Thread: Chin/jawline problems?

Just finished my third straight razor shave today with my W&B from joshearl, and i'm still having significant problems around my chin/jawline. no matter how i position the blade, i always seem to end up with nicks/razor burn in this area. this time i made sure to start wtg before trying to go xtg (which i cant do very well in that area) and finally atg. besides getting razor burn, however, i'm also not getting a very close shave in this area, even when i do an extra pass or two after the three on the rest of my face. can anybody suggest what i should do differently here to prevent the razor burn and get a closer shave in this area? the pic below in my chin shortly after shaving this morning, so you can get an idea of what i mean. also, i've only been having every couple days cause i have a light beard, but the razor burn from the last shave is usually mostly but not completely healed before i do the next one...does anybody know any ways to expedite the healing of nicks/razor burn?

i'm using this (http://straightrazorpalace.com/showthread.php?t=15306) razor, a cheap pharmacy boar brush, and col conk's bay rum hsaving soap. i'm shaving directly after my shower and trying to work up a good lather. i also haven't wet shaved before using a straight razor--could this be a contributory factor?

thanks in advance for any advice you can give!

Patience my dear sir, patience. Most everyone has problems in this area... many of us have been shaving for years and still would say we haven't "mastered" shaving the chin/jawline. That's not to say we don't get an acceptable shave there, just not a good as we'd like. Many touch-up that area with a DE or cartridge razor until they figure out what works best for them.

Only you can figure out what will work best for you... you have to experiment!!

For me, the jawline was (is?) definitely a problem. I've learned to stretch the skin in different ways to get the "patch" being shaved off the jaw line. I also found I tended to have the razor at too high an angle and used too much pressure in this area.... light short strokes with a nearly flat angle work best for me. Also, I found that when my razor wasn't really sharp I tended to cut myself more in this area and get more irritation... this was probably the most significant cause of my early problems, followed by razor angle. When the razor isn't sharp enough it catches on your beard then breaks free with a slight jerk... and bingo, a cut! The sharper your razor the easier it is in this area, at least for me.

Lastly, I find I have better control around the chin/jawline and edging around my mustache if I hold the razor by the spine/blade (almost at midpoint) instead of the tang. I'd guess that's blasphemy to some, but it works for me. Again... there's no right or wrong in this, it's whatever works for you!

Yikes!

Those slices are likely from either using too steep a blade angle or moving the blade parallel (rather than close to perpendicular) to the edge.

I suggest (1) you stop shaving until you're fully healed, then go back at it, being careful of your blade angle and stroke directions and (2) stick with WTG passes for a while, until you have that down, then consider XTG passes.

It took me a few shaves to figure out my chin as well. As stated pulling the skin slightly to get part of it off the line helps. I do an xtg just under the jaw line that seems to get alot of the troubling stubble I can't quite get WTG.

Time to heal as well, irritated skin takes more than a day at times to heal. When I first started I was only shaving every other day. Any burn was gone by the next shave.

For the chin area, what works best for me, is keeping a goatee.

OK, ok, I'm just serious.

No, really, I wear a goatee, so I have a feeling it will be a long, long time before I can give any help in this area.

Sorry, I just couldn't help myself.

should i eventually be able to eliminate all the stubble on my neck/chin to the point where i get as close a shave there as i do on my cheeks? or will it always be a little coarser there no matter how many passes i do?

Yup you will get there with practice and experimenting. Once your face gets used to the straight and you find your technique, all will be grand

I've been at this whole straight razor thing for almost eight months and I can't get the areas below my jawline as close as I can get my cheeks. But that's not the right standard; the right standard is whether you can get the areas below the jawline as clean with a straight as you could with another shaving implement. In my case, the answer to that is yes, and with less irritation and more fun.

I've found that the skin I fillet off grows back much tougher than the previous layer. There's a lot to be said for scar tissue. Just kidding - kinda.

Actually my chin and most of my upper lip are, fortunately for me, not much of a problem. Where I can never seem to get it right is at the corners of my mouth where a few blamed whiskers seem to want to grow right around the corner into the inside of my cheeks. Since that's where my tongue is planted most of the time, I prefer its perch to be smooth. The skin is delicate there and seems to not respond to my attempts to evert and stretch or stretch and whatever.

Then again, if I were to get honing reduced down from myth, to art, to craft, maybe I could get the shaver in my corner, so to speak. I have the craft of lathering down cold. I can get it on the mirror, in my nose, on my ears, and have recently perfected landing a glob in my left eye. This may have elevated soap to an art. Honing has perhaps been elevated from myth to mystery and here I thought I was on the grasshopper path.

Bruce

Like others have said this is a common problem among straight razor users. I don't have a problem with my jaw line just my chin, I usually wear a goatee but i decided to shave it off this week. What works for me is a super sharp razor and short even strokes. But it seems like your forcing the razor to cut, i always use a very light touch maybe you should try to lighten up on the pressure.