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Here is a question for you gent!
When you were first learning to shave what questions do you wish you had a mentor around to answer and would have made your shaving experience better. If there is a thread in the shaving section that answers that question please link it here. I am looking for posts that really get to the heart of the the issue.
My question would be how to get a clean shave in the multiple small tight areas on my neck. Each area has a direction that is easy to pass over from, but extremely difficult to finish without irritating the skin
When I started I was too dumb about shaving to even know what questions to ask. I would have wanted to just watch someone shave even once.
thats a good point would you guys like to see a video library here and if so what topics would you like to see?
Two big issues I had/have are cleaning up around my neck/jawline area. Having someone watch me shave on a 1 day growth and telling me why im not clean shaven, when i can get BBS on 3 days growh.
These were my biggest issues that a mentor could have helped me tremendously with:
1) Knowledge of how the blade cuts.
* I still have no idea what is truly meant by a "scything" motion, but I have adapted my own style of sweeping the blade sideways that works very well. Amazingly well, compared to a perpendicular blade.
2) How to deal with stubborn areas.
* I irritated the heck out of my face by making loads of small passes without re-lathering before I figured out that I need to strictly limit myself to passes ONLY where there is lather.
3) The definition of a "light" touch.
* At first I thought this meant both a light touch AND a light stroke. As you can imagine, the light stroke accomplished nothing, as the blade seemed like it was catching on my hairs instead of slicing through. While a light touch against the skin is ideal, a proper stroke requires a certain amount of assertiveness/momentum.
I hope this helps! There are so many things that must be learned firsthand, but I believe it's all part of the experience.
I would love to see demo videos of how to get those tough spots (under the nose, corners of the mouth, etc.).
Well, since it seems that your question is more concerned with the generalities of shaving, rather than specifically shaving with a straight, I'd say that I could have used a mentor when I was a teen.
I started really early and had at first no problems because the hair came in patches and was light. You could cut it with scissors. However, by the time I was a senior in HS, I had my dear old coarse stubble. Using modern cartridges, I had a problem. WTG shaves looked no good and going ATG with a Mach3 or whatever else was highly irritating. I simply knew nothing about how beard hair grows and how to get rid of it properly.
I wish I would have had the chance to view Mantic's videos on wetshaving years ago as this would have been a huge help.
So, to sum up, I wish I had a mentor who taught me about beard growth and how to slice the hairs off.