Thread: Necessity of ATG

Originally Posted by GrimClippers

I would try using cold water. I used to have the same problem if I had to wear a uniform later at night. For me it was easier to get a good smooth shave without irritation by doing a WTG and two XTG and cold water.

This applies to me as well but only on touch ups on the neck just below the jaw line. XTG gets as close as I need to look presentable for the day with exception of under the jaw line and I only go ATG everywhere else when the Mrs is frisky and wants a true BBS surface to work with rather than the clean but rugged feeling XTG gives.

100 shaves from now this will have all sorted out for most...

Obie speaks truth to power...hope that you can hang on to comfort no matter what..

Cold water shaving can be your friend - many of us who have tried it have never turned back.

Those smiling blades, like the Robert Williams SRP LE...can do amazing things to those pesky swirly hairs on the throat - just sayin'

With a Cart I am looking pretty scruffy in 12 hours. Using a straight, cold water I'm 12 hours on this AM's shave and as my Barber would say: "ready for that appearance Mr. C" - I can feel the stubble with a little pressure but the SWMBO says I would be allowed in public with her - for at least a couple of hours.

With practice the problem areas get smaller and smaller and the amount of time/passes you need becomes less. You just have to try every trick in the book and then make up a few of your own, its part of the fun.

I make a North to South pass, but change the direction and angle (heel forward, heel back) based on working on each area. I say north to south but some of it is WTG and some of it is XTG.
Then a South to North, again adjusting as I go - a mixture of XTG, ATG for the most part.
Then a clean up, I lather the jaw line/chin and down. Using buffing, angles and directional two finger stretching (short buffing strokes in between the thumb and forefinger to stretch and tension opposite the direction of growth for a small area(s)

Buffing, sweeping (like a windshield wiper) and heel forward "snow plow" - none of which I even think about any more - it just becomes part of the muscle memory after a few hundred shaves - as it will for you.

A great edge is a must, and with practice you will be amazed at what a basic stropping can do to bring an edge back. Recently I picked up one of my first Whipped Dog razors and gave it the strop and shave test. I was amazed with the results, I remembered setting it aside because I though that I had rolled the edge. It was just new shaver bad stropping - not destructive, just not giving the edge the right basic care (all my bad)

Smooth Shaving...and do enjoy the journey...

I work with a 26 yr old bloke who shaves in a morning before work. By lunchtime, he has a 5 o'clock shadow! By 5, you'd swear he hadn't shaved that day. He can grow a full, impressive beard in about a week. The boss has even suggested he shave again at lunchtime!

Convert in the making?

Originally Posted by Razorfeld

I've been adapting my shaving technique the past three months. Basically I don't use an ATG unless I'm going to a special event (which hasn't occurred for a very long time) and am content with a WTG and XTG on my face with good results. The adapting is in shaving my neck where WTG and XTG just haven't done the job. After watching, randomly, barbers giving shaves, I was struck by one where the barber started by shaving the neck area ATG then WTG. My neck hairs seem to be more wiry than the rest of the face so I now start my shave, when the blade is the sharpest, with an ATG & WTG passes and then my face with the WTG & XTG passes. My neck area is now, generally, smoother than my face for a longer period of time.

I do this as well, and with cold water, and it works great for me!!

Originally Posted by Walterbowens

I do this as well, and with cold water, and it works great for me!!

Is there any other way but the cold water shave? OK, don't everybody that shaves warm/hot jump on me. To each their own, YMMV, I Did It My Way and all that. I'm only commiserating with a fellow CW shaver.