Thread: 2nd shave

Better on cheeks, in fact close as I could wish even atg and xtg. Chin so-so. Neck, cut myself several times and now all red and blotchy. I have a fairly soft and loose-ish skin on the neck, due to significant weight loss a while ago. Left hand side near the ear seems a difficult spot.

Patience and perseverance...

Sounds like you had a pretty good second shave.
If it is of any help, I did not even venture past my cheeks for about 5-6 weeks when I first started.
When I did venture to new territory, it was a slow process. It was probably a full 5 months before I got a completely acceptable shave over my entire face.
All of this was to encourage you and relate to you that not everyone gets a great shave on the first or second time as you may hear occasionally related on the site.
Slow and steady is the way to go.
Since you are shaving your whole face now, here is a tip that helped me: Map the beard growth on your face. I found that areas on my neck that I thought I was shaving WTG on the first pass, I had actually been taking more of a XTG pass for a first pass. Once I realized this and made some adjustments, the irritation significantly decreased for me.

Tim,
I think you're doing fine.

At the risk of beating a dead horse, I'd really want to emphasize on skin stretching at this point.
A fairly large part of the skin under the jawbone can be pulled over the jawbone and shaved right there. This works WTG as well as ATG. The remaining part of the neck skin can be stretched by tilting the head backwards, sticking the chin out and pushing the skin down low at the neck with your free hand. Keep the spine of the razor not more than a few mm above the skin, maintaining a low angle. Try not to go over the same spot to many times, even if it's not as close as you want. Closeness improves as you gain more experience.

have a great time in front of that mirror,

Bart.