Thread: seemingly dumb question

So my always told me "there are no stupid questions only inquisitive idiots"

So here's the question, Rubbing my face against the grain i can still feel hair. This has always happened to me. With a cartridge i started doing three passes wtg, xtg,atg. The de will not suffer me to go atg, so i do two passes wtg and one xtg.

Is it normal with de to feel coarse atg?

It's typical for me. I can shave against the grain but the irritation isn't worth it. It can be done, with experience. I find with a super light touch I can do it one day, but not the following, due to irritation.

I can get a little closer with a straight razor though.

I guess everyone is different. I shaved yesterday with an SE and today with a DE and did all 3 passes including ATG. Just like with straights it takes a light touch, the right angle and a good lather to ged er dun.

Bob

You may find you can shave atg when you have more experience and better technique. Or maybe not. I never do a full atg pass, because I will get irritation and I don't care about that minor difference in closeness.

No matter what you shave with, you'll feel hair the most when rubbing your face atg. For example, my face always feels smooth rubbing in whichever direction I shave, but atg I will feel stubble. There was a time when I called this "directional BBS," but that never caught on.

Sorry about the confusion i was asking if you could feel your stubble running your hand against the grain after shaving with a de.

No, I personally can't, although I have a bit of OCD when it comes to that! When I'm done it's smooth in every direction, just like the straight. The price is irritation, so ATG might not be for everyone.

Originally Posted by gunsandbibles

Sorry about the confusion i was asking if you could feel your stubble running your hand against the grain after shaving with a de.

OK, yea I can still feel stubble running my hand ATG but very slightly. Always have.

Bob

After I shave my son insists on checking for what he calls "bumpy" there have been only a handfull of times he hasn't found any stubble (always a little om the neck). I use short strokes and an exremely light touch, this has solved my leftover stubble/ razorburn issues.
Eric

If i shave atg with a straight I will feel smooth atg. It takes a pasted edge on a fine pasted strop to get there though, a coticule edge for example isnt enough.

Hi, Gunsandblades,

My take on this is that it's VERY personal. Why? Because our beards grows at wildly different angles--not only in the sense that mine grows differently than yours, but that different areas of one's face feature differently-growing hairs (direction-wise and angle-wise).

So, it's very likely that there are parts of your face that you can easily shave against the grain, others that you can't. And chances are that these are not the same for me. So it's not a one-size-fits-all question. For instance, I can shave my cheeks against the grain, ditto with my neck and jaw-line--but I may very well forget about doing so with my chin and with my upper lip. Know your limitations. It's all a matter of the angles at which your beard grows.

Old-school barber pedagogy texts show that knowing and understanding the direction of the growth of a customer's beard is paramount. That's why--as I said--it's hard to give a universal rule about shaving against the grain, even about your own face. Angles vary between areas--and what you may be able to do (say) with your cheeks, you may be prevented from doing with another section of your shaving area.

Bottom line: know your growth, and know the sharpness of the angles at which your beard grows. And to top it all off, know how to stretch your skin, and how that affects the angle of your beard at the moment in which the blade meets hair.

Best of luck!!!!!!

Tom