Thread: First shave difficulties

My first shave-ready razor arrived just today from Sham the mentor.
First I'd like to give many thanks to Sham for the tight and professional packaging together with some funny elements (green toothbrush case with the razor wrapped inside in a green napkin )

I prepared well for it and made sure to have a top quality lather this evening but being it my first shave, there were obviously many difficulties nonetheless. I experienced lots of pulling, both WTG and XTG, especially on my chin and moustache area even with extra patience to get the angles right.
I also found out that trying to shave XTG on the neck is practically impossible for me due to the length of the blade vs. the radius of the neck. I ended up doing strokes ATG and they went very well. I find it most difficult to do an inch-long strokes as stated in the Beginner's Wiki, but I'd say it was my excessive patience and thanks to repeating the mantra rules of razor shaving ( stop while experiencing pulling etc.) I ended up with only two tiny nicks

That's quite normal for the first shave, don't worry. It's a fairly steep learning curve, so you'll have to cope with a few lousy shaves just starting out. But stick with it, and I'll promise it will be waaay better in a couple of weeks.

I've gotten a couple of Sham honed razors and they were/are superb. A Beau Brummel and an obscure English maker whose name escapes me right now. If you read Lynn Abram's suggestions for the first straight razor shaves, and follow his suggestions, you might have better results. Here is the tutorial.

You are doing well for your first shave and experiencing typical learning curve problems. The chin and neck are hard areas to get down at first and will come with time. The vendor you got your blade from is well respected. I am sure things will get better as your techique progresses. Good luck and happy shaving!

It's good to hear these problems are common and even if it were to take me years to learn, I'll never hold anything with more than one razor on it ever again

Usually people have hard time to get a good ATG shave compare to WTG OR XTG.
Not shave ready blade will never shave well against the grain.
This tells me issue with your angle.
Now strop good your razor before your next shave and please just shave wtg and xtg.
See what happens.
start flat your face and make small strokes. pulls stop ,make a little more angle and make strokes and find out best shaving angle.
if there is none then send me back i will inspect the blade.
lets hope you are In USA.

Thank you for the tips Sham, I think the problem was me and not the razor as it did very well ATG on my neck even with my stubby hair thanks to the larger area and thus easier reach for a beginner. I also just realized that I didn't rinse the oil off the blade before shaving :/. I'm in Europe but issues would have to continue for weeks/months from now for me to even consider the blade is the problem which, considering my skills, would only be a bad excuse. I'm already looking forward for my next shave and write some feedback in the upcoming weeks!

Congrats on your first shave.

The first 3 times I put the straight to my face, I stopped as it just tugged quite a bit. Undaunted I would finish up with the DE then try it again the next morning. Finally something clicked and the razor started gliding fairly smoothly on the WTG and XTG passes. However, ATG was impossible. The razor would just catch on the stubble and pull mercilessly. Again, undaunted I would finish up with the DE and try again the next day. As before, something sort of clicked one day and the blade actually moved. Been doing All straight since then and loving it.

Keep with it. Watch the angles very closely and as Sham mentioned, start with the blade against the skin and slowly bring the spine away from the skin, especially when doing the xtg and atg passes. I'm almost flat to the face for atg.

Charlie