Early on, I was fortunate enough to meet Robert Williams. I watched and learned how to hone, strop, and clean a razor. He was gracious enough to answer my many newbie questions. Of course, he also hooked me up with an amazing razor. That is a whole other interesting story. Since, the forums have been a great source of information. Picked up a lot of great honing pointers from SRP, particularly from Josh Earl who introduced me to coticules. As someone else mentioned, Lynn's shaving video is indispensable. You can get the DVD, or if you are mainly after shaving technique, view Lynn's youtube video.
The forums are the closest thing I've had to a mentor. I'm self-taught, to the extent that I've learned anything. Having someone else watch my technique and make comments or suggestions would have been helpful.
Pretty much self-taught using the forums and the Chris Moss tutorial. I read all I could and just jumped in.
For me, I self taught myself using a shavette and then I found Straight razor place and bought myself a straight and a strop and then tried DEs and found B&B and then here.
Straights seemed like a normal progression so I bought a lovely straight from Neale and a large box of bandaids and I was off and running !
I first tried it without any help and I failed miserably. The second time around I decided to read through the forums so I guess collectively, they mentored me. There's plenty of more stuff I could learn but I'm pretty content with what I know. I can get smooth shaves without irritation. That's all that matters to me.
Hey Sticky! Welcome to the den! Every time I see your avatar on SRP, I think "Man, those are cool looking hones..." I was introduced through the good folks here, at SRP and of course the good Doctor's guide, and as far as mentoring goes--well, Pain has been a pretty good technique teacher so far.
Chris Moss' PDF, some forum and YouTube research, and then spent a little time talking with my 80-year old barber before starting.
SELF TAUGHT! All of my hobbies, have been self taught. I watched most of Mantic's videos but long after I learned my own way to shave. My brother in law bought me an AOS kit for xmas. He's a good fellow. Now, I'm gonna buy him a straight for xmas as he's seen me shaving with it and thinks its badass. I didn't learn anything from anyone when it came to straight razor shaving, and I really don't think you can, basically it's uncharted territory with a sharp edge, and you have to have the stones to do it period. I have sliced my chin, my cheek, and my upper lip (fools pass) Luckily nothing scar worthy, but lessons learned. What's great is now I'm more proficient with my straight then I am with my DE. I wouldn't go back to the DE, except for maybe the stache ( still learning the fools pass right now) Honing, now that's were Im learning a lot from many people, it's not something I think you can self teach yourself, it's a learned skill. sincerely, D
I'd always liked the idea of straight razor shaving, but didn't take the plunge until I found the shaving forums. I'm just beginning actually, just had my second successful (no blood) shave. Now I need to do some reading so I can get them BBS.
