Thread: A pretty good forehand... Backhand? Not so much.

For starters, I'm a one-handed shaver. I know what you guys are going to say, “learn to do it with both hands” – maybe one day. But for now, I refuse to expose my skin/face/jugular to my awkward, and outright inept, left hand.

With one hand, I’m capable of shaving both sides of my face comfortably, but have some difficulty in certain spots – and this is where I need help. I’ll try and keep this as clear as possible, but admittedly it’s not obvious to explain so I apologize in advance for the long post.

For clarity, let’s use the following conventions:

• “Strong-side” being the right (I’m right-handed) and “Weak-side” being the left or off-handed side.
  
• “Forehand” would be the standard grip (for me that’s two-fingers on the shank spine-side, ring finger on the tail and the thumb underneath.)
  
• “Backhand” for me is almost an “upside down” grip, whereby I have two-fingers underneath the shank the thumb is spine-side, and the ring finger on the tail. I use this for upward shaving movements for parts of the lower half of my neck

The issue:

I use a forehand stroke downward when shaving WTG down my cheeks and to my jawline.
On the “strong-side”, the point of the blade is towards my ear, whereas on the “weak-side” it’s the heel of the blade that’s closest to my ear. My palm is always facing the shaving surface. All of this works relatively well – less some vision issues that I find I can deal with reasonably well.

My neck hair grows mostly up from my throat up to underneath my chin, so a WTG stroke goes upwards. I use a forehand stroke shaving up on the weak-side until I reach my Adam’s apple. This also works relatively well.

Now, for the strong-side portion of my lower neck, I use a backhand grip – that is, I flip the razor upside down, pushing the spine with my thumb upwards from throat to chin. I’m still going WTG, but it's an awkward movement. Further, most of my nicks and any irritation I’ve had are always in this area.

So, some questions:

Should I be using a different grip?

What other technique could I apply, given that I wish to shave WTG? I can handle XTG too, but not ATG – I don’t have the guts yet to do that.

The grind on my razor isn’t exactly symmetrical – could that play a factor in a poor backhand? (I’m thinking it’s not a factor btw – I’m more likely to point at my technique as a fault rather than the razor which seems to perform fine everywhere else).

Any other comments? I really appreciate your help in advance

I was a one hand shaver for a long while. Then tried the other hand (my right) on the cheek only. Gradually I became better and better with it and now I don't think I could shave one handed again.

When I was using only the one hand I would change grips and scale position to get ATG and XTG strokes. Reversing the edge and hold it flat open at times.

It seems very foreign and down right scary to use your weaker hand at first but comfort will come and the shave gets better. If that is out of the question you will need to try different grips to reach some of your face. Stretching your skin will help get hard to reach spots. Pull your skin in different directions to find out what may work best. I have a spot under my jaw that is best pulled down and another that is best pulled up. You will have to experiment with your stretching.

As long as your razor has consistent sharpness along the edge and does not have frowns or hooks, geometry should not play into the shave.

I got some good advise when I started to brush your teeth with the off hand. This develops the dexterity and confidence for shaving. I also read the due to the left/right brain thing the off hand is often better at delicate work than the strong hand. After a week you will wonder how you did it any other way.

When I first started to use a straight razor around this past July/August, I tried using my left hand. I thought, no way no how could I ever use both hands. Well I was wrong. I started slow, a few strokes here and there. I am much better now and getting better each shave. I know you can do it, if I can. Just take your time, no rushing. Pretty soon you'll be saying, hell yeah, I'm awesome, got's mad skills. LOL.


Mike

Thank you gentlemen for the responses and your encouragement.
I bit the bullet this morning - all those places I did a "backhand stroke", I tried using my left hand.
I practiced a little with a butter knife first (just to help make sure I didn't die), but it looks like it is possible to shave with the non-dominant hand...
It actually worked out pretty well.
Chalk up another lesson learned thanks to SRP.

I told you you could do it. Hah!