Thread: Organizing my shave

Originally Posted by Razorthin

As a beginner, one of the obstacles for me is to follow an organized pattern for my SR shave. I tried to follow a sequence but end up in a chaotic sequence, re lathering, going for a second pass in trouble spots before I have even tackled other areas. I end up rather anxious and it takes me forever. Any suggestions about how to get into a more systematic approach? Thanks in advance!

The good news is that you’re already on the path. You know that a sequence makes sense, you’re just not there yet. The first thing that will help you is getting more comfortable using the razor. If you’re like I was, the reason why your game plan falls apart is because you’re having trouble doing what you anticipated doing when you set your plan. So instead of shaving the area you intended, you give yourself a break and tackle another area that is easier to manage. Next thing you know, the whole plan falls apart. Here’s what I did. First, I resigned myself to inferior shaves for the short term and concentrated on getting myself cleaned up enough to leave the house. Then, over time, I would focus on the best way to get an area cleaned up. For instance, my side burns always seemed to leave a touch of roughness even after a 3 pass shave with an ATG pass. My solution was to stretch the skin in the opposite direction that the hair grows. It mostly grows up and down. So I don’t begin at the jawline. I begin at the very top, pulling the skin right at my hair line and shaving an inch ATG. Then I move my hand down, pull up again and do another inch. The lesson here is that you need to clear the soap from position A in order to shave B. With B cleared, you can now get to C. As you approach your shave, think about where you need to anchor or stretch your skin from in order to achieve what you want to do. You’ll find that it fits together like a puzzle. I switched to SR from DE. DE taught me to pay attention to the growth of my beard so I already had it mapped out as to what direction I needed to shave. The hard part was trying to figure out how to duplicate it with the SR. The key was the sequence of events. Get comfortable first, then piece it together on section at a time.