I've only had two attempts, and those were only on the right side of my face and a bit of my neck, so I'm not sure anything I can bring to the table is going to be much use. That said, what I found was the slickness of the lather seems to make a lot of difference. I must of spent half an hour or so gradually adding water bit by bit to get rid of the feeling that the bristles were being pulled out by the roots (when I first started having with a DE razor I found a few drops of glycerin in the lather helps it all glide a bit more). Also, the angle of the blade on the face makes a huge difference might be worth adjusting that a bit.