Shaving Against the Grain
I'm one who has fairly coarse, very dark facial hair and I need to shave against the grain to look and feel completely clean shaven and get that BBS shave. I've always shaved like this with cartridges and DE razors. So far in my straight razor shaving journey, which has only been a month or so, I can shave with and across the grain very comfortably with zero irritation most of the time. Now it does get closer than a DE can going XTG, but it's still not as smooth as I like it to be. And this is fine, I am still learning and not expecting any overnight miracles. I just do a final pass with my DE to clean up. I am thinking though that I will have to go against the grain to really get the smoothness I am used to experiencing. I try an ATG pass every few shaves to see if I'm good enough to do it, but most of the time I stick to WTG and XTG. ATG is getting better and easier, but I always have a little bit of irritation.
My question for those of you who shave against the grain, how long did it take you to develop your skill to do so comfortably? This is more of a curious question. I am happy with my skill progression and have no desire to rush the learning process. I am just curious as to how others have progressed in this skill.