Thread: Beginners Tips: December 2011

First off I wish everyone a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Just a short list of tips this month, a few things I have seen multiple questions on


Rust:

I keep seeing this "My New Razor Rusted" after **** Days

Seriously guys, Carbon steel razors rust in minutes, not hours, not days, but minutes.. also the new ones, and freshly buffed ones rust faster...

You are combining water, soap, and skin, you have to either keep it dry or learn to dry it after the shave..
Now if you are a messy wet shaver (like me) and get the whole razor wet then you have to get the whole razor dry.
Rinse it with very hot water, this gets more of the crud off, and the heat helps to dry the razor, shake it out, blow it out, and/or wipe it dry, but the razor has to be dry before you put it away... I leave mine open until the next day inside a drawer.. I recommend oiling them even though I don't have to in my shave den...

Stropping:

Learn to strop, no really all the stuff you read on here about honing is so un-important until you learn to strop correctly..
If you are brand new I always recommend placing a hanging strop on the edge of a table/counter to learn the flip..

Alan/afdavis has a fantastic video that shows the flip very well here Straight Razor Place - Stropping Video

TY Alan

Once you have the flip down then you can move to hanging the strop and learning how to use what you have learned on a nice taut strop.. Note the word "taut", if you arm is shaking from holding the strop, then you are trying to hard...
We did a survey some time back about how fast people strop http://straightrazorpalace.com/strop...ng-strops.html and found that 30 laps per minute is about perfect. Most people were between 20-30

So slow down, correct stropping is way more important than fast...


Pressure:

I just practiced this while I was shaving this morning, it is natural for you to want to press harder to get a better cutting action, DON"T

Get very very light to get very very close

Learn the angles, and BTW they change for different types of razors which is why you always hear 20° to 30° I use the 2 spine widths as it seems easier to understand...
Also try and learn what we call a scything cut early on, it really helps to slice the hair rather than push through it ..

Lather:

OK when you are new you shave slower, you are going to either shave faster or you are going to have to re-lather as you move from quadrant to quadrant.. As you get faster then re-lather as you move from side to side, and finally you will get fast enough to just lather once per pass ::
I highly recommend the re-lather option over the shave faster option when you are new to this

Water:

Use water to your advantage wet your face well before lathering, we call this wet shaving for a reason

Also this next part is only my humble opinion some will see it the other way around, but I believe it is better when you are new,to have a wetter lather instead of a dryer one.. so if you are going to err when making lather I think it is better to err toward too wet

Again that is JMHO

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

Glenn,

Great post! Very much appreciated and many of your points are relevant to me. I've been having trouble with my lather drying out during shaving because I tend to take my time. I already found that starting with a a moist face and erring to the wet side of lather helps, but applying the lather in sections is definitely a good idea. It's just so tempting to take that nice badger brush and slap it all over my face.

Awesome advice as always. I'll add something a little controversial, and that is for the newbie to stick to one razor and either a soap or cream and learn how to get the most from them before going nuts with the AD's. As you stated different grinds and blade sizes each require their own technique.

I ran into the wet/dry lather issue the other day. I have a scuttle and when the water's warm, the lather tends to dry out a bit faster. It's a simple fix, simply re-wet the brush. However, sometimes I get the urge just to finish with the lather already on my face. I don't know why that happens, but the other day my blade started to drag. I was thinking, oh boy, it's getting dull now.

Nope, I reapplied wet lather and the blade slid along just fine. It's always important to remember the basics on which a good shave depends. Thanks for the timely reminders.

As for oiling the razor there is a readily available solution: mineral oil available at any drugstore works. Some don't like it because it pools, but a beginner doesn't usually have a lot of razors and it won't make a huge difference if the razor isn't being stored for long periods of time.

The main cause of rust on new folks razors is from getting the scales wet. The best way to avoid this is to not get the scales wet at all. Rinse only the blade under water when shaving or wipe the lather and whisker off on a dry towel.

Have fun

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

As for oiling the razor there is a readily available solution: mineral oil available at any drugstore works. Some don't like it because it pools, but a beginner doesn't usually have a lot of razors and it won't make a huge difference if the razor isn't being stored for long periods of time.

Pinklather once suggested to me a mix of mineral oil and bees' wax to cut down on the pooling action. I've not tried that yet; I've been using camellia oil. It still has a little pooling.

Originally Posted by markdfhr

Pinklather once suggested to me a mix of mineral oil and bees' wax to cut down on the pooling action. I've not tried that yet; I've been using camellia oil. It still has a little pooling.

I too use bees' wax for this and it works great. In fact I may have been the person who taught Rob how to do that. I figured for a beginners thread it might be a bit much, but if anyone is curious about this please feel free to PM me.

Originally Posted by deighaingeal

In fact I may have been the person who taught Rob how to do that. I figured for a beginners thread it might be a bit much

Yeah, Rob told me someone else taught him how to do that, but I didn't note who that was. Thanks for the good idea.

I forgot to add, I've received two razors from Rob, and each was coated in oil and there was absolutely no pooling whatsoever. The oil was a very fine film, so it must work.