How to Shave With a Straight Razor: A Beginner's Order of Work
What do you do before the blade touches your face?
To shave with a straight razor, soften the beard with a hot towel, build a dense lather with a brush, hold the blade at a shallow angle to the skin, roughly 30 degrees or less, pull the skin taut with your free hand and take short, light strokes with the grain. A beginner stops after one pass. The blade gets stropped on leather before each shave, usually a few dozen passes, because a dull edge drags the hair and cuts the skin. Too steep an angle scrapes and nicks the skin. Pressure stays close to nil, since the weight of the razor does the work. The American Academy of Dermatology (AAD) tells people to wet skin and hair before shaving and calls the time right after a shower a good one. Expect a few nicks in the first weeks, and keep a styptic pencil at hand. Give the first shaves extra time on a quiet morning, and never shave a cold face. Straight razors were the main way to shave by hand for centuries, so the method is well documented. It simply punishes a rushed beginner. If you only want to find out whether you like it, a straight razor with a disposable blade needs no honing or stropping.
Angle, skin tension and the order of strokes
Start with the beard, not the razor. Hold a hot towel on your face for a few minutes or shave straight after a hot shower, so the whiskers are soft before any lather goes on. At 044 Barbershop in Kyiv a hot-towel shave begins with the towel, because a softened whisker cuts with less drag. Then whip up a dense, creamy lather with the brush. Quality matters more than quantity, and you apply it again before every pass. Rinse the blade after every stroke, as the AAD advises for any razor, so cut hair and lather do not pile up on the edge. Work in a fixed order so no patch gets skipped: right cheek from top to bottom, under the right jaw, the left side the same way, then the upper lip, the chin and last the skin under the chin. The free hand flattens the skin for every stroke. On the right cheek you reach over your head and draw the skin up, under the chin you tilt your head back and pull the skin down, and for the chin you push the lower lip up while for the upper lip you pull it down. Pull only until the skin is smooth, no harder. Keep the strokes short, and lift the blade off between them. On the neck, go around the Adam's apple and pull the skin to one side, and once the blade touches you, keep it moving rather than resting it on the skin.
Finish with cool water and expect a few nicks at first
One pass with the grain is a complete shave for a beginner. If you want it smoother, rinse the blade, lather again and go across the grain. Against the grain gives the closest finish and the most ingrown hairs, so leave it for later and keep it off the neck, where hair grows in several directions. The AAD also advises shaving every day, or at least every two to three days, because hair that has had less time to grow has less time to curl back into the skin. When you finish, rinse the lather off with warm water, gently but thoroughly, because the AAD notes that cream left on the skin can irritate it. Then finish with cool water, lay a cool damp cloth on the skin as the AAD suggests, pat the skin dry instead of rubbing, check for nicks and put on a balm or witch hazel. Press a small cut closed or touch it with a styptic pencil. Dry the razor and do not lend it: the NHS advises avoiding sharing razors, because hepatitis B can pass on through blood. If you want to see the angle and the stroke done by someone who shaves daily, come in for a face or head shave with a hot towel and ask the barber to talk you through the steps as they go.