Welcome to the wonderful world of straight razor shaving.

Thank you for buying the straight razor from Naked Armor. We hope that you will enjoy it for many years of great shaving.

Your razor comes with a healthy layer of oil—this was applied to keep the blade away from moisture while it was in our warehouse (or Amazon's facility).

Please remove the oil before use and keep your balde dry, more on that below.

You'll also notice that we placed the blade in plastic. We did this to protect the leather sleeve from the oil.

There are a few things you need to consider and take care of, the straight razor is a beautiful instrument and requires some thoughtful care.

Get Your Wedge & Grind On

In a wedge ground blade, the sides of the blade when viewed in cross section are linear, resembling a standard wedge.

A hollow grind results in blades that are thinner. The grinding forms hollows or concave strips down the length of the blade shaft.

See this article for a deep dive into Hollow Ground vs Wedge.

Straight Razor Parts

How many parts does a straight razor have? Just a blade and handle, right?

You never imagined how many different parts of a straight razor there were, did yoo?

• Spine
• Shoulder
• Point
• Toe
• Face
• Edge
• Heel
• Tail
• Tang
• Pivot pin
• Jimps
• Scales

Check out our article on Parts Of A Straight Razor.

Now, we are going to talk about caring of your new razor—keeping it dry, clean and well oiled so that it will last for decades.

The steel should be cleaned with a dry towel after every use.

You'll also need to store it in a dry place that ideally it not near water.

We make a beautiful stainless steel straight razor stand to help you keep it off the moist bathroom counter. It also holds your brush and comes with a puck of our Noah's Natural Shaving soap and a small bowl for creating your daily lather.

If you bought your staright razor from us and would like to add the staright razor stand we'd be happy to offer you a dicsount as a valued customer—just dop us an email and we'll send you out a coupon code.

If you don't use your straight razor every day, then please apply a small layer of silicon oil to the blade during storage.

The silicon oil protects your blade and will keep the steel fresh and new. Your stright raozr is a tool and requires proper care—please take care of it.

If you have a straight razor you will need a strop. If you don't have one, it would be like having a bike with no pump. The strop is a straight razor's best friend.

Just like a knife in the kitchen, you need to keep the straight razor sharp. Most of our blades come sharp and ready to shave out-of-the-box. However, we still recommend a quick strop to fine tune the edge.

We have a complete how-to article here with lots of videos, please take some time to learn the correct way to strop.

Remember, don't press too hard—just use a very light touch.

Also, never roll the edge of the blade with the strop. You can easily damage the fine-tuned edge by stropping incorrectly.

It really takes a light touch, better to do many light passes.

Go slow and take your time.

Strop paste, included in your kit, can also help you keep a nice edge. Use the paste as needed to soften the leather of the strop for improved sharpening—a little paste goes a long way so the rule again is not to overuse it.

If for some reason you roll the edge of your blade or drop it, you will need to have it professionally honed. Honing is an art form and done with stones, water, and tons of patience.

When I first started Naked Armor I bought some stones and started practicing the art—let me tell you, it's not easy.

You can buy the stone online and try honing yourself or you can contact a professional honer to put an edge on your blade—I recommend you contact someone.

If you are stubborn like me and still want to give it a go, get the strone from Norton Waterstone. Unless you are willing to put in the time and practice, I have to warn you that you'll lileky ruin a few baldes before getting this right.

Don't expect to buy the stones and hone your blade in one afternoon unless you already have some honing skills.

It takes hours of practice to hone a blade and if you are serious about learning it then it can be an invaluable skill to learn while owning a straight razor.

Your wife and friends will love all the sharp knives around the house and you'll be able to put an edge on your straight razor whenever you want.