New Shaver Questions

I'm thinking toward hopping to Tabac soap as well.  I love the idea of visualizing cutting hair and not skin.

I love the smell of tabac and it can be had cheaply. some regard it as one of the best soap bases ever made.

see if nachum still has any left from his b/s/t thread: https://damnfineshave.com/thread-want-to...rice-drops

Pete123 I've only been wet shaving for a couple months longer than you have so I can't offer any advice. But I have recently tried Tabac and it is a fantastic soap, very strong scent though. After leaving the lid off to dry the soap last night, I was pleasantly surprised to open the bath room door this morning and the whole room smelled of Tabac.

To everyone who's posted on this thread, thank you! I've been switching soaps, razors (both DE's and SE's), blades, brushes basically every day. The variety and options is one of the things I've enjoyed so much about wet shaving. I've been able to get good, and sometimes great shaves, but there has been no consistency in the quality of shave. It was certainly easy to blame the blade or the razor for the less than desirable shaves, of which there have been several.

After reading through this thread, I'm realizing many those shaves were very likely due to user error and that I need to concentrate on developing my technique. So I am going to try my best to stick to one razor, one blade, one brush, and one soap for the next month. Hopefully by doing so, I'll be able to more thoroughly enjoy the items I've acquired over the past four months.

HoosierShave, you make a very good point and it is something that I've struggled with since started this adventure: "Try everything and right now!". It can all be a little overwhelming of sorts. All of the great options available to us in this hobby/obsession make it difficult to just settle in and focus on technique. For me, it's never been about "keeping up with the Jones's."(and I'm not saying that's what you're doing either). But, it's about the variety and the many experiences that variety brings. The problem I've found with this is that our technique suffers, especially early on, from this immense variety.

One thing that I feel helps is if you do feel the need to change something in your setup, make sure you only change one thing at a time. Another thing that helped me was sticking to one soap/cream that is solid for you in all aspects until everything else seems to fall into place.

Enjoy your shaves!

Here's an update from me:

*Getting much better shaves
*Learning how to make good lather really helps. The method shared in this thread uses a lot of soap, though that doesn't concern me. Quality soap doesn't cost that much. Heck, I could always get the massive Cella block.
*Envisioning cutting hair and not skin helps.
*Not flexing my wrist, but rather my elbow is helping, it will take a while to get this one down pat.
*Short deliberate strokes.
*Don't shave where there isn't cream, don't stroke where whiskers aren't being reduced.

Also, I go back through this thread every other day or so as it has so much info.

Things keep getting better. Today I achieved a damn fine shave. I think that a BBS is a fallacy for most of us to achieve on any kind of a consistent basis, thus Im not pursuing that now.

I thought I had been shaving with a Feather blade, though discovered a 7 O'Clock blade it needed changing. I went ahead and move to the Feather. While I've just recently learned how to make proper lather, it seems like the best I've ever felt was the B&M Cologne Russo, so I used that with the Feather in hopes of avoiding blood.

Very little blood with the combo. One of the nicks was a technique mistake.

New question: How, while keeping your wrist immobile, do you shave the chin on the angles as you move down under the chin?

Pete123 I use my arm to make the shave strokes but I do move my wrist as required to change the angle of the razor. With enough practice you will be surprised how close you can come to a BBS on a consistent basis. Were it not for one spot on the right side of my neck I could nail the BBS most all of the time. I just to feel the need to chase a BBS on a daily basis.

I'm late to the thread Pete123 but sounds as if you are well on the way to consistently great shaves - well done.

Great pointers thus far. I did want to imbed Nathan's video for reference:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcJA9ZMaphA

Great lather starts with great loading. Note that Nathan loads for nearly 2 minutes! Next is slow hydration. I recommend when new to a soap or wet shaving in general, palm lather and keep gradually adding water until you actually break the lather. You will be surprised how long this takes as long as you hydrate gradually.

It will also help you when you dial in other soaps as you know when enough is enough.

The chin is an area that you eventually just develop the skill to maintain the blade angle without much thought. Take it slow at first and just do your best to avoid any unnecessary "moving pieces" ie wrist, etc.

Keep up the good work!

I like to pull my bottom lip up, like making a frown, or actually tilt my head back while making the stroke to help go down around the chin area.

clint64 , thanks for the input.

kwsher , good input, I didn't gather all of the details you mentioned when watched his video. What do you mean by the lather 'breaking'?

wyze0ne , Thanks for the input. Like you, I really like vintage things and I hope I'm on the way to getting great shaves with razors from long ago.

kwsher , good input, I didn't gather all of the details you mentioned when watched his video.  What do you mean by the lather 'breaking'?

Hey Pete, as you hydrate your lather, you'll get to the point as you gradually add moisture where the lather looks good. Keep adding water. You'll find that this segment of the hydration most likely lasts longer than you think. Keep going.

When it breaks you'll have a loose mess with large [ish] bubbles that is essentially unusable. Then you know both what this looks like and how long it takes to get there with this particular soap.