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Hey Guys. I have four shaves under my belt now and I am steadily getting better and more comfortable shaves. I have no problems on side burn cheek area, upper lip, or chin. However, my neck is tripping me up. Seems like I can't get the area stretched right so that the blade will slide flat. It is like it is catching on the heel and toe but not in the middle. It is a little better when I go ATG but is really bad WTG. Suggestions?
You might find this helpful:
Straight Shaving Tutorial v3.0 Part 2 - YouTube
I rarely try to get the whole blade on my neck. Try using just the toe half or heel half depending on the stroke and area. Also, I know my neck hair grows in 3 different directions depending on where I'm at. Right over my trachea grows down while the majority of the rest, except for the hollows which grow sideways, grows up.
Lately I've been reducing as much as I can with the straight without irritating it, then finishing up with my EJ Double Edge and Feather blade. Gives me a close shave and no irritation, but that's only if I need a close-shave for a special occasion, like dinner w/ SWMBO or a wedding. Otherwise, I'm pleasantly satisfied with reduction and no BBS, as long as there's no irritation. Why go BBS if it's only going to irritate the skin?
I use my free hand to stretch my neck, like a choke hold as low on the throat as possible then stretch the skin outwards between fingers and thumb, whilst turning my head to one side.
Hello, Trucko1: The recommendation from easyace is excellent. That's the method I use to stretch the skin. Also, work on the razor's angle. Practice with a dull butter knife to get the blade against your neck, as well as to play with the blade angle. Jockey's video that Zapprannigan provided is an excellent teacher. View it thoroughly.Quote:
Originally Posted by easyace
Aside from these, keep practicing. For now forget about getting a silky shave on the neck. Do the best you can. Also some of us will never get the neck smooth, and I can attest to that, especially since the stubble is on a permanent revolution.
I've found where the neck is concerned it's a compromise between comfort and performance. I can never get a BBS on my entire neck no matter hat I do. That's just a consequence of how my neck is and the hair growth. If I try too hard it just gets uncomfortable so I've gotten to a point where I do my usual routine which is one WTG and one XTG and call it quits. No it's not BBS however it's still a great shave.
The "trick" is to keep shaving! :) Four shaves is nothing really, you are barely starting.
I had "eureka" moments around my 6-7th shave, finding a good blade angle that made the razor glide way better, and then around three weeks in, suddenly realizing my shaves were surpassing my DE shaves with a mile, and I had figured out to get my neck and chin nicely shaved without irritation.
Thats a HUGE brush! Sorry, good vid. the choke hold stretch works for me to. Any way you can find to stretch the skin will help. It may look funny but puffing your neck out like a big ol bull frog helps to. My son laughs at me when he sees this and gets me going to. hard to shave with the giggles.
Thanks a lot you guys! As always SRP is full of friendly guys with great advise. I am going to keep on "plugging" away at it (no pun intended) I gotta say though, I am loving this and look forward to shaving more and more.
Well I've had a couple of more shaves since this thread started and used all the advise given. The "choke hold" and the "bullfrog" helped a lot! The video also gave me some insight on the angles. Last night I got a great WTG all over, and a pretty good XTG. Enjoying this endeavor more and more! Oh yeah and lather making skills are getting second nature. Thanks
I go with a bit of a choke hold, too.
The other thing I do - is, I put the heal directly in the cross where my adams apple starts. It sets in nicely. Literally, the heal settles into that little spot. Then I go up - using the line of the adams apple/throat as the tightrope, with focus on the heal. (Best way I can explain it.)
Thanks for the video! I'm new to the sport and already addicted. I've had some problems around the chin and throat but it seems to get better every time. Thanks again. This really is a unique community.
Took me quite a while to figure out my neck. For me, when doing the neck I have to take my free hand and pull the skin down from the base of the neck while turning my face up and away from that hand. So if I'm doing the right side of my neck wtg/xtg then my left hand sits low on the neck and pulls the skin down while I turn my face up and to the left. This seems to flatten out my neck enough to get a good shave. I'm not some skinny fellow but my neck has some pretty decent "hollows" on each side. For the ATG pass my right hand shaves my left side of the neck with the left hand stretching down and the face turned up and to the right. Make sense?
Of course it took a lot of experimenting to figure this out.
One thing you can do is to tape over the edge of your razor with electrical tape, lather up and practice removing the lather without the risk of abusing yourself. Of course this will not give you the greatest of feed back but you will at least see if your getting as much of the edge as possible on your skin.
Keep at it, practice, practice, practice, and realize that this is about the feel.
Charlie