So I was like a kid on Christmas opening my latest eBay purchase: An M1 Slim I picked up for $28; my first vintage razor. 
Hurried up and gave it some lovin' with Scrubbing Bubbles and a toothbrush, and a dip in alcohol. A few hours later I showered and got ready for an exciting shave. Now onto my noob mistakes:
1) I changed too many variables. Rather than load my brush with my familiar tin of Stirling Bay Rum, I continued my little experiment with their Coconut Lime sample that I stuffed into an empty twist-up stick last night. Bad idea. While I was able to get enough soap on my face to make a decent lather, I wasn't able to control it as well, and I could tell it was lacking in the usual quality/quantity I typically get. Not a good thing to get into when you're using an unfamiliar razor.
2) I quickly loaded an Astra SP into my new Slim, set it to 5 (which I figured was a safe starting point to get it in the ballpark of my DE89) and gave her a quick whirl. BOY did it feel aggressive on that first past. I figured that maybe I needed to turn it a couple notches down, or that perhaps I was being impatient and unwittingly applying pressure. So I turned it down to 3 and was extra careful with pressure and angle on the XTG pass. WOW that feels awful and I'm a bit bloody. Something must be wrong. So I did what I should've done before going Edward Scissorhands on my face;
checked the seating of the blade. From the side view I could see that blade was sitting almost completely flat in the razor head. I twisted the adjustment knob and it hardly moved. Then I twisted the TTO knob, felt it tighten a bit more, and watched the blade bend.
Oops.
Thank god for aftershave; that Stetson buuurrned today, boy.
Lessons: don't change a bunch of stuff at once. Also, pay attention to the dangerously sharp thing that is about to make contact with your face.
Hurried up and gave it some lovin' with Scrubbing Bubbles and a toothbrush, and a dip in alcohol. A few hours later I showered and got ready for an exciting shave. Now onto my noob mistakes:1) I changed too many variables. Rather than load my brush with my familiar tin of Stirling Bay Rum, I continued my little experiment with their Coconut Lime sample that I stuffed into an empty twist-up stick last night. Bad idea. While I was able to get enough soap on my face to make a decent lather, I wasn't able to control it as well, and I could tell it was lacking in the usual quality/quantity I typically get. Not a good thing to get into when you're using an unfamiliar razor.
2) I quickly loaded an Astra SP into my new Slim, set it to 5 (which I figured was a safe starting point to get it in the ballpark of my DE89) and gave her a quick whirl. BOY did it feel aggressive on that first past. I figured that maybe I needed to turn it a couple notches down, or that perhaps I was being impatient and unwittingly applying pressure. So I turned it down to 3 and was extra careful with pressure and angle on the XTG pass. WOW that feels awful and I'm a bit bloody. Something must be wrong. So I did what I should've done before going Edward Scissorhands on my face;
checked the seating of the blade. From the side view I could see that blade was sitting almost completely flat in the razor head. I twisted the adjustment knob and it hardly moved. Then I twisted the TTO knob, felt it tighten a bit more, and watched the blade bend. Oops.
Thank god for aftershave; that Stetson buuurrned today, boy.
Lessons: don't change a bunch of stuff at once. Also, pay attention to the dangerously sharp thing that is about to make contact with your face.
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