Thread: My over the top setup

Originally Posted by mdarnton

I spent the first two months learning the textbook way to do things on various forums, being dissatisfied with the results. The last month has been spent learning how to shave, by discarding a lot of the supposed rules I learned, one at a time, learning what actually works. One of the rules to go was stretching.

Someone mentioned a month or two ago how a barber in India pushed his skin up ahead of the razor instead of stretching it out. Since reading that, I don't stretch, and found a way to make things work. Obviously the guy in the video isn't stretching a lot of the time, too, and it's working for him, so with two solid data points plus my own personal experience, that question should be answered now: stretching isn't necessary, I would say. I'm enjoying the shaving a lot more now that it doesn't include gymnastics, too. There are a couple of places on my face where stretching helps, and that's where I stretch; otherwise, no.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your continued learning in another three months or so.
3+ years in I am still enjoying discovering new aspects of this sport..

Originally Posted by mdarnton

Snip...

*(it took pix of a 12 year old girl giving a shave in a barbershop to help me realize that hair doesn't recognize how much height it has above the knife, and one against the grain pass is sufficient to do the job just fine, and a little more reading to find out that this is the way the old barbers did it, and so then I immediately discarded the three-pass shave. More happiness!)

Shaving forums have made me very cynical recently, as you can see from one or two recent posts. So much smoke and mirrors.

Here's a fun exercise:
Grab a whittle knife and a stick.
Cut that stick much like you would cut a strand of hair with your razor.
Grab another stick, do the same thing, then rotate the stick 120 degrees or so and cut from the same height on the stick as your first cut.
Repeat once more.
See any difference?
Now imagine these two sticks trying to find their way out thru your skin without causing irritation...

The three pass shave might not be needed for you, but I can assure you, it is much more than smoke and mirrors to my skin