Thread: Acclimating to a straight razor

How long has doesn't usually take before your face gets acclimated with straight razor shaving?

For me it was more about learning the right amount of pressure. I think I figured this out around month two with a little practice under my belt and a freshly honed blade. I finally understood just how light to go with the pressure.

I think this can really depend on how sensitive your skin is and how well you learn to shave with a straight. It took me a couple of months to learn enough to get close and comfortable shaves.
Then I started to learn to hone and shaved with my own edges and had quite a few uncomfortable shaves until I learned how to hone a good edge.
I'm at 160 shaves and am getting the best shaves ever and I'm still learning new subtleties to this fine art almost every day.

After I read to shave off the lather. Lessen my pressure.
You can always make another pass to shave off more whiskers.

People say, like 100 shaves to be proficient. I find that to be the case, although I still have some bad shaves. I also have many nice ones. I agree with the above poster that it is not so much about your face getting used to it as much as it about technique (prep, angle, learning the things that will not work, blade well honed, and so on1)... Welcome to the forum, BTW

one of those perspective things. I don't think that the issue is with the face but the hand. I think it varies a lot. Son number two picked it up in about three shaves. He had a lot of observation and tends to be very good with his hands. I on the other hand hit it off and on for years, and despite being good with my hands took a while longer to get good at it, probably close to the 100 shaves. One of the things that I did the last time I started shaving with a straight was went with only the straight. The factors that make for a good shave is lather, no pressure, good stretching and hold, and of course a proper edge. As beginners many of us have blown our edge in the first week. Get it honed and get back to it.

Thanks to foreign beauty regiments, and another forum member that originally posted this, we are now armed with possibly the best visual reminder to drive home "no pressure".

http://youtu.be/qotCfV7Vgtg

Fast forward to about 9:30 and you will see what I mean.

I think it's more about being proficient. A novice will use improper strokes and too much pressure and bad prep and irritation is the result. He may think it's a matter of his skin getting use to the razor but personally I think it's a matter of doing it right. A test of that theory is going to a pro barber and getting a straight shave. If your face needed acclimating then you should have irritation but if done properly by a COMPETENT barber I'll bet you would have none even if you didn't use a straight razor at home.

Fair enough. All this talk about too much pressure just reminded me of that vid. I watched that for the first time with my wife, and she freaked out 3x worse than me; adamantly stating "SCREW THAT!!!" I reminded her it is all about precision :-).

What kind of discomfort are you experiencing? if it's things like ingrown hairs that would be a direction problem.