Thread: First full face shave

Carried out my first full face shave today using my Wade & Butcher bow razor sharpened by Neil first using hot water and flannels to prep and then lathered with Taylor of Old Bond St Sandalwood Cream.
Went very carefully WTG and managed the full face and neck with only one very tiny nick. Felt very smooth afterwards except where I could still feel the bristles ATG, but will attempt that when I have had more practice WTG. The most difficult part that I found to shave was the area between the side of the neck and the adam's apple, does anyone have any advice for this please ?
All in all, quite happy and thanks to all the experts on the forum for their great advice !
ATB
Phil

Congrats on the good first start. You mentioned an area you're having some difficulty with. Are you referring to your neck under your chin? If yes the easy way to shave this area to start is a 2 handed grip (hold the tang in one hand and the point up near the spine in the other hand, hold your chin up high and start from the chin moving downward toward the adam's apple.

Thanks Brenngun, the area I'm referring to is the hollow between the side of the neck and the adam's apple. I don't really understand why, as it shouldn't be too difficult ; but I can't seem to get a comfortable grip to shave that area !
Any advice welcomed.

Originally Posted by luckypip

...I can't seem to get a comfortable grip to shave that area !
Any advice welcomed.

New (old) guy here. This is my discussion on the same issue. Maybe you'll pick something up here. http://straightrazorpalace.com/shavi...have-much.html

I find that same patch of real estate hard to address after five or six weeks but I am slowly making progress. The four things I consider that are woking for me:

1. More practice
2. Mastering the scythe
3. Better stropping (staying A+ sharp)
4. A slightly shorter blade
4a. More practice
4b. More stretching + head-leaning the opposite direction

My trouble spots are left side of neck upper lip and chin

Try stretching the skin toward your ear(the ear on the same side as your shaving) to get that patch of skin out if the hollow. I have the same issue with my face. I also use just the toe of the razor in that hollow are your talking about. I found stretching the skin out of the hollow helped a lot.

I have just completed my third full face shave, still WTG and thanks to the good advice from the forum; managed to shave in that awkward area that I previously mentioned ok.
This shave was carried out with a razor that I re-bevelled, honed and stropped myself !
My very first effort, so quite an achievement for me.Albeit not as smooth a shave as the previous ones using a razor that was professionally honed, but I'm getting there!

Hi Phil and welcome to SRP. Great to hear your shaves have improved. Definitely good advice above. I found that using a scything motion helped the most for me and provided the least irritation as well. My neck is quite prone to irritation ordinarily when shaving but straight shaves and particularly scything in the neck area have helped this tremendously.

All the best and keep looking forward to improving shaves! Of course honing is a whole different animal, if you get stuck don't be afraid to send it to a professional rather than grind away at it yourself too much.

I'm fairly new to this but have well over my 100 introductory shaves completed. I watched different videos and found that since everyone has some variation in their techniques, I picked up different ideas from watching how these different people handled particular parts of the shave. Then trial and error after that.

First congrats on making it through the first shave. You like everybody else (myself included) threw caution to the wind, disreguarded all advice and did a full shave on the maiden voyage.

Second, I'll just back what everybody else is saying, practice practice practice. Fortunately, this is a hobby you can practice every day as natural course of the day.

Good job and good luck.