Thread: Beginners Tips: January 2012

Hope everyone is having a fantastic 2012 so far

This month I decided to write about what I call "The Perfect Storm" of beginner problems, I was going to go through and pick out several topics as I usually do but this past week I received an e-mail for honing services, and it was all too familiar...

"I bought a new Dovo that they told me was shave ready and I just can't get this thing to shave can you check it first then hone it"

So the razor gets to me over the long weekend and I have a little extra time to really check it and to exchange some e-mails with the owner...
The razor was not honed other than at the factory it came sealed, he was told that they are shave ready from the factory..
He tried stropping and had no luck getting it to do anything but pull and hurt.
I first checked the razor on arm hair, it cut but not effortlessly, but I soldiered on went up to the shave den and prepped for a shave lathered up the right side of my face (the easy stroke) and tried just the "Shave Test" stroke, no good could barely get the razor to move..

Stop: Hot towel, re-lather the same spot, Strop 50 linen 100 leather Illinois #827 repeat the "Shave Test" stroke, now we have cutting but a still a little rough, adjust to a scything action and achieved a shaving stroke

Stop: Hot Towel, lather left side, 15 laps Dovo Red, 20 laps Dovo Black, 25 linen 50 leather, use scything action on left side and get an acceptable stroke...

Stop:

This is basically what I refer to as the "Perfect Storm" a beginner gets the razor, and with some dedicated stropping they might be able to smooth up the edge, -But- they don't really know how to do dedicated stropping, they barely know how to strop and not wreck the edge let alone actually improve a so-so edge..
With a pasted strop the edge can be greatly improved, but a beginner probably doesn't have one, or know how to use one effectively, plus this must be done before the razor gets worse from improper stropping to start
An experienced hand can actually shave a much less then desirable edge, heck some of us idiots test shaving at 1k levels just to learn more about honing. -But- we know what a scything stroke is and how to really use one. We also know how to use the angle of the razor to our maximum advantage..

So many things can add together to make the first shave for a beginner pretty bad, if at all possible you want to try and eliminate as many as possible

Learn how to prep and make lather, you don't even need to have a straight razor before you start learning this..
Learn how to strop, heck you can learn much of this with a butter knife
Make sure you start with a "Shave Ready" razor from a reliable source

TAKE YOUR TIME, so many "First Shave" posts are exactly that, an entire shave, really if you just start with the cheeks, from the sideburn to the jawline, and then finish with your old style of razor, you will make this journey so much easier..
Each day you shave, you slowly expand how much of the face, you shave with the straight razor, one section at a time, if a section gives you a problem, then repeat it the next day, and keep repeating it until you learn the tricks of that section... It should take a week or two to get through your entire face. If you learn by shaving one section at a time you also don't have to deal with the lather drying out because you shave slow as a beginner.

I know it is hard to read about all the great shaves the old hands are getting but everyone of us struggled through the learning process, some of us before the advent of the internet, let alone SRP we took our time and learned the little tricks, and you are going to have to also. There is no shortcut, and those of you that have tough ole' grizzled beards are going to have a much harder time learning this then the young guy with a peach fuzz face Trust me on that part, I started when I was 22, and it was a pretty easy beard to cut back then, compared to the speckled greybeard now

Hope that helps out a bit, and as always I encourage the Senior Members to add their opinions to this thread as we all see things differently and the more info for the new guys the better..
TIA

Thanks again Glen for the page of truths. The hardest of which I have learned is contained in a very short statement near the end; "There is no short cut,..." By the time I accepted this little bit of truth I would have been better off following all the advice rather than forging ahead all the time wondering why things didn't work for me immediately. I've read here before that it takes at least 100 shaves before things start to click. For me that number was closer to 200, and still learning. My only advice: lighten up and don't get cocky.

that is all......

It's nice to see a Ebony/Silversteel up there in the pic. It's my first razor. I had my first painful and unsatisfying shaves with one just like that.

--------Michael

Originally Posted by mjsorkin

It's nice to see a Ebony/Silversteel up there in the pic. It's my first razor. I had my first painful and unsatisfying shaves with one just like that.

--------Michael

Lol It took me forever to use the Ebony Silversteel correctly! I was so spoiled by the 6/8's ease of plowing through everything in its path it was like going from driving a bus, to driving a corvette!