Thread: First straight shave this morning

Originally Posted by Ulricus

My second shave this morning went much the same as yesterday, though the irritation is mostly on my chin rather than my neck. There is still a lot of tugging, and I feel like I need to put pressure on in order to clean any of the hair off.

Nooooooooooooo! No extra pressure. You really won't like what happens. So:

Assuming you have hairy arms, if you gently (with zero pressure) glide the razor down your forearm, does the arm hair just slide off piling up in front of the blade leaving smooth skin behind?

This doesn't guarantee the blade is sharp enough, but it is an easy test to do. If you can't easily with no tug remove arm hair, get the blade fixed. There are other better sharpness tests but it takes times to get the feel.

Your beard is much tougher than your arm hair. So when you shave your face; particularly your cheeks, does the blade softly sound like scraping burnt bread off of slightly burnt toast? You beard should be slicing off easily with a little burnt toast scraping sound.

Have you mapped on a piece of paper you beard growth pattern? That was a big deal for me because my beard has patches in different places on my face where it changes direction. There are even a couple of small difference right to left but it is mostly symmetrical. If I did start at the top of my cheek and went straight towards my feet (bottom of my neck), First I would be shaving XTG, then towards the bottom I would be ATG. ATG before reducing my beard can cause irritation on my face.

These were big deals for me: beard map, sharp blade, blade angle. If you need to apply pressure, or feel the need, something is wrong.

Best,

Ed

Go here to see if you can find you someone that can do it for you, If not then read each one & pick one that sounds best for your needs & email him to make arrangements for honing & stropping your razor. There are some damn good ones here, you just have to go with one & send it to him. You should have a pretty fast turn around on it. Here's the link:
Member Services - Straight Razor Place Classifieds

Ok, it appears that richard the retiree with more time than me has got here first. Go for comfort over closeness, angles are all important as is stretching, it will take a while to figure out the best stretches, pull your skin against the direction of growth to get the hair standing up.
You may find a wetter lather than you are used to for D/E shaving is beneficial too. Also remember that the lather drys out during the shave, so if your shaves are taking a while you may need to freshen up the lather in the area you are shaving.
Stropping could be, but isnt necessarily an issue, it depends on your technique, i sent my first razor back to the vendor after a month or so to get feedback on my stropping, it was still shaving fine, but it was nice to know whether or not my technique was good or bad.

Today's shave was better still. I still have a few issues with stretching, but I guess that's to be expected at this point. No alum sting (except on one nick on my jawline near my chin) and DFS on most of my face. I'm still figuring out how to get the bottom of my chin and the hollows of my neck.
Thanks for the advice edhewitt, the wetter lather made a big difference.

You are welcome, with your neck you will probably need to use your head to get a decent stretch. No that isn't a pun, what I mean is angling your head in such a way that the skin is pulled taught out of the hollow, or pulled up above your jawline.

Originally Posted by edhewitt

You are welcome, with your neck you will probably need to use your head to get a decent stretch. No that isn't a pun, what I mean is angling your head in such a way that the skin is pulled taught out of the hollow, or pulled up above your jawline.

I heartily concur with head position and stretching! The whiskers on my neck grow sideways from my trachea to my ears. There are three major regions on my neck with slightly different directions these are symmetric, but I also have three other non-symmetric patches which have a unique direction too. I also have a strip of beard at the very bottom of my neck which goes up and down.

Learning my beard pattern, where to point my chin (straight up and to the sides), and how to stretch the skin (mostly up towards my head but a couple of patches need a stretch that isn't straight up). A really sharp blade helps, and at least for me, a 5x magnifying mirror is a big deal. I can well see what I am doing even out of the corner of one eye.

By working on different razor grips and strokes, I am now reducing the beard and eliminating it on the ATG pass with the minimum number of strokes. This is so easy to write but took me about a month and a half of shaving to learn to do!

It will get easier, one day you will just do it, then you wonder why it was so difficult to figure out. Once you get it working, it just works!

Good luck,

Ed

I mapped my beard on paper three times and noticed my understanding changed a bit each time. I experimented with different grips on the razor, and finally settled I need to use both hands to get the best results on both sides of my neck.