Thread: 10 major mistakes made by a "greenhorn" in the first 3 months :):)

Biggest mistake of all time;

Thinking that the knife shop at the mall would be able to properly hone my razor. Let me tell you a little something; when you ask the owner if he knows how to sharpen a razor and he answers, "I've got over 25 years experience sharpening knives, scisors, and tools", you should note that he didn't mention razors, and you should take that to mean "no".

I learned a lot about sharpening razors after I got that one back, and I can do it myself now.

Mistake number 2; Stroping. You really do need to roll that blade over it's spine. Trying to do it the way you saw in the movies will result in a lot of nicks and cuts on the strop. Really.

Hi everybody, even I am new here, I am straight razor user for quite some time now. Learning to shave with the straight, it's like learning to drive a car. At the beginning you afraid of everything, than you master a bit, and then, after few days (weeks) you thinking of yourselves like a greatest shaver ever! yea right..

Exactly here all the troubles begins. Cuts on a face, trying to do a HHT and cutting fingers, talking when shaving and getting a cut.. ouch.. It is better to take your time and learn right habits from very beginning!

Originally Posted by Allen

- Using the same uber-rich lather that I used for DE shaving.

Allen, thanks very much for raising this issue. I've been shaving with a straight for a few months, and it wasn't until this week that I realized my lather was too thick. Like yourself, I switched from DE razors to straights, and I just kept whipping up the same mountains of dense, tapioca-like lather. Sure, it looks great, but as you wrote, it's not slick enough for straight razor shaving. I kept telling myself that huge amounts of thick lather would cushion the blade, but I think a straight just gets bogged down by all the resistance. I even switched from my fancier shave creams back to an old tube of Proraso, and although my new lather is thin, watery, and almost transparent, it's slick like wet leaves on fresh blacktop.

One other "greenhorn" mistake I made was to think that because I have a coarse beard, I needed to use a big wedge to get a good shave. I actually think I did myself a disservice by starting with a heavy blade, because it provided much less feedback -- feedback that is essential to learning a new skill like shaving with a straight -- than a smaller, hollow ground blade. A heavy blade allowed me to just plow through areas that require a gentle touch and careful attention to blade angle. As a result, I cut myself quite a bit at first (I was also applying too much pressure). Granted, I am still very much a beginner, but if a friend asked me to suggest a first razor, I would recommend a hollow grind blade in a manageable size.

I also made the mistake of trying for a BBS shave from the beginning. My facial hair grows in all directions, and I have to be very careful of ingrown hairs. A straight razor is great for minimizing my ingrowns, but only if I skip the against-the-grain pass. If I shave against the grain I will get a close shave, but two days later I'll have ingrowns all over my neck and cheeks. It took me months to realize that just because a straight razor can produce a wicked-close shave, that doesn't mean it's best for me. Now I actually try to shave in such a way that, when I'm done, I'm still able to feels some raspy resistance when I rub my fingers against the grain of my beard.

Originally Posted by cybrok

Shaving with hangover. Nuff said.

with a hangover, how about before the hangover...

Originally Posted by xman

Stropping to vigorously was my only real problem. Knocked the edge off a few razors that way. I had been envisioning the shave with a straight razor and practicing with butter knives for weeks in advance so the shave itself all worked out in my favour.

X

I hear you! Have applied too much pressure and turned the blade around the wrong way on a hanging strop, nicked said strop multiple times left right and (nearly) centre and then stropped the razor right over those nicks. Ouch! Knocked the edge off in the process, of course. New strop is on the way. Will practice with the butter knife on old strop until then... All this on the very first day of my straight-razor life. But: never give up! Shall read this forum religiously from now on.