Thread: angling the blade while you shave?

are there any special techniques i need to use when shaving with a straight? i believe i've heard people talk about the angle of the razor....like the slant bar DE imitates the way a straight cuts....am i supposed to have the toe of the razor slanted up or down when I shave?

The general opinion here is that you keep the razor at about a 30 degree angle to your face.

As you gain more experience you'll find you are really constantly making little adjustments depending on the area of your face and everyones facial geography is different. It will become second nature and you won't even realize your doing it.

If you look at the barber's manual, they teach that you should shave with a toe leading slant.

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

If you look at the barber's manual, they teach that you should shave with a toe leading slant.

that is what i was asking about.

so you should put the toe lower than the heel. why exactly is that?

I do not lead with either. Just the 30 degree off the face.

Originally Posted by obsessis

that is what i was asking about.

so you should put the toe lower than the heel. why exactly is that?

It prevents the cut from being a pure push cut. Angling the blade gives you a slight shearing action, which makes it easier to cut.

I hear a lot of guys here say that, when doing the neck, their angle is rather less than elsewhere on the face. In my limited experience, I need to do that, too, especially on the lower, softer parts of the neck: it's like the spine of the razor is barely lifted off my face, and I'm going gentle, gentle, gentle. If I try for a full 30 degrees on my neck, I'll occasionally feel it cut into the skin and I just about have a heart attack. (Although I'm learning, on the neck, to pull the skin from above like crazy, getting a taut, flat surface to shave; then I can lift the spine up a tad, putting a little more angle on.)

Originally Posted by deepweeds

I hear a lot of guys here say that, when doing the neck, their angle is rather less than elsewhere on the face. In my limited experience, I need to do that, too, especially on the lower, softer parts of the neck: it's like the spine of the razor is barely lifted off my face, and I'm going gentle, gentle, gentle. If I try for a full 30 degrees on my neck, I'll occasionally feel it cut into the skin and I just about have a heart attack. (Although I'm learning, on the neck, to pull the skin from above like crazy, getting a taut, flat surface to shave; then I can lift the spine up a tad, putting a little more angle on.)

Although the nominal razor angle off the skin is told to us to be nominally 30 degrees, I think that way off, and it's to your advantage to make it less.

Just an example. If you were using an 8/8 razor a 30 degree angle would put the spine half an inch above the skin. Can you imagine that? Even with a 5/8 it would be 5/16 of an inch, which seems kind of high.

As you noticed, the greater angle increases the tendency to cut the skin. What you also should know is that the greater angle causes the edge to act more likea scraper, which will increase irritation. So, you would do well to minimize that angle to something between one and two spine widths, and you'll find the angle is a lot closer to 20 degrees. There's a limit, of course, because the blade just stops cutting at some point, so you want to keep the angle well past that point so you don't stop cutting as you move the razor around.

If you watch the experts, like Lynn, he takes the entire side of his face in one long stroke. Getting that entire strip cut evenly takes a lot of skill, especially when you're rounding the jaw during the stroke. If you want to be like Lynn, you'll have to work your way up to it. Find a comfortable angle on your cheek and take short strokes (say 1") so you can always feel the razor cutting evenly and smoothly, and make adjustments with each stroke to keep it that way. In time you'll get the feel for it and be able to lengthen the stroke and adjust the angle "on the fly" to keep the cut even.

After that, the most important thing on the neck is to keep the skin flat so the razor is making contact evenly over its entire cutting width (whatever width your using). If you don't do that, you'll have irritation spots that receive more pressure than others, and you'll probably nick anything that protrudes much above that surface.

And the neck is very sensitive. So, don't use any more pessure than is necessary.

Just to be clear about this, there are two different angles peopple can be writing about and we shold look fort clarity between them.

First, the spine at generally about 30º from your face is the Shaving Angle. A somewhat more acute angle is sometimes recommended for some areas (like the neck) from time to time.

Secondly, the up to 30º angle at which the tip leads the heel is the Cutting Angle. I'm more comfortable with a less aggressive 10º or so and like the results.

X

Thanks for the clarifying language. I've actually referred to each in different messages in this thread. First the cutting angle and later the shaving angle.