Thread: I'm keeping the beard!

Welcome. I too have a goatee, and I also keep some pretty good mutton chops. When I was first learning, I sacrificed the chops-- now when I look back on it, it was probably uneccessary, because I ended up doing two full passes on my first try anyway. So, go for it. Just be prepared, because once you get the hang of straight shaving, you'll love it so much that you'll contemplate losing that beard almost every day (I know I do). But if you keep it, you'll have the most well-trimmed beard of anyone you know. And don't hesitate to ask any questions, the guys on here are the best.

I have a beard also. I started straight shaving a couple of weeks ago and found that my neck wasn't really that bad of a place to start. The grain changes right where my beard ends so it actually clears up a lot of the confusion over the parts of my face I would have to change direction. Part of the reason I have a beard is that I hate shaving. The close shave from the straight ensures that I don't have to touch up my neck near as often.

Good luck

Originally Posted by bmcwil

I have a beard also. I started straight shaving a couple of weeks ago and found that my neck wasn't really that bad of a place to start. The grain changes right where my beard ends so it actually clears up a lot of the confusion over the parts of my face I would have to change direction. Part of the reason I have a beard is that I hate shaving. The close shave from the straight ensures that I don't have to touch up my neck near as often.

Good luck

+1. The neck is a great place to start just with down strokes. Then stretch the skin as you need to. For me it's side ways. When you get comfortable you can go up the side of the neck until you feel OK with it and start increasing the area to the rest of the neck.

Have fun,

Lynn

I had a beard for years, until I got into str8s. This summer I shaved off the whole shebang on the last day of school (I'm a teacher). But because part of my image of myself is that of a guy with at least some facial hair, I am growing back a goatee. It sort of gives me the best of both worlds, and lets me fudge on shaving the two biggest problem areas, the moustache and chin.

I posted another thread about how unbelievably close and smooth my str8 shaves are now after a summer to learn. I never would have believed I could get shaves this smooth! I just finished up a wicked good shave, my best yet, after giving my son's Dovo 5/8" the CrOx and newspaper treatment.

In doing so I discovered another new favorite cream in our seemingly bottomless basket of samples: TABAC! The scent grows on me, and the performance is hard to beat!

Do ALL PhD biologists have to have the Charles Darwin beards? Seems like most do.

I had a nice full beard until I bought a straight razor and now it's hard to keep it. I miss the look of a beard but I really like to shave now. I've tried all kinds of beard styles. The aforementioned hollywoodian is probably the best between having a beard and straight razor shaving. I lost mine because I kept taking the sides to low and then I had a goatee that was real nice, thick and long (I know, "that's what she said"). Then what happened to the sides of my hollywoodian started happening to my goatee. Now it's gone and I'm starting over with just shaving the neck.

Originally Posted by pcdad

I have tried to grow a beard few years ago..im 31 now...I have a heavy coarse n sensitive skin...I recalled me wanting to scratch my face off with my fingers..;-)..I feel im not genetically designed for a beard even if I trim it few times a week..a goat tee also drove me mostly nuts too...hmm

pcdad

I also have soft, easily irritated skin (mine's partly due to mild rosacea) and a wiry beard as you do, so I'm familiar with the discomfort. I've worn a full but "groomed" beard since I was 18 (40 years next week), and honestly - it's a bit more work to keep right than a full shave or just a moustache but I prefer it. I have shaved a few times during those years and kept smooth-faced for a couple of months - and when it first starts growing back I at first feel grubby, then itchy, then grubby again. A good shampoo/conditioner on the fledgling beard helps at this stage. Then I appear, to myself, at least, like I just crawled out of a dumpster until the thinner places catch up and I can shape it properly, and at that point it feels natural again. I'd add that unless I shave my neck every day (all the way around, I don't leave the back for the barber) I still feel grubby, but a neck and upper cheek shave with nice, crisp edges and careful shaping and scissoring of stray hairs makes me a lot better groomed than a beardless guy with a 5 o'clock shadow. I may be just a little bit vain about it though. Nawww.

As far as edging is concerned, the spike point and super-sharp edge advice is spot on. If you're like Gallagher the comic and I, one hand works great and the other ain't fer shit, so you may find that you tend to blind yourself when shaving the offhand cheek if you're the least bit farsighted, especially with wider razors. When I started with a straight I had inherited a nice little 4/8 from my grand-uncle, and I liked the narrow blade - in fact, I need to find another soon as the skinny blade works better for me than the 11/16 I have now. I also prefer the 4/8 for that tight curve where neck meets jowl, as that's where I mark my lower boundary of beard. I can do it with a wider blade but I'd rather not shave against-the-grain (south to north) in an inside curve. I do it anyway, but not when I have hiccups.

You may as well get ready to have to "start over" occasionally, or at least to feel grubby until your beardline fills itself in again. You will gradually encroach if you insist on that crisp, neat line. Some guys start over by shaving completely (I can almost hear my wife yelling now, "NOT THE MOUSTACHE!"), others just put up with looking like they're out of blades until things catch up. I prefer the look of the former as it quickly conveys intent to grow a new beard to observers, but I usually choose the latter, as I don't like going through the dirty - itchy - grubby stages again.

One final point - on my cheeks I like a fairly thin lather and I wipe off the excess so I can easily see the beardline. As soon as the lather starts I use it for that purpose, then finish whipping it into a full lather for the neck. It means that I use a little bit more water (or, less soap) than is ideal at first, but it's easy to pause and crank it up into something more cushioning for the rest of the shave.

I hope one of the Straight Razor Mavens who live here will chime in with an improvement in technique to solve that "self-blinding" problem that doesn't involve using the off-side hand.

Originally Posted by ScoutHikerDad

Do ALL PhD biologists have to have the Charles Darwin beards? Seems like most do.

Well if we do then I'm out of luck. My mustache and beard don't connect and I have very soft hair in all regards so my beard will never be really bristly and huge...good thing? I think so.

growing a beard is the reason I got started useing a straight razor. one winter about ten years ago I decided I really didn't like a sub-zero wind hitting my face first thing in the morning, so I started a beard to try to get a little insulation. when summer came around again I decided the beard wasn't as good an idea as it was in the winter so it had to go. after getting a quarter inch shaved with an injector that got cloged 5 times in the process I decided to ask an uncle if he still had any straights from back when he was a barber. I knew it would be pretty dang hard to clog one of those! since he only lived about a block away he brought one over for me (along with some good advice on how to use it), and I've been hooked ever since. my yearly routine from that year forward is when it stays below 40 the beard starts growing and when it gets back up to 50 the beard goes bye bye.

Originally Posted by nickedNsliced

one winter about ten years ago I decided I really didn't like a sub-zero wind hitting my face first thing in the morning, so I started a beard to try to get a little insulation. when summer came around again I decided the beard wasn't as good an idea as it was in the winter so it had to go. my yearly routine from that year forward is when it stays below 40 the beard starts growing and when it gets back up to 50 the beard goes bye bye.

You wouldn't happen to be Canadian by any chance?

Until I was a SR shaver I had a beard/facial hair of some sort ever since I could grow it. After high school I found successive jobs which involved working outside during Canadian winters, and I can tell every one here that a beard does help. Freshly shaved skin does not feel great when it's -30!

The last couple winters were, IIRC, the first that I didn't grow my winter beard. I just sucked it up, I guess.

Ah, the things we do for straight razor shaving.....

Originally Posted by leadduck

I agree. I've been trying to shave just my neck for two years now. Everty day, I think, "Maybe today I'll shave it off." So far I haven't but, damn it's tempting.

FWIW --

I recently switched from beard to goatee. That happened before I started experimenting with straight razors.

I've found that I _like_ having "skin cheeks" again, after 40 years keeping them covered in hair. And people haven't noticed (much) that my style has changed, since my frontal view still has lots of hair.

I have enough shaving challenges with a goatee; keeping a beard, and using a straight razor, would be beyond me. As it is, I use a Gillette cartridge razor for a lot of my face.

Charles