try to concentrate on how to hold the razor for each part of my face. Although I've been practicing using the DE left handed, the straight still feels really awkward in the left hand. It seems that some parts of the face will be a lot easier if I can master that however.
Can't hardly wait until tomorrow morning. I'm worse than a 5 year old on Christmas Eve!