Thread: Neck difficulties

I've been SR shaving daily for about 2 months, but I'm having to do way to many passes on my neck to achieve a decent shave. If anyone has any ideas that might help me with the problem below, let me know.

Here's my problem: When I pass my hand over the stubble it's obvious the hairs grow sideways from left to right, points a little bit upward, and lies flat to the skin. So I stretch the skin to the left to get the hairs to stand up. Shaving the left side of the neck ATG works, since it's going from the center outward (diagonally), but shaving the right side ATG causes the razor to dig into the trachea no matter what I try.

I'm still working on finding a way to go ATG on the right side, but in the mean time, I do N-S, diagonally outward and downward, S-N, diagonally upward and toward the center, and in a sything motion with lots of swing around the pivot that causes a small part of the tip to travel close enough to straight across that it cuts some of the stubble ATG. If I repeat the sything pass twice, I usually get a close enough shave that the neck hairs don't start sticking into my shirt collar (shirt & tie job), until 2-3 pm (which is an improvement over the 10am they used to start sticking at before I started using a SR, but not quite good enough yet).

I find that on tricky neck parts that it's not just about where and how you're stretching, but also how your head is positioned.

For example, my neck area under my chin seems to grow out toward my collarbone from the adams apple on each side. I get the best results from stretching kind of toward my shoulders while pointing my chin as far away from the direction I'm stretching as possible. I end up with my chin to the sky and turned all the way to one side. This is the only way I can get those areas flat for a good shave. i hope this makes sense and helps in some way

PS. One thing that I also do to help out my neck area is to use a scything stroke (kind of a slicing motion), but I'd recommend getting pretty comfy with a regular stroke first, then looking it up in the wiki.

I run imto a siliar issue. The hairs around my trachea grow diagonally downward. I've found for me that the best approach is to hold the blade at a 45(ish) degree angle and make the pass diagonally, kind of a SE to NE or vice versa type of pass. Also making sure that you find the right stretching "pattern" to maximize the action of the razor. Problem for me is that I might get bbs on my neck with one shave but on the next I forget how I did it. That's half the joy of the learning curve though. Going from an o.k. shave to a stellar one learning as you go.

The barber hates doing my neck almost as much as I do. But he does a good job of it, with turning my head left and right while tilting my head back at the same time. If you have a good enough mirror set up, its quite easy to shave like this yourself. But I know for me, I need to do it fast, as I get a stiff neck after only a short time.

good luck!

I have the exact hair pattern, and it regularly gives me trouble. I posted a thread not to long ago about the same issue. Here's two things that are consistently working for me. The first, for some of the spots, closest to the jaw, I'm pulling my cheek north. I get as much of my diagonal spot onto that big, flat surface as possible. Thanks to BigIan for this one. It generally works for the first pass, and i just gently touch it up afterward. I have the same issue on both sides of my neck.

The second thing I did was experiment a little with razors, as I read a post about the thickness of beards, and appropriate razors. I can say from my own experience, that when I shave with my Dovo 6/8 I get a bit of burn on my neck, but when I shave with my Shumate Barber, my whole face is completely smooth after one pass. As far as I know, my angles are the same, and my pre and post shave are identical.

so for me, maybe for you....1) stretching a little differently, 2) different razor.

maxi