Thread: Neck XTG

Hey fellas, I just have a neck shaving question. I'm a stalky guy with a pretty short neck and a broad chest and shoulders. When I do the XTG pass on my neck and throat (shaving laterally, towards the midline), the handle and monkey tail of my razor hit my chest and shoulders, preventing me from getting the proper angle on that pass. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, how do you deal with it? Any help would be greatly appreciated.

I have the same type of issue when doing XTG and ATG on my neck area. Most of the time I just straighten the handle and use the razor like I would a Japanese-style blade. Works fine--just continue to watch your angles.

I had a similar issue, and watched a lot of shaving videos, and asked a lot of questions to the forum. Here's what I found out:

Shaving from side to side on the neck is typically avoided. Most people shave North to South on pass 1, stretching the skin to one side then the other to get a good shave in the valley alongside the trachea if turning the head and looking up doesn't flatten things out enough by itself. For pass 2, most people shave South to North with the handle in a straight line with the blade, also stretching the skin out of the valley alongside the trachea if needed.

Some people shave diagonally in one or both directions (NE to SW or NW to SE), and some people do 1 of the diagonals downward, but the other upwards. This seems like it would work best for those of us with neck hair that grows sideways. I can only do one of the diagonals in a downward direction, but have to do the other diagonal in an upward direction - otherwise the edge runs into my trachea at too steep of an angle. Sything seems to be the solution for cleaning up the hairs that the other diagonal would have caught easily if I could figure out how to get around not being double jointed...

ps: I've been working on getting my neck BBS for 4 months. 2 things I've learned so far is: don't press to get the hairs in the valley, and don't do more than 3 passes. Otherwise I get razor burn that is red all day...

Have you considered just skipping the XTG pass in favor of an ATG pass?

My neck is pretty challenging (skinny with prominent adam's apple), and I don't even think I can do an XTG pass. Even with a small kamisori, I can't get everywhere without going against the grain.

I've so far found XTG on the neck to be pretty much impossible. There's one place on the left side just under my jaw that would benefit from XTG, but I just can' get the razor oriented in the right direction at the proper angle. For me, WTG + ATG = BBS on the neck, except for that one place.

Thanks a lot guys. I've been trying to do WTG, XTG, then ATG. It sounds like that on my neck and throat, maybe I just need to focus more on improving the quality of my WTG and ATG passes, and skip the XTG altogether. Thank you for the timely feedback.

So, how'd it work out?

The stubble on my neck (under my jaw) grows from below my left ear across and over to below my right ear, so a NS pass and a SN pass are both XTG. My challenge was to figure out how to do a WTG and ATG with that direction of growth. It took a while but I'm now able to do a good WTG on the left with a partial WTG on the right and a good ATG on the right with a partial ATG on the left.

Our faces and beards are all different so shaving technique is not "one size fits all." My advice is to trust your right brain. Continue to think about what you're doing as time passes and your confidence builds. Your right brain will lead your hands into new combinations of blade angle, stroke and skin stretching that will give you what you need: efficient hair removal that brings you closer to a BBS shave.
Namaste,
Morty -_-

I do like a 2 o'clock to 7 o'clock and then a 5 o'clock to 11 o'clock. An X pattern. It doesn't get it BBS and it's very tricky to do but it's better than not doing anything there.

Every now and then, I just get a DE and go towards the Adam's apple.

It can be done but you have to be pretty comfortable with your technique. For the left side of the face, I place the blade just left of the midline and do my XTG from there to just under the ear. Ideally, you'll want to use a round point as I've discovered that any other point wants to dig into your neck just below the mandible.

Until you get comfortable doing this, you can do a cheater move by placing the toe of the razor just left of the chin and taking your stroke from there to the bottom of ear in a 45 degree sweep.