So it's been about a month since I started str8 shaving. Definitely developing my skills. I read every guide on the site, started slowly, working up to a full-face shave. My equipment has improved too. went from boar brush to a silver-tip badger, and from a no-brand soap to some nice SRD soap with a dollop of shave cream thrown in for some moisture.

At the beginning I naturally had difficulty with the chin and mustache. My blade (5/8" hollow ground dovo carbon-steel) would tug at the course hairs and it was only with difficulty and pain that I was able to cut through the hairs. And my shave has never been all that close anyways.

I've started stretching the skin more, which is helping, but the difficulty with the chin is still awful. I've tried everything to make it better: different blade angles and approach angles, different stroke lengths, different stropping techniques, different lathers and beard prep, even got my razor freshing honed by SRD. Even straight from the honing, my blade was relentlessly tugging at the chin hairs. I can't figure out what the deal is!

I only have two ideas left. The first one is, I need to somehow do more skin stretching around the chin. I try tightening the skin by pulling my lower lip over my teeth, but the skin still feels not very taught. Any recommendations on how to stretch skin better around the chin?

My second idea is that a hollow ground blade isn't a good fit for my whiskers. Would something closer to a wedge be better at chopping away these coarse whiskers? My beard all in all isn't very dense or thick, however the chin whiskers seem to be pretty coarse.

I've watched the shaving videos on the site, and people seem to be able to shave their face as if their hairs are melting away, but I seem to get more resistance to my blade all around my face. Perhaps my blade still isn't very sharp?

Jeez, this is getting frustrating... thanks for any suggestions anyone has.