Thread: My Biggest Problem

Building a lather is an art all to itself. Given decent prep and good technique and most important a truely sharp edge shaving the chin shouldn't be a problem at all. If I can use a straight without cream at all I would think others could get by with canned cream (I've only used canned cream and a straight once, it was a great shave).

If the problem includes DE blades I'd say its either prep or technique. My only suggestions are to add lather, shave cheeks, then add lather again before trying the chin. Next get the angle and direction correct. Failing that, grow a goatee.

To me it sounds like the razor needs 10 swipes on 8k and some stropping.

Originally Posted by Kees

Canned lather, Joe? I got my worst shaves ever with them! IMHO canned lather is just a lubricant, it hardly penetrates the whiskers so it does not soften them. It is colder as well as you do not use hot water to whip it.

I'm not saying use it forever, I'm saying take lather making and the brush out of the picture until you learn to shave. You don't need the distraction.

There is some decent canned stuff out there. I used Noxema for many years and it was OK. In a pinch I'll even use some now. Or you can use some Palmolive brushless cream, whatever. The idea is to take lather and the brush out of the picture at first. Another thing to think about is that newbies often do more damage with a dry mix than they would using something canned. I'll agree it doesn't necessarily have to come out of a can, as long as it's ready to use. So, if you want to get fancyuse some Nancy Boy out of the jar. Just don't get involved in making lather and using a brush when you first start. Concentrate on the basics of shaving: prep and razor technique.

As for your worst shaves, did you get them using good prep and good razor technique? I doubt it. I've been wet shaving for nearly 50 years, and 90% of that time I used either canned stuff or drug store products (Palmolive, Surrey) or no brush. My shaves were a lot better then than when I first started to use a str8 and also used a Kent BK8 and fancy Taylors and Trumpers creams.

Joe, I once borrowed some canned stuff from a friend and vowed never to use it again! This was in the 80s of last century, it was in the US of A, its brand was unknown to me and has been erased from my biological hard disk.
If I remember well I followed the instructions on the can.

My honing and shaving technique at the time were worse than now. Also my skin was more sensitive at the time, even cartridge blades and DE's cause a lot of grazing to the skin of my neck at the time, I never had problems with my cheeks.
it took my skin at least 7 years to get used to wet shaving, I started shaving electrically.

From a newbie's perspective, I have to respectfully disagree with Joe on this one. Learning to make a better lather will help with shaving because it's more forgiving. When I started out I was having a lot of problems with lather drying on my face--it wasn't wet enough. Not knowing what lather should look like, I tried to shave a few times with dry lather. Yeeowch.

I've also tried to shave with lather that was too wet. Again, very painful.

You can definitely get too carried away with it, but having a good lather will give you more margin for error while you perfect your techique.

Some of the really experienced guys, possibly including Joe, can shave without any lather at all--only water. But I wouldn't want to try that yet.

Good luck,
Josh

[quote=joshearl]

From a newbie's perspective, I have to respectfully disagree with Joe on this one. Learning to make a better lather will help with shaving because it's more forgiving. When I started out I was having a lot of problems with lather drying on my face--it wasn't wet enough. Not knowing what lather should look like, I tried to shave a few times with dry lather. Yeeowch.

I've also tried to shave with lather that was too wet. Again, very painful.

This is just an example of what I was talking about. Here you were, punishing your face while trying to learn how to make lather. The chances are you were really doing a job on your face, because your prep and technique were not there yet. Ouch! And you delayed the day when your technique would be grooved.

Doing it my way, you would have been using a ready made lather preparation (use Palmolive brushless if you don't like canned foam), and you would have been learning prep and techniques with minimum abuse to your face.

Experienced shavers can shave with anything, because of good prep and technique. If you had that, the variation in lather quality would not have had such an extreme effect on your face.

also pretty new to the whole thing, but i'll back joe up on this one. honestly, i don't even use hot water to make the lather and i sure as hell don't use an 80 dollar brush.

as a matter of fact, i'll go even farther: i get great shaves with some pretty half-assed lathers. i was very religious about it at first, but, a couple of times, i forgot to soak the brush or the wet the soap before i went into the shower and had to do it all cold. what i found when this happened the first time, and each subsequent time, is that the shave didn't suffer at all.

since then, if i have time, i only apply soap properly before the first pass. before the second, i just wipe some on to lubricate (whatever's still on the brush), and finish with a third 'pass' of touch ups using no soap at all.

it just doesn't seem that important.

also, i've used the noxema stuff (i think that was the one), and it didn't seem all that different than the classic shaving soap, or the soap i bought from colleen. maybe i suck at working with soaps in general, but then i guess that just proves joe's point if i'm still getting great, pain-free shaves. i'd be surprised, though, if i were that incompetent; this isn't brain surgery, after all.