Thread: Thinking About Shaving My Head With a Straight for Movember, any tips?

Originally Posted by carlmaloschneider

(I've never used one as I'm such a phenomenally good straight razor shaver I've never needed one).

Born a natural were you? (:

I'm of the opinion that blood stops, cuts heal. Anything worth while involves a little risk. I believe that your results will largely depend on your mindset. cool head, steady hand, steel resolve. I have faith you can pull it off. Let us know how it goes. Happy shaving sir. P.S working out a map of how and order of operations for the attack should prove to be helpful. I believe it could be easy to get lost with out it

Originally Posted by huckelberryhound22

I'm of the opinion that blood stops, cuts heal. Anything worth while involves a little risk. I believe that your results will largely depend on your mindset. cool head, steady hand, steel resolve. I have faith you can pull it off. Let us know how it goes. Happy shaving sir. P.S working out a map of how and order of operations for the attack should prove to be helpful. I believe it could be easy to get lost with out it

The map's a good idea, at least a PLAN!

Go carefully and be systematic - you have enough experience with how a straight should feel on your skin to do it well on your head. Grind doesn't matter so much, though when people first start out they seem to prefer a wedge.

Stretching is as important on the head as it is on the face. Fortunately you can move your head (eg chin to chest) to get some stretches or to aid some stretches. Just don't move your head mid-stroke - set up your head position first, then shave that bit.

Things get a bit trickier at the back of the head where you cannot see the razor on the skin. Avoid the temptation to use two mirrors - I've never tried it, but from what I hear it gets confusing for most people. Rather, check the angle in the mirror at the crown of the head, then lock that in and shave carefully down toward the neck.

The top of and immediately behind the ears can also be slightly problematic for some people - stretching helps a lot. Reach over your head with the non-shaving hand and pull the skin up and away from your ears, then shave there. This does require you are OK with using left and right hands to shave. Doing your head with only your dominant hand is, I think, rather difficult so think about whether you are able to use both hands. It's not impossible to use only one hand, but I think it makes life more difficult.

I'd also suggest, at least initially, only doing a north-south pass (front to back). If you stretch well you can get a pretty close shave with just a single pass.

Finally, at the risk of appearing to flog my own work, I made a video of how I shave my head some years ago now. It's only about 6 minutes or so and it appears to be apropos to the discussion at hand, so forgive me for blatantly reposting it here for your delight and illumination

Straight Razor Head Shave - YouTube