Angles, pressure, quality, and irritation

All,

I posted a few weeks ago regarding irritation. I've been working on my technique and only changing one variable at a time. I found that I reduced irritation by reducing my angle against the grain. I pretty much kept the spine of the razor against my skin. I eliminated irritation, but had a hard time achieving smoothness or consistency. In the last few days, I became more daring and lifted the spine to a 10-15 degree angle against the grain. I have been getting BBS with no irritation.

I have seen people using such an angle against the grain on YouTube. But from what I've read, my angle is a bit steeper than it should be. Does this vary from person to person? I wonder if I was getting irritation before because I was subconsciously using too much pressure and not too much angle.

On a side note, I shaved with a DE last night. I had a nice shave but could not believe the amount of growth I had by the end of the day today. The straights have spoiled me. I really enjoy the experience and quality of the shave. The effort in learning the art is becoming well worth it.

Andy

I would associate pressure with the irritation, before I would the angle,,, that's just me. Tonight I had 3 days growth & lowered my angle little more than usual & the shave was more comfortable than the last time I used that same straight, last week. Angle means a lot, I was somewhere around 10 to 15 also.

The third factor for me is skin stretching. I think of it as the triangle of the perfect shave.

You also might find you have changed your stroke from straight up and down and side to side to guilettene strokes or blade angled etc. This can make a huge difference