Originally Posted by
kaptain_zero
Just to clarify something that we often forget... The M3 is capable of giving you a reasonably good shave because it has taken much of the control away from you, the user. It is designed to fight excess pressure, incorrect angles and generally sloppy shavemanship. The DE is more of straight razor with training wheels... DE's will NOT correct for incorrect shave technique but rather simply prevent the user from decapitating themselves if they stray too far off course. The straight razor does absolutely nothing to prevent you from shaving incorrectly.... If you press the razor hard enough to cause razor burn (and it takes very very little pressure to do that) then by golly the straight will give it to you... after all, that's what you told the razor to do. Use the incorrect angle AND excessive pressure and you shall surely be rewarded with lots of razor burn, nicks and cuts.
The straight demands discipline and respect. Learn to handle it correctly and it will reward you with the kind of shaves you can never get from a cartridge razor but remember.... you are the one that has to do the controlling and the shaving... the razor will simply oblige and do what you tell it to do. Straight shaving is not hard, but it surely isn't easy when you start out and you have to be willing to work at learning and developing the skills and senses you need to use to guide that razor. A straight will no more make you an expert shaver than a basket ball will turn you into a Magic Johnson, it's you who has to take the reins and teach yourself how to do this.
As for razor burn, you're pressing too hard with the blade, caress your face with it, don't scrape your face and secondly, the angle of the blade is probably not right... try to keep the spine of the blade one or two spine widths from your face, move it further away from the skin only if it's not quite cutting. Make your strokes rather short and overlapping slightly... and just so you don't forget, don't lean on that blade! :D
The chin line... it's a sharp curve for most of us... all the pivoting in the M3 now has to be duplicated by your wrist... hard to do so most of us use very short strokes as we work our way around the corner..
ATG, worry about that when you can do a proper WTG with no burn or other issues. Most of us are able to do an appearance presentable shave in one WTG pass. I don't mean you won't feel stubble if you rub your face in all directions, I just mean that if you look at yourself in the mirror after that one good WTG pass, you should LOOK presentable. Don't feel bad if you have to use an M3 to finish the shave in the beginning... keeping your face in one piece is important... once you get razor burn, it needs to heal before you can shave again properly....
Regards
Christian