Thread: Shaving tough spots question

i think its getting the skin really taught that helps get this spot smooth, although i'm not quite glassy there yet, but the other spot is the ball of the chin, you know the fatty bit, i just cant get it tight enough to get the razor to glide over nicely without catching. Any tips?

For the moustache bit, i once saw a guy put his index finger in his mouth, and pull out and diagonally down toward the shoulder. This stretches out the upper lip quite well. Obviously, you have to repeat for the opposite side!! i tried it the other day, with some degree of success and was reasonable smooth with a down stroke only

I'm a fairly recent ex-newbie. For what it's worth, here's what helped me conquer the chin and mouth area.

Do them first. Make a goatee of lather there, and dab the cheeks and surrounding areas dry. This will give you great grip for stretching the skin from the side and below. Do both passes (or all three depending on how you shave) before moving on to the other parts of the face.

There are several advantages. You're approaching these areas when your blade is sharpest and straightest and fresh off the strop, and when you haven't gotten frustrated or lost concentration. The lather hasn't yet begun to dry, and your skin underneath the lather is still slick. And as mentioned, by isolating the area you give yourself a lot of gripping and stretching options. With that part out of the way, you'll find that the easy terrain of the cheeks and neck are dispatched with in 5-10 minutes.

I now follow a more traditional pattern when shaving. But this helped a hell of a lot in getting me over the hump.

Try not going complety against the grain. I had a similar problem on my upper lip, where it was really painful for me if I went completly against the grain after going with it.

Try different angles (i.e. 30 degrees from going against the grain, instead of 0 degrees). This is what I did and found that, on the upperlip, I should not shave directly up (i.e. directly against the grain), but about 30 angle to the direction of the grain. Acutally, I now find that if I do this, I can then go extact against the grain, without any irritation or pulling, to get my BBS shave (i.e. three passes).

Hope this helps,

Steven

What works for me at the chin is I keep the skin as tight as possible and bring the razor straight down my chin and around my chin in one stroke which gets the upper, lower and undersides of my chin all at once. You need to quickly and continuously adjust the angle of the razor in this maneuver or you'll slice your chin. When I do my neck I come up against the grain right up to my chin and that gets what the last maneuver may have missed. Keeping the skin really pulled tight is really key in the neck areas.

I can't help you with the lip since I've had a moustache for the past 35 years now but if I had to I would use this neat 2/8s razor I have and probably do an arcing motion under my nose and down my lip and then use an off angle and come from the sides. But thats theory not practice.