Thread: The definition of insanity

As I was shaving this afternoon I had just finished my standard 3 pass progression (WTG, ATG, XTG) and I was not satisfied with my shave, some parts were bbs some parts were prickly it was frustrating. While still a newbie I have shaved probably 30 or 40 times and feel I have some idea of how a proper shave should feel, and this was not satisfying. Anyways that's when it hit me, my grandad always used to say the definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over while expecting different results. Which is what I had been doing, I mean I would make minor angle changes which sometimes helped but for the most part my WTG was about 30 degrees my ATG was about 20 degrees and my XTG was about 5 degrees so I said let me try getting a bit more radical I decided on repeating my 3 passes with 1 more XTG added and decreasing the angles of all of those passes. I made my WTG around 15-20 degrees then my ATG was around 10 degrees then I did my two XTG passes but this time instead of going only East-West on both sides of my face I did both EW and WE. After this I was pretty well satisfied with teh results while not BBS entirely all over, it was pretty damn close.

I may not have been entirely successful as I still have some very very short hairs in areas but I am about as close to BBS as I have ever been with a straight razor. Anyways don't know if this helps anyone but I figure when frustrated maybe try adding/switching up some passes.

MGNero, does your ATG mean across-the-grain?

XTG=Across the grain ATG=against the grain

It's a learning process for sure, I'm about 65 shaves in now and I can get MOSTLY bbs for 90% of the face, I still need to touch up the hollows of my neck with the DE to get true BBS, but i'll get there.

Sounds like you made a big step forward, it may be the first big "ah ha!" moment but it won't be your last. Keep at it and enjoy the shaves!!