Thread: It won't shave! 2nd shave!

We can all sit here and say, try a different angle, spend more time on beard prep, stretch the skin properly, ect...ect. But when it comes down to it, you need experience, some can do it straight off, others need months to get it down. My first few shaves, I had to go back over, with my fusion because my shaves sucked so bad, and I had plenty of nicks to show off. Sticking with it is the key and I'm confident you'll be getting it, in a week or two.
If you want to attempt to shorten your learning curve. Either find someone on SRP, that is in your area, or a barber who would be willing to help you with proper stropping, and shaving techniques.
A lot of helpful folks on here who, I am sure, would be willing to help you out.

nate

Being a noob myself, I gotta say just take your time man. Put on some relaxing music, shave when you have plenty of time. I've being doing this for about a month and my shave yesterday was ok, it took a long time and it still wasn't totally bbs. I was a little frustrated but I keep reminding myself; there was a time when people didn't have Ipods, lunchables, and snuggies. They had to shave with these things and they made it work. They weren't built any different than you and I they just had to try harder to get what they wanted. So you can do it.

Keep your disposable razor close by, if the shave gets to painful, finish off with the disposable, it will still feel better because you have all the nice creams. And you will at least have a smooth face after the hard work!

Hang in there,
Gabe

Who knows! Maybe the beard on your cheek is pretty thick. Unless you are a completely hairy goomer, you will have some areas where your beard is light. This might not be on your neck somewhere. For me, my lightest growth is on my neck. Now, this isn't the easiest place to shave. But, even here you should be able to find a square inch or two for one baby short pass with the grain.

Try that, and see if the hair easily pops off there. No need to shave more than, maybe, 1/2 inch; just enough to find if your finest beard hair can be cut with the razor. If not, you are definitely in bad shape sharpness wise. Even if it only shaves nominally, you are in trouble. At these light locations, the beard hair should just melt off. Unless you have no light beard areas at all, even with moderately bad angle and otherwise bad technique, the beard should come off easily.

If this passes, and passes easily, then try the next "beefier" area of beard; just a small, small amount. Just enough to get the idea whether it is cutting easily. And, by moving between these two area, you might even get a sense whether the angle is a problem, or other such things other than blade sharpness.

Using a light beard area like this, in my opinion, usually reduces technique in importance. (A general statement; techique can be screwed up here also!) And, sharpness can better be isolated and judged.