Thread: A discovery I just made

I just finished shaving for the first time in a week and I made a discovery I thought I would share so it might help someone else. I have been shaving for a few months and been doing 3 pass shaves for about a month. The first pass was fine but the second and third pass was always real uncomfortable. I thought it might be getting time to get my razor honed. Today though since my facial hair was so long I realized the direction it was growing was different then I thought. I shaved according to my new discovery and had the most comfortable shave so far since doing multiple passes. I wanted to tell anyone who might be in my shoes to make sure your XTG pass is actually XTG and not ATG. Hope this info helps someone, it sure made me have a good shave.

It takes a while and alot of faceturbating to figure out all the growth patterns on ones face.

Great Discovery!

For a lot of people the beard actually grows at more an angle in the direction of the ear so that when you are shaving across the grain direction or from the ear to the mouth, you are actually shaving against the grain and do not have to shave in the direction from the jawline up to the eye. This should really help you to improve your shaves.

Enjoy,

Lynn

In the old days barbers who were trained to do straight shaves learned face mapping for each customer was the most important thing after learning how to manipulate the actual razor.

This is good info. I am also new to straight razor shaving and am having the same trouble. So from the posts, am I correct to assume that shaving against the grain is what causes irritation even if it is on the second or third pass?

Originally Posted by BeltFed80

This is good info. I am also new to straight razor shaving and am having the same trouble. So from the posts, am I correct to assume that shaving against the grain is what causes irritation even if it is on the second or third pass?

I'm thinking the irritation on ATG is more an issue of not having your razor angled properly. A good angle for ATG should be no more than 5 degrees and you need to stretch the skin as much as possible.

Now the OP makes a good point regarding beard mapping, because often, what you believe to be XTG, may in fact be ATG, thus causing irritation, razor burn, etc.