...I'd like to say...quite while I am ahead, but frankly..I am not. This is the third weekend with the Feather AS and today was a pure blood bath. I was okay with the few weepers I created, but the one inch long vertical gash beside my ear on my weak side and the inch and a half long chasm I opened up on my chin.. on my dominant side, are bleeding for the better part of twenty minutes now. I can get a BBS with a DE with no problem. The Feather is pulling, tugging, grabbing, digging in and...yes...slicing me open. Not sure I want to try to diagnose it at this point.. I'll just wait until I can post in the Classifieds and get the Feather out of my house..quickly.
They are less than $2 anywhere and stop bleeding even the bad ones in less than 2 minutes. 30 seconds on a good nick. Sounds like you were too aggressive withe blade. was the blade a feather?
Well...I haven't needed one in 48 years..I'm kinda holding on to not needing one for another 48... New Feather Professional.. Shaved with it yesterday...one shave. The one by me ear won't leave a mark, but I think the one on my chin is a candidate for a scar. Me too. I shaved with the Feather yesterday and it was..decent. I was well hydrated, had good lather, zero pressure. Now that the bleeding has stopped it's actually a decent shave.. but it is hard work for sure. My first shaves with the Feather was with the Pro-Guard and while I didn't cut myself it wasn't a close shave in the least bit. Yesterday was the first day with the Professional blade.. Today..well I am just glad it's over.
I saw on another forum that even a shaver who had been around the block with straights had a learning curve with the Feather AC. His post shave pics were revolting, cuts everywhere. But he picked up the gauntlet and reported he mastered the razor. I would research on the forums exactly the method used for shaving with the Feather and challenge myself to apply it and get a successful shave.
Ouch! Sorry to hear about the slices! I got my lip good last Sunday....bled non stop from 10:30-1:15, used pressure, and the styptic (while great) didn't do a darn thing! It kept bleeding right thru it. After a couple hours of it dripping like a bad faucet, I used a heavily salted solution in water, dabbing it constantly. Burned like CRAZY! I do suggest it tho if u cut yourself again. Best of luck in your future shaving endeavors!
The Voice of Reason You'll want not just a styptic but NuSkin, not the large container (sprayer applicator) but the small bottle with the little brush in the screw-top lid. It's a coat of goo that solidifies on exposure to air. I only have limited experience with the styptic but the NuSkin just makes sense. Now MikekiM has learned the important lesson of the difference between Feather AC's and straights, despite not using a straight. Part of the magic of the straight is full control of the level of fineness/smoothness of the edge, and of course with repeated use and stropping the edge becomes tamed and easier to use and one learns they can "get away" with all sorts of wonderful shaving action. I invested in a "Vincent" (like a "Magic") disposable razor, cost all of 7 dollars and uses a DE blade broken in half. It's super sharp, by the DE blades, and serves to teach me what is possible and not possible with a really sharp blade used in the open razor format. Yes, I can get BBS and irritation-free shaves, but this is with months of straight razor experience. This has been a learning experience in that the difference in a beginner's open-razor life can be dramatic with the proguard. Sad to build a false sense of confidence. Straights are really quite cool, compared to the gimmicky nature of disposables of any sort. A number of months ago I refreshed my first shave-ready razor, my Dovo 13/16th round-tip "Best Quality." I refreshed it for my father, who was scheduled to use it during his visit. He used a straight for the first time, the same blade, but it was only honed to Norton 8k and he didn't think it was sharp enough (I agree, I watched him, we're manly enough men to really appreciate something beyond Norton's 8k). This was the first time I used this blade after taking it up to the chromium oxide (0.5 micron) for this edge's incarnation. Well, no real surprise I had the full "bloom" after the first 2-3 times I used that blade. When off the hones/abrasive-pasted strops the edge is super-sharp and not "tame." It takes a few shaves to tame the edge, after that it just gets better (until it is dull enough to tug or not provide a close enough shave..). Part of the magic of the straights is this fully controllable, perpetually renewable edge.
Sad to say.. I am not sure I understand a word you said... :sick007 After recovering from the surgical slices, I've decided to follow Hanzo's suggestion and commit to master this bad-boy. I'm not sure if the move to the Professional blade was premature, but I feel like the Pro-Guard offered a level of protection that more hampered my growth than helped, so I ditched it. Considering that I didn't do any damage with Saturday's shave I may just keep the Professional blade in there...
Suddenly, I don't feel so eager to try my new Feather Portable DE Razor that arrived in the post today.
I'm sorry to hear about the troubles. I use straights and now rarely get nicks except around my lower neck area. I can tell you after reading this, I will leave the Feather with the bird and save my face. Usually facial wounds heal well so don't worry to much. I hop things get better. Good Luck!
Had me one from Rugby. The wife loved it, chicks did indeed dig it. Unfortunately since I started using an alum block, it's faded and shrunk considerably. I can understand your pain. I tried a shave with a Feather shavette. It was the worst shave I've ever had. It really really hurt. I'm sure it was a good deal to do with my technique, but I won't us the thing again. Not worth it when I can get such a wonderful shave from my DE. Don't give up hope though, I'm not. I'm looking to possibly buy my first usable straight tomorrow, very excited for it. Good luck!
Hey if it don't work for you it don't work... you can always do a lil more learning with the Straights but comeback to it after you healed and check out some advice on the forum. But..... If DE dose fine then take a tip from Steve Winwood and just roll with it baby.
Ah the memories...my early shavette shaves made my face look like I'd jumped into a dumpster full of racoons to fight over a plate of crawdads. It did get better with time and eventually, my shavette time was indeed time well spent and the transition to traditional straight razors was painless. Don't know if this will help but this is how I got by my initial forrays of face carving: Like you I was pretty disappointed with the volume of nicks but being stubborn, I refused to give up. I began to analyze the hell out of my performance. I then realized that I was totally focused on how I was holding the razor and how it felt in my hand (i.e. was I holding it right?). This focus was totally wrong because it almost took away all my focus on the important stuff (blade angle, pressure, position of the cutting edge, etc. Big Lesson #1 concentrate on technique of shaving and "holding it right" will take care of itself. The biggest problem with concentrating on if you're holding it right is that most of us have ZERO muscle memory relative to straight razor shaving. For now, take the basic guidelines and just hold the razor however you need to hold it to execute sound (hopefully bloodless) techique. Once you've got the technique down, you can work on how to hold the razor, you'll find your own grip in time, concentrate on other things for now. Oh yeah, here's another HUGE tip: If the razor stalls or will not move DO NOT apply additional pressure. Blade angle is likely the culprit, pick the razor up off your skin, reposition it to a flatter angle and start all over. (NOTE: The tuition for this lesson was a huge cut! The razor stalled center of my lower lip. Of course if it doesn't move just push it harder right? WRONG! With the application of additional force, the razor moved really fast and came to an abrupt stop on the top of my chin resulting in an absolutely GNARLY gash.) Hang in there, it get's better I promise.
