Bought a shavette to try open blade shaving and it nicks me every single time. Is it me or is the thing just meaner than a straight razor?

Bit of background. Five months on a DE, comfortable, hardly ever a weeper any more. Got curious about straight razors but didn't fancy the strop and stones faff so I bought a shavette, the folding kind that takes half a DE blade. Figured it's the same blade I already use so how different can it be.

Answer: VERY. Six shaves in and I have had blood every single time. Not big cuts, just weepers, but three or four a shave, mostly along the jaw and one memorable one on the top lip. The DE was never like this even in week one. I'm using the same blade brand I use in the DE, same soap, same prep, showering first.

So is this normal and I push through, or have I bought a razor that's just nastier than an actual straight razor would have been? A mate with a proper straight says his barely ever cuts him and I'm starting to think I picked the wrong tool.

Normal, unfortunately. Same blade, completely different razor. In the DE that blade is clamped at a fixed angle with a bar in front of it. In the shavette it's clamped in a stick and every wobble in your wrist goes straight to the edge. First fortnight on mine looked like yours.

Cheeks only for a week. Don't go near the jaw or lip yet.

Your mate isn't wrong either, which is the annoying part. I've got both. The straight razor has a thick edge with a spine behind it and a bit of weight, and it genuinely does forgive a sloppy angle. The shavette blade is a bit of foil by comparison and it's sharper out of the wrapper than any honed edge I've ever had. So it's not you being useless, it's the tool having no margin.

Two things that stopped my weepers. Stretch the skin properly, not a token tug, actually pull it flat with the other hand so there's no fold for the edge to catch. And go shallower than feels right. I was holding it far too steep because that's what "looks" like a barber, and the steep angle is a scrape not a cut.

Change the blade more often too. I was trying to get DE mileage out of it and by shave four it was tugging and I was pressing without noticing.

Pete, I did exactly this, in exactly this order, DE then shavette then eventually a straight, and my first two weeks on the shavette were the bloodiest of the lot. So the short answer is: it's the tool's lack of margin, not you, and yes it settles, but only if you change three habits rather than waiting it out.

First, pressure. You've got a light hand for a DE now, but a DE still has a safety bar that stops pressure doing much harm. A shavette has nothing. The moment that made it click for me was shaving the flat of one cheek with the blade barely touching, expecting nothing, and watching the stubble come off anyway. Every bit of pressure I'd been adding was surplus. Second, angle. Roughly 20 to 30 degrees, and on a shavette I'd start at the shallow end of that: lay it almost flat and lift the spine until it just starts cutting. Steeper than about 30 is where the weepers live. Third, the blade. In a DE I get 5 to 7 shaves; in the shavette I change at 2 to 5 and honestly usually 3, because a tugging half blade with no guard is the single most reliable way to get nicked.

Then the sequencing slantcurious said. Cheeks only, with the grain, for a week or two, and finish the neck and lip with the DE. I kept the DE for my neck for about a month. The jaw and top lip are the last places to bring the shavette to, not the first, because that's loose skin and awkward angles and it'll catch. I wrote all of it up with the loading and blade-change bits in how to shave with a shavette and the grip is the same one in how to shave with a straight razor.

One thing worth saying plainly because it's a forum and someone will read this in a year: weepers that stop with cold water and a bit of alum are normal for this stage. A cut that keeps bleeding, or a spot that gets red and angry and stays that way, isn't a technique problem any more and is a pharmacist or doctor question.

Tom Hartley said:

a tugging half blade with no guard is the single most reliable way to get nicked

This. I'd add: check the half blade is actually seated straight. Mine crept out at one corner once and I couldn't work out why one side of my face was fine and the other was a mess. Look along the edge from the end before every shave, takes two seconds.

Also snap the blade in the paper, not with bare fingers. Ask me how I know.

Three weeks later. Cheeks only for the first ten days like everyone said, blade almost flat, changed the blade every third shave, and actually stretching the skin instead of pretending to. Blood: one weeper in the last fortnight, and that was my fault for rushing.

Brought it down to the jaw this week and it's fine. Top lip is still the DE's job and might stay that way. Also found the blade had been sitting slightly crooked in the head the first few shaves, so Rob's two second check probably saved me a few plasters on its own.

Not sure I'll ever bother with a proper straight now. This does the job once you stop treating it like a DE.