Thread: New to wet shaving, how to reduce razor burn with new straight

Yup, what all those guys said. The neck is the hardest and most sensitive part of the shave, with the oddest hair grain and is the scariest part. All of those things contribute to the difficulty of shaving the neck. To summarize:

1. The lather needs to be wet and slick -- learning to create proper lather, like everything else, takes some practice. If it dries out, put a few drops of water on your brush and go over the old lather to get it wet again. Don't shave if it starts to feel like plaster.
2. Map your hair growth to shave with the grain (WTG) as much as possible. If it's not possible to shave WTG because of a difficult stroke angle, get as close as you can get to WTG.
3. No pressure other than the weight of the blade.
4. Make sure you stretch the skin with your free hand and by tilting your head back. Use alum on your fingers if things are slippery.
5. The angle of the blade to your skin should be about one spine width away or a touch more, but don't allow it to get past two or you'll reach a point where you will be scraping your skin. The absolute ideal angle for each razor can only be discovered by feel.
6. Short strokes.
7. The razor needs to be well stropped before each use.