The result from the 2nd attempt with the straight razor

Well, got the straight razor a few days ago and made two runs with it thus far. The first run created a very nice shave but was marked with several problems. The first problem that occured was shaving the mustache area near my top lip. There isn't a very good way to hold the razor here and when trying to get the hairs right up against the nose, i cut myself twice. The other area of concern when shaving was the sides of my neck. Because i have to hold the razor in a certain way, I have a problem getting the side of my neck visiable in the mirror. Seeing what i am doing here is really tough and i had two decent sized cuts on my neck. Not the best thing ever. The quality of the shave in the other areas was quite good and very smooth. No razor burn either. And, well, the classic approach is just cool cause its a straight razor.

The second attempt was today and its about the same as last time. I got a nick on my chin and above my upper lip and a cut on my left side where the check moves down towards the neck. Its really more of a visibility issue at this point i think there though. The quality of the shave wasn't as good as my Merkur either sadly. It might have something to do with the lather because since my lather cake soap and boar brush and all are not here yet and i am stuck using Edge Pro Gel. Not bad for canned lather but I am hoping for a marked improvement. It might be that the straight razor will improve dramaticly when i have better lather but as of right now, the Merkur is leading for the best shave.

As an asside, Sara and Liz (Tom's Girlfriend) both compared our shaves at Military Ball and mine was dramaticly smoother by both accounts. Liz was noticeably impressed, but i think Sara is more used to me being smooth. Tom uses a high end model electric. Perhaps i can convince him to learn to use a safety razor.