Thread: Shaving - Things that I have learned

I will disagree about the non-alcoholic AS. I think it is a great way to learn and judge your shaves by the amount of burn and the areas of burn you feel with the AS. A lot burn suggest too much pressure in that area, you can keep lightening pressure until you no longer feel such an intense burn with the AS. Just my opinion. YMMV.

One hint I think might help you guys:

Forget the "Degrees" for the distance away from the face, and train yer brain for 2 spine widths, this eliminates the thinking part and it automatically adjusts for different sizes of razors too...

I guess I'll add some humor to this thread... Here is the result of my latest attempt at self-mutilation lol



P.S. It's now about 2 minutes after I took the photo, and I guess I touched it... started bleeding again lol

Originally Posted by Cage

I'm making some good strides. I think I've got my angle worked out and I've got my technique for the sides of my face and my neck down pat. The mustache area is a bit tricky, but I am consistently shaving that area WTG with no nicks.

However... I am consistently cutting, slicing, and hacking the SH*T out of my chin. My beard is much thicker in this area, and it seems that no matter how much lather I use or what angle I adjust to, the razor keeps getting hung up and jumping in this area. I know it's not the edge... the razor does a supurb job on the rest of my face, and it was professionally honed by Sham. I use conditioner on my beard in the shower before I shave and leave the shaving cream on while I strop to soften the beard. I also re-apply when necessary.

I'm going to give my chin a break for a few days and use a cartrige in that area. Once the cuts heal, I'll try try try again. Is there anyone that can offer some advice on something that I haven't thought of yet?

Thanks

- Cage

I had the same problem, Try doing very short light strokes, only use enough pressure to keep the blade in contact with your skin. When in doubt decrease your angle to around 20 degrees so as to not go too aggressive. Be careful, I have scars all along the point of my chin from four years of crappy chinstraps in football (seriously these things were basically old untreated boot leather). Good luck.

P.S. I've been straight shaving around seven months, and managed to cut my eyelid (yes my eyelid) not a month ago. So don't get discouraged.

I am a few weeks in and finally getting the chin thing figured out (kind of lol). Ditto to what Devilpup said with regard to short light strokes. Also, I don't even mess with ATG on the chin...too likely to leave me with a chin that looks like a stoplight. I find that a good WTG pass followed by a modified XTG using those short light strokes and pulling the skin gets it to a definite DFS state... and it gets better and better. Reference the rule about pulling the skin? I was just curling my lip in and jutting my chin for a while thinking that was good enough to stretch the chin. It might be eventually, but I have found pulling the skin with the off hand to be gold on the chin. I would also STRONGLY suggest an alum block. If you don't want to rub it on your face ok (I do and love the results btw), but rubbing the fingers of your off hand on it will provide great traction for skin pulling. (anybody else's fingers ever slip into your eye? Mitchel's Wool Fat does burn in the eyes in case you were wondering.)

Thanks for the advice. In a few days, once I take on the chin again, I'll try a lighter touch and stretch more. I ordered an alum block also. You guys rock!

Actually, I think I am trying to go XTG first on the chin area. Will adjust to WTG with lots of stretching.

Originally Posted by Cage

Actually, I think I am trying to go XTG first on the chin area.

Well that would be "less than optimal"

I got the alum block and it did help a bit with the stretching. The shave (number 6 now) went better today with only two tiny nicks. I think something else that I need to perfect is the consistency of my lather. I may use the canned gel stuff that I used while cartridge shaving for my next shave to make a comparison.

I just had to come back to this...

Originally Posted by Devilpup

P.S. I've been straight shaving around seven months, and managed to cut my eyelid (yes my eyelid) not a month ago. So don't get discouraged.

There's gotta be a good story in this somewhere. Do tell!!