Two Weeks In

First my background:

I'm now just over two weeks into my conversion to straights. To me shaving seemed like just one more thing where modern 'convenience' replaced quality with speed. I was growing increasingly unhappy with the quality of shaves from any range of shaves with plastic safety razors from the single blade Bics up to the washboard Mach whatevers with their ridiculous number of blades... not to mention the cost of these blades.

My first razor is a Dovo Best Quality that was honed and shave ready.

My first shave was a bloody mess, although I was prepared for this. I arrived at the office the next day looking like I had been attacked by a cat and had to explain to more than one person why I had all these little scratches on my face. Thankfully they all healed very quickly and I soon developed a much better feel for the blade against my face. I've had a few more minor nicks and only one semi-bad cut... on my sideburn area when I wasn't paying attention to the tip of the blade and it cut into my skin there a bit. I learned my lesson.

Oddly, my worse cuts have actually been on my hand. Twice now I've bumped the back of my fingers on the non-shaving hand against the blade. Both times I felt nothing on the hand that was cut (another blade sharpness test I guess, although not one I would recommend) just a bump on the hand holding the blade. Sure enough both times I looked down to see a nice 1cm long slice oozing blood out all over the place. Those are all now healing nicely and I've certainly learned my lesson there too... it's not just the face I need to be careful with when yielding around a big exposed blade.

I've taken a few evenings where I've spend a lot of time in the mirror studying the grain of my face... something that honestly I never paid attention to before. That made a huge difference. For one, I never realized that the hairs on my chin and jaw area are growing sideways. During early shaves I was doing a WTG north to south and ATG south to north and puzzled as to why it still wasn't too smooth. After studying the grain I realized I was simply just doing two XTG passes. Now I start at the center of my chin and go back towards the ears for my WTG and then the reverse for the ATG and it's 1000x times better. BBS in that area for me in perhaps the first time ever.

The quality of my shaves has improved exponentially over the last two weeks. I'm now able to get BBS on about 75% of my shave area and a good shave (much better than with my old safeties) elsewhere.

Now my one question:

The one area that has always caused my trouble, and still does now with the straight is the very tip of my chin and the half inch or so under my chin. I'm quite lean and thus don't have too my fat and extra skin on my face where I can stretch this bit around to shave it when to right on the point of my chin. It's hard to made contact with the bade with any more than a small tip of skin here and that always makes me feel that I'm very close to a nasty cut. Any advice for this area?

I'm sure I'll have plenty more questions down the line, but in terms of shaving this is my toughest spot at the moment. I've learned a lot thus far from reading the posts, wikis, etc. and look forward to learning a lot more.

great to hear about your progress...

Now to look at your question... This is going to sound lame, and maybe it won't make sense, but I'd suggest a few things for you.

1. As you gain experience, you will somehow just "figure it out." I really wish I had a better way to put it, but for me it just started happening and I wasn't even sure what I had done differently.

2. One thing that helped me tame tricky places was to ease up. I mean this both in terms of pressure of the blade on skin, and how much you try to stretch the skin. I have had the best success when I lightly stretch the skin instead of trying to pull my face as tight as a drum, and when I use as light touch with the blade. When I tried to bear down on my face to get the stubborn critters, I only got irritation.

3. Try out some different strokes when you are comfortable with them... things like scrubbing, and schything helped me.

4. Sometimes I use a water only pass to help clean up some trouble spots if nothing else works.

Hope it helps!

Thanks. That doesn't sound lame, I can see that. A few times in the evenings when I've had more time is when I've experimented a bit and figured a few things out.

I will try the water only touch-up pass on that area when I next have some time to experiment.

It just takes time. As you develop more facility with the razor the more difficult strokes become second nature. I remember when I started I avoided my chin for months and one day I just did it without even thinking.