As I'm working to improve my shaving skills, I'm learning a key lesson: Fundamentals matter.

Straight razor shaving is a progression. Each step builds on the previous one, and the early steps are disproportionally important to the final results.

One of these fundamentals is understanding beard growth, how many passes to do, and what each should accomplish.

Every guy’s beard grows differently. We use general terms like north and south, but what’s really important is the direction of the grain. Spend some time looking at your beard in the mirror when you have at least a full day’s growth. (Several days’ growth is better, if your lifestyle allows.)

Rub your hand over your face. The direction where you feel more stubble is against the grain. What direction does the hair grow on your cheeks? Chin? Neck? Under your jaw? Make a mental or actual map of your facial hair.

Wet shavers, whether they use a straight razor or double edge razor, shave in a series of passes in different directions. The goal of each pass is to reduce—not eliminate—your beard stubble. By gradually reducing your beard this way, you avoid irritating your skin. If you try to get it all in one pass, you’ll end up with a wicked case of razor burn.

When you’re first starting out, aim for one or at most two passes for the first several weeks. Straight razor shaving is going to take you some time to learn, anywhere from a couple of weeks to six months, and going slow at first will make the later steps easier.

Shave with the grain only. Focus on your blade angle and maintaining light pressure. (There’s a lot of info on shaving technique this in the forum; I’ll skip over it for now.) Remember that your goal is to reduce your beard, not eliminate it. After a with the grain pass, you’ll likely feel some significant stubble.

Tackle the easy areas first: The sideburns and cheeks down to the jawline are usually the simplest areas to shave.

Now, stop shaving for the day. If you got through an entire with the grain pass, great. If not, that's OK too. If you need to, you might want to finish up with a Mach 3 or double edge razor.

It’s important at this stage to take things slow. Go for a comfortable shave, not a close one. The closeness will come with time. If you push too hard, you’ll probably wind up with razor burn or cuts. That will mean you’ll be miserable all day, and your skin will still be tender next time you try to shave. Pushing will actually slow your progress. (This I know from experience.)

Do this for a couple of weeks. It will take you some time, anywhere from 15 minutes to 45 minutes for one or two passes. That’s OK—you’re learning an entirely new skill. In this time, you’ll learn the contours of your face and the subtleties of your beard growth. You’ll start to notice that your shave is getting closer, although it’ll probably still be pretty stubbly.

Now you’re ready to add an across the grain pass. Shave at a 90-degree angle to the grain. Again, just try to reduce your beard. A well-executed across the grain pass will leave you with just a fine stubble. It should feel like sandpaper, not at all spikey. It'll take some time to get to that point.

After a week or two of practicing the across the grain pass, you may be ready to add an against the grain pass.

If you don’t have your beard down to a fine stubble, don’t try an against the grain pass. It’ll pull like crazy, and your razor will skip and possibly cut you. And you’ll have a nice case of razor burn. Fun. The goal of the against the grain pass is to get that baby-butt smooth feeling.

Don’t try to jump ahead to the next step until you feel you’ve mastered the previous one. Especially on the against the grain pass, if the previous steps aren’t right, you’ll get painful results.

One thing to remember with straight razor shaving is that it shouldn’t be painful. For me, my Mach 3 shaves were so miserable that I was used to pain during and after shaving. “Pushing through the pain” won’t accomplish much with straight shaving. Take it slow until you can do each pass without causing razor burn or painful pulling and nicks.

Good luck,
Josh