I wish I had done that earlier...

Learning to shave with a straight takes some time and a good bit of trial and error. We all know about that error part. As time goes on we refine our technique and learn new tricks. Some of these make a really big difference.

What’s one thing you do now that you wish you had done earlier?

For me it’s pastes. It’s only been the past few months that I’ve started using them and I am still amazed at the difference they make. I used to try to keep a refreshed edge with diamond spray on felt but that doesn’t hold a candle to how pastes have made nearly every razor I have better.

I wish I had started that early on. I wonder what else I might be missing?

 

Nice idea for a thread. Mine was focusing on stropping technique. Without good stropping technique nothing else matters. You can ruin a perfect edge with poor stropping technique. Pastes and diamond sprays are useless with poor stropping technique. My shaves improved immensely when I finally got my stropping figured out.

 

Pasted strops helped me too.

I wish I had discovered smiling blades sooner.

Alum on my finger tips to help skin stretching.

I was pulling my strop too tight and using X strokes helped.

 

how to use a straight earlier in life would have to be at the top of my list. But that not being able to be changed, I would have to also go with stropping. I started out using my first one as a table strop, once I had hung it up it didn’t take long for it to start looking like it was the loser in a knife fight. Somehow I hadn’t destroyed the edge completely and was able to use the cnat and a balsa strop to get it crisp again.

 

+1

 

Patience to learn how to stop. That would of been something I could of used greatly a few years ago. Lol

 

I wish I'd simply tried SR/Shavette earlier. It's a fun way to shave.

 

I forgot to add that one, I wished I found this method of shaving many many years ago.

 

This^^^

I am enjoying the living hell out of shavettes. I have my lone str8 shelved because it needs honing and I don't want to have anyone else do it, so until I get stones, both literally and figuratively, I am waiting to learn honing. Until then, shavettes are my shave du jour.

 

@Karl G what pastes are you using and on what substrates? Are you ising them after synth fonishers or natural finishers?

Cheers, Steve

 

+1

 

Discovered shaving forums!!!

I straight shaved for 20 years based on how I was taught when I was a teenager. Having never learnt to hone an edge I gave up when I no longer had somewhere reliable to maintain my razors.

Never thought I would find a way to learn to hone. Hell, I didn't realise safety and straight razors were still being made. I never knew about good quality creams, soaps or brushes. I didn't know there were a bunch of videos showing you how to hone. I didn't even suspect that there were communities of experienced honers, shavers, razor restorers or even razor makers.

 

Iron oxide .1 micron red paste and chromium oxide .5 micron green paste on a felt pad mounted on a paddle strop. Three laps after each shave on the red or 10 laps on the green every four or so shaves - still experimenting. The Sheffields seem to do best with the red and my Russians with the green. Soligens and others still being determined.

EDIT: I use a natural finisher - either my yellow-green Thuri or my hard Arkie.

 

This for me as well. It's the perfect balance for me, as the maintenance on a straight was my deterrent at this point in life. Shavettes have been a great joy for me.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk