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.