It all comes down to a few things: sharpness of the razor, stropping, angle, pressure, your lather, beard prep and stretching. Since you say that your razors are in shave ready condition, this should not be a factor, unless you managed to roll your edge stropping. Also because presumably you use the same lather and beard prep with your straight than with your cartridge razor, I will not go into that here. so we have:

* for stropping, keep the strop tight and use little pressure on the razor hand. Watch the way you flip the spine.

* You may want to check the "suggested angles for different passes on this link: Shaving passes - Straight Razor Place Wiki

* Let the razor do its job without helping it in any way, you should use little pressure.

* You may also help the process by using light stretching of the skin: the stretching is intended to provide a flatter surface for the razor to cut, remember safety razors are much more narrower than straights. Stretching also make the whiskers stick out a bit more.

Al raz.



Quote Originally Posted by WineGuyD View Post
Well, I think I've tried everything. Coachmike loaned me three shave ready razors, I've honed(pun intended) my stropping and shaving technique, I switched to Mitchell's Wool Fat shaving soap and the one unsurmountable problem remaining is that even after 4,5,6 and even 7 passes on the same area of skin I still see uncut stubble.

The fact is...one pass with my Mach 3 turbo and not a filament of stubble to be seen. I don't get as much of this problem on my center neck and chin but on my cheeks, jawline and neck behind the ears I'm left with numerous hairs. It's as if the razor is removing every other hair on each pass.

Could really use some fresh ideas as to what I'm doing wrong!