Newbie (?) Question

I've been at this for about 6 months. I've had my razor professionally honed by Ken Rup. (fantastic guy to do business with by the way)

When I shave with a DE I get BBS every time. For the life of me I cannot attack the whiskers at my jawline behind and just under my chin at the right angle using my straight. The smaller size of the DE allows me to do this fairly easily if I stretch the skin.

My neck whiskers grow sideways and I cannot hit them against the grain with the long blade of my C-Mon.

UNLESS I do this cross handed gymnastics that is basically awkward and perilous. I don't think it's good form to do it that way and it's risky for a nasty cut. Basically I have to take the razor with my right hand and shave down my face with the point facing outward and the heel near my ear.

So I say there has to be a better way.

So I wish to tap the amazing depth of knowledge here on SRP and find a better way to get my neck and jawline.

Thanks in advance fellas.

If it feels unsafe, I'd say avoid the ATG pass and concentrate on getting the WTG and XTG passes down. My neck hairs grow the same way, from side to side under my chin.

I cant shave ATG at all. It totally wrecks my face and gives me terrible razor burn, so I have to make do with WTG and XTG.

What you'll need to do is make sure your prep is A1, stretch the skin quite a lot to get the hairs standing up, keep a light touch and make several passes at a variety of angles. Think beard reduction with each pass, not one pass elimination!

Its difficult to work out the best way to shave for your beard, and this is all part of the learning experience. Its taken me ages to work it out the best passes for me, and I'm always tweaking them to get them right.

But the bottom line is if you think you're going to do yourself a mischief, dont make that pass! Try it from another angle. You may find a cut down razor helps you as well, as the shorter length makes the tighter corners that little bit easier!

Good luck!

This area was my most challenging section to get BBS. I had used the M3 to fit in this area and used a J motion. However, this area always seem to get an ingrown hair with the M3, which took a few days to work out. So this is what I wanted to avoid with the straight razor and I have.

My third pass is always about fine tuning this area a little more. I stretch my skin and angle my neck and adust the pitch of the blade to finish up this area to a very fine BBS shave. I first shave SE and SW and concentrate on the trouble spot. It used a trial & error process to master this area.

Keep working on it. It feels great when you discover the technique.

Pabster

Quote:

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Originally Posted by joscobo

I've been at this for about 6 months. I've had my razor professionally honed by Ken Rup. (fantastic guy to do business with by the way)

When I shave with a DE I get BBS every time. For the life of me I cannot attack the whiskers at my jawline behind and just under my chin at the right angle using my straight. The smaller size of the DE allows me to do this fairly easily if I stretch the skin.

My neck whiskers grow sideways and I cannot hit them against the grain with the long blade of my C-Mon.

UNLESS I do this cross handed gymnastics that is basically awkward and perilous. I don't think it's good form to do it that way and it's risky for a nasty cut. Basically I have to take the razor with my right hand and shave down my face with the point facing outward and the heel near my ear.

So I say there has to be a better way.

So I wish to tap the amazing depth of knowledge here on SRP and find a better way to get my neck and jawline.

Thanks in advance fellas.

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If your talking about your neck area, and jawbone, Yes, stretch the skin.
If you can only do two passes, then that's fine....On my neck, I only go UP and Down, My neck hair grows in multiple directions, so I don't know if that's A or W or what, but just do what you can do, comfortably, and make sure you stretch your skin. That's how you get the jawline.....

try scything motion no pressure at all. if razor doesn't cut hair that means it needs sharpneing.
Lastly your face should get used to straight razor too.
i would say 6 months should be good enough time to skin get used to straight if you use only straight razor but it doesn't look like you have done so.
gl

I change my grip slightly on the awkward neck passes and I do two diagonal strokes- diagonal up and diagonal down (at 90deg to eachother)

You experiment and try different angles and strokes and skin stretching but in the end some of us have areas of our faces that really resist bbs. I find even though a few small areas are not bbs I'm still getting a great shave anyway so I don't worry about it anymore.