Hi all,
I have considered registering on here, and creating this thread for quite some time, but decided not to until I had my first experience shaving with a DE razor.
To provide some background, I'm not new to shaving (I'm 32 and have to shave at least every weekday for work), but to date, I've always used a Gillette cartridge razor (I've had the Mach 3, Mach 3 Turbo and most recently had been using the Fusion Power Proglide). The cartridges are obviously expensive, but my primary reason for looking for an alternative method is no matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I could not get a close shave. I consider a close shave not being able to clearly see whiskers after shaving, and that's consistently been the case. I typically shave in the shower (with a mirror, obviously) but have tried shavingafter showering, too, with no discernible difference in results. Even to get a shave to the closeness I did, I had to go nearly completely ATG; if I simply went WTG, a tiny bit of hair might have been removed, but it would be difficult to notice any difference. Obviously, going ATG so frequently led to considerable razor burn on my neck and many nicks below my nose. After shaving, my cheek areas would feel pretty close to BBS, but if you felt ATG, or more importantly, just looked at my cheeks, neck or under my nose, you could easily tell the results were nowhere close to ideal.
After trying a couple of different things (using the Art of Shaving shaving cream, though without a brush, and using a pre shave oil), my search for a solution led me here and to the concept of shaving with a DE razor. Before trying it, I read nearly, if not all, the beginner information, as well as watched an extensive amount of videos of shaving with a safety razor on Youtube (ShaveNation, in particular). Before purchasing more expensive equipment beyond the time and money I'd already spent on this, I opted for the trial size shaving products at The Art of Shaving (shave oil, shave cream, small badger brush and after shave). My results weren't any different using these products with my Fusion Power Proglide; all it got me was spending more time than I had been due to preparing the lather. At this point, I decided it was finally time to give a DE razor a try.
Fortunately, my dad happened to have a Hoffritz safety razor laying around that he hadn't used in a long time, and he let me borrow it to see how I did before sinking even more money in to my own DE razor and the associated products. The only place I could readily find DE blades was at Meijer (grocery store), and while they were sold as Meijer brand, I've read on here that they're made by another company and rebranded. I spent a couple of hours today rereading or rewatching much of what I had previously read or watched; particularly, I tried to pay close attention to how the razor should be held. So, I soaked my AOS brush in a bowl of hot, but not boiling, water, showered, dumped the water out of the bowl, squirted a small amount (I shot for an almond size) of the AOS shaving cream in the bowl, got some, but not all, of the water out of my brush (I gave it a half pinch and let it stop dripping) and begin creating the lather, and eventually, putting it on my face. Well, to say the results from my first shave were disastrous would be an understatement. I focused exclusively on north to south cuts, and to my amazement, I wasn't getting any closer a shave than I had been with my cartridge razor; honestly, it probably wasn't even as close. To make matters far worse, I successfully managed to slice, nick or whatever you want to call it, several parts of my facial area; it wasn't so much around the cheeks, but on my chin and all over my neck. So, to summarize, I had to stop shaving to prevent any further damage, the areas I did get barely look like they've been shaved, and I have blood and red spots all over my chin and especially my neck. After all the time and energy I've spent trying to fix this problem, I can't begin to tell you how frustrated I am right now.
To give you an idea of what I feel may have at least partially contributed to today's results, my lather consistently looks less "creamy" from what I see in videos; to me, that means I have too much water in the bowl, but I tried to do exactly what others have suggested without success. When I put the lather on, it's nowhere near as thick as I see on pictures or videos, so I'm sure that's one issue. As I mentioned, I tried my best to hold the razor at the proper angle and apply as little pressure as humanly possible, but considering this was my first attempt, I'm sure I did neither properly.
I gather from reading many of the posts, tutorials and videos that shaving with a DE razor will be a big transition for someone switching from a cartridge razor, but I certainly cannot afford results like today again. Fortunately, I am working from home today, so the only "people" seeing me until my wife gets home are my dogs, but if I had to go to the office like this, I'd be beyond embarrassed and would probably get plenty of questions as to what in the heck I did to myself. I'm really hoping you can give me some practical tips on how I can successfully shave my face without 1). noticeable stubble afterwards and 2). slicing myself to death, as I did today.
Thank you very much in advance.
I have considered registering on here, and creating this thread for quite some time, but decided not to until I had my first experience shaving with a DE razor.
To provide some background, I'm not new to shaving (I'm 32 and have to shave at least every weekday for work), but to date, I've always used a Gillette cartridge razor (I've had the Mach 3, Mach 3 Turbo and most recently had been using the Fusion Power Proglide). The cartridges are obviously expensive, but my primary reason for looking for an alternative method is no matter what I did, or how hard I tried, I could not get a close shave. I consider a close shave not being able to clearly see whiskers after shaving, and that's consistently been the case. I typically shave in the shower (with a mirror, obviously) but have tried shavingafter showering, too, with no discernible difference in results. Even to get a shave to the closeness I did, I had to go nearly completely ATG; if I simply went WTG, a tiny bit of hair might have been removed, but it would be difficult to notice any difference. Obviously, going ATG so frequently led to considerable razor burn on my neck and many nicks below my nose. After shaving, my cheek areas would feel pretty close to BBS, but if you felt ATG, or more importantly, just looked at my cheeks, neck or under my nose, you could easily tell the results were nowhere close to ideal.
After trying a couple of different things (using the Art of Shaving shaving cream, though without a brush, and using a pre shave oil), my search for a solution led me here and to the concept of shaving with a DE razor. Before trying it, I read nearly, if not all, the beginner information, as well as watched an extensive amount of videos of shaving with a safety razor on Youtube (ShaveNation, in particular). Before purchasing more expensive equipment beyond the time and money I'd already spent on this, I opted for the trial size shaving products at The Art of Shaving (shave oil, shave cream, small badger brush and after shave). My results weren't any different using these products with my Fusion Power Proglide; all it got me was spending more time than I had been due to preparing the lather. At this point, I decided it was finally time to give a DE razor a try.
Fortunately, my dad happened to have a Hoffritz safety razor laying around that he hadn't used in a long time, and he let me borrow it to see how I did before sinking even more money in to my own DE razor and the associated products. The only place I could readily find DE blades was at Meijer (grocery store), and while they were sold as Meijer brand, I've read on here that they're made by another company and rebranded. I spent a couple of hours today rereading or rewatching much of what I had previously read or watched; particularly, I tried to pay close attention to how the razor should be held. So, I soaked my AOS brush in a bowl of hot, but not boiling, water, showered, dumped the water out of the bowl, squirted a small amount (I shot for an almond size) of the AOS shaving cream in the bowl, got some, but not all, of the water out of my brush (I gave it a half pinch and let it stop dripping) and begin creating the lather, and eventually, putting it on my face. Well, to say the results from my first shave were disastrous would be an understatement. I focused exclusively on north to south cuts, and to my amazement, I wasn't getting any closer a shave than I had been with my cartridge razor; honestly, it probably wasn't even as close. To make matters far worse, I successfully managed to slice, nick or whatever you want to call it, several parts of my facial area; it wasn't so much around the cheeks, but on my chin and all over my neck. So, to summarize, I had to stop shaving to prevent any further damage, the areas I did get barely look like they've been shaved, and I have blood and red spots all over my chin and especially my neck. After all the time and energy I've spent trying to fix this problem, I can't begin to tell you how frustrated I am right now.
To give you an idea of what I feel may have at least partially contributed to today's results, my lather consistently looks less "creamy" from what I see in videos; to me, that means I have too much water in the bowl, but I tried to do exactly what others have suggested without success. When I put the lather on, it's nowhere near as thick as I see on pictures or videos, so I'm sure that's one issue. As I mentioned, I tried my best to hold the razor at the proper angle and apply as little pressure as humanly possible, but considering this was my first attempt, I'm sure I did neither properly.
I gather from reading many of the posts, tutorials and videos that shaving with a DE razor will be a big transition for someone switching from a cartridge razor, but I certainly cannot afford results like today again. Fortunately, I am working from home today, so the only "people" seeing me until my wife gets home are my dogs, but if I had to go to the office like this, I'd be beyond embarrassed and would probably get plenty of questions as to what in the heck I did to myself. I'm really hoping you can give me some practical tips on how I can successfully shave my face without 1). noticeable stubble afterwards and 2). slicing myself to death, as I did today.
Thank you very much in advance.
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). I actually do have the Van Der Hagen starter's kit; however, after I bought the AoS badger hair brush, I got rid of the VDH boar hair brush (because I thought it was inferior). Based on what I read above, that was apparently a mistake.
