Thread: Just can't quite get it...

So I feel like I've gotten a good number of shaves these days. I feel like I've gotten a pretty good handle on working my way around my face and figured out the best approaches to every area. I can shave pretty quickly without having to worry about anything and still get everything shaved nicely. However, I still cannot seem to get my chin area BBS no matter how much I try. I do think I just have particularly coarse hair there, but it should still be able to get BBS, right? I can get the sides of my face, above my lip, and my neck really nice and smooth without much effort really, but it seems like no matter how much I try different angles, different approach directions, whatever, I can't get my chin smooth. Any suggestions on common issues or newbie advice as to what I may be doing wrong or need to work on to get it?

From what I read, the chin seems to be the hardest area. I however, circumvent that issue by owning a goatee. I would recommend stretching and short strokes.

I was wondering if maybe stretching more would help. I find it tough to get the skin really taut. Maybe I can work on it and that would help. New job wont let me rock the goatee even if I wanted to, so time to figure this thing out.

Actually, even after all these years, I mainly do just a downward pass on the chin. It always looks good and stays presentable till the next day. I can go ATG or XTG, but really haven't found the need. Once you get comfortable shaving with just the downward pass under the lower lip, the sides of the chin and around the chin itself, it should feel really smooth with just minor stubble if you feel in the other direction. You certainly can't see any stubble though.

Have fun.

It does take me a couple passes, but I can get it, as you said, to where you can't see stubble but can feel it if you run your fingers across it ATG. Should I just be content with that?

The straight shaver in me wants to be able to get it completely smooth and of course it would be nice for dates or whatever to get it nice and smooth sometimes. Maybe it'll just take time as I fine tune my techniques?

In any case, thanks Lynn. I feel like I've been blessed by THE Man Of Straight Shaving himself.

It's taken me awhile to get to the point of, "What's the point of having BBS if it's only attainable with irritation?" But once I settled that score, my shaves improved. I'd much rather be comfortable than ultra-super duper smooth.

Another pretty good point. Hmm...

You guys are gonna talk me out of shaving all together.

Hahaha!

By no means! I'd rather be clean-shaven than stubbly, but there's a point between looking presentable, and overdoing it, altogether!

The funny thing for me is that the rest of my face is usually bbs or sticky smooth feeling as I do XTG mostly on the cheeks and jaw with some light clean up in a couple spots and ATG on the neck with some clean up as that hair grows all over the place. But, with the chin, it usually feels sticky smooth and nice except if I rub my finger against the grain in which case I can feel that little light stubble. Overall, it feels fine and the shave looks clean and it lasts all day so usually that is a nice comfort level. You can clean up that little remaining stubble on the chin and after you get used to the strokes that it takes, you should be fine. It really becomes a matter of how you like it to look and feel. The exercise is enjoying doing it.

Have fun.

I've been battling the chin ever since I started months ago. The chin is difficult because the whiskers there are coarse, the area itself presents difficult angles that require moving the blade around from different angles, and also it tends to be the last area you hit and the lather may be drying up at that point. I happened upon a video, though, that taught me a new approach. I will post a link to it below, I hope. The fellow in the video is shaving off a beard, so it's particularly impressive. What I noticed in his technique was that he didn't seem to treat the chin as a separate area, but he instead shaved part of it with his downstrokes (WTG), going down over the jaw and chin area with his blade, increasing the angle as he went. Now, this can be dangerous for someone new to straight shaving, and it was months before I felt up to it, but it works very well. The secret to his technique, I think, is that he does increase the angle as he rounds the chin and jawline, BUT AS HE DOES HE REDUCES THE PRESSURE APPLIED. If you raise the angle and continue with pressure, well, you can guess the likely result. So what he seems to have done is to have eliminated the chin as a separate, difficult area and shaves over the chin and jawline with a continued WTG downstroke. This took me some practice to get it right, but it does work. As I shave now, I find that there are fewer and fewer residual chin whiskers to deal with because I'm taking them out with downstrokes continuing from the area below the lip and from the cheeks. It's hard to explain in text, as much of this is, so, without further ado, the video ( I hope this is helpful to you):

Cut-throat Razor shave - YouTube