Quote Originally Posted by jockeys View Post
you are all going to laugh, but here is an instructive story from my youth.

nowadays, i've been growing peculiar beards for nearly half my life, so i've gotten the hang of getting them mostly straight without a lot of fuss. i find it a lot easier with a straight than a disposable since the razor has a hard edge instead of a blurry zone of blades, if that makes sense. i can see right where the cutting is going on. also, i am pretty familiar with my own face and can feel what's going on. HOWEVER, when i was a lad getting started, i would sometimes do the following:

for a very complicated (or thin lined) beard, i would first grow my whiskers (all of them) about a week. this gave me enough beard so that when i shaved the line would be very well defined. i then got a green (black is hard to see amongst dark hair) magic marker and drew the lines i wanted to have. sometimes i had to wash my face a few times until i got the lines where i wanted them. i frequently used a ruled to keep 'em straight. then it was a simple matter to shave around the lines i had drawn!

laugh all you want, it works rather well
LOL!!! That's hilarious! Actually drawing on your face to shave hair off? I remembered drawing on my face to appear like more hair! lol! ...I think that maybe a bit much. I have an Andis T-Edger and a T-Outliner, so I dont have a problem establishing some lines. I really feel that the straight razor will give the crispest lineup possible. I used to get lined up with a straight edge when I was a kid, but few barbers such as the ones I showed are doing this lost art. Plus I know it would be badass if I could do it myself! Heck I may get so good at it that I could lineup other ppl.