Hi all, I am wondering about facial features, skin sensitivity & how that affects your shave. I am a pretty tall & skinny guy, and I have a kind of lean face with lots of angles. My skin is pretty sensitive too. Could that affect the type of razor I should have? Most often I've been coming away with very raw feeling skin, and my neck looks like I spilled kool-aid spilled all over me. The rest of the day I feel really tender. Currently I have some sort of Dovo-Solingen which I purchased from a local shave shop, along with a Dovo strop. It seems like pretty good equipment & I just need some help learning to use it!

You know, it seems the whole straight razor shaving experience is very different for people with heavier faces or people with just plain more meat on them from a couple of videos I've seen. One guy in particular I saw on YouTube was really pressing the razor into the side of his face and it looked pretty decent when he was done. If I tried that I'd have no cheeks left! Another member posted a reply which I've copied below (since my original question here was buried in another post).

I just wanted to find out from you all if any razor brand/type is better than another for new people to use. And does the 30 degree rule apply for people all around, no matter what type of facial features you have?

Thanks!
~ Mike

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mparker762 - Senior Member - writes:

I've never heard a correlation between BMI and razor type, usually the discussions are about possible correlations between beard type and razor grind and size. But you're right that people with more rounded faces probably can get away with more pressure than guys with bony angular faces. It's probably also the case that they probably need to use more pressure as well to make their skin conform to the edge of the razor if they want to shave more than a 1/2" stripe at a time, especially if they're using a razor with a smiling edge.

I'm pretty sure I know the video you're talking about, it's the one with the mediterranean-looking guy shaving with the TI Pierre Theirs razor. He does seem to use a lot of pressure, though that's because his razor isn't terribly sharp (he mentions in the comments that it was due for a refresh at the time he made the video), and also because his heavy beard is just tough to shave. He's also pretty heavy so it wouldn't take much pressure to distort his face like that. I've got a heavy beard as well and my face distorts some (though not as much as that guy) even if I'm not using any pressure - even with something as sharp as a Feather. The particular razor this guy in the video is using usually has a smiling edge and he's got a pretty round face so he may use more pressure than you would just to shave a decent swathe of skin.
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